Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 13. Disassociation.

December 12, 2025

From the Casper Star Tribune.

The Democratic bill to extend the credits failed.

Senate blocks Obamacare tax subsidy extension, all but ensuring spikes for Wyoming consumers: Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming called tax subsidy extension a “disaster” and lobbied for a Republican health savings account proposal that also failed.

So did a moronic Republic bill for health savings accounts. That was no sort of plan.

The evidence is too well established to ignore.  A national health care system needs to be established and frankly it would not be that difficult.  It'll be interesting to see if this brings it about, as the populist contingent that opposes it, including here in the state, is about to lose its insurance.  This is, quite frankly, a disaster.

It's a disaster that the GOP hopes will kill off the AHCA and there really isn't any serious proposals to replace it. They want it dead, as it's "socialism", even though it isn't.  The Health Savings Account concept was just pablum and everyone is well aware that it'd achieve nothing at all.

Which brings me back to this point.  The difference between right wing populism and left wing populism is nearly non existent.  The ox that will end up being gored here is that of the street level right wing populist, who can be, and in some instances was, left wing populist.  

Speaking of average folks:

Also from the CST.

December 13, 2025

December 14, 2025

The Federal government terminated the collective bargaining status for the union that covers TSA officers, the American Federation of Government Employees, as to TAS officers.

The union, which covers the employees of other agencies as well, has over 300,000 members, probably none of whom will caste a vote for the GOP next year.

We also have Chuck Gray sounding like a broken record:

Chuck Gray: I Will Continue To Fight Woke Wind Energy Projects

Gray's in a bit of a spot as he'd hoped to use the Secretary of State's office as a springboard to something else.  It's not looking like that will pay off, as Bill Barlow is clearly in the lead for the Governor's office and Gray can't think of anything to say that doesn't sound like it's from the junior edition of the MAGA playlist, which is rapidly becoming a set of moly oldies.  To make matters worse for him, he's now so acclimated to absurd name calling that he can't stop it, as in:

We should be deeply troubled by the efforts of Gov. Gordon and other insider politicians to jam through woke wind projects that violate so many of our core principles as Wyomingites. 

"Woke wind projects"?  

I know what he means, of course, which is that as the Federal Government backed wind under Biden, and as global warming is a fib, and as Joe Biden is responsible for all of the ills in society, it's the dreaded evil "woke".  Gray has used this sort of rhetoric so often, however, that if a cafe burns his toast I'm sure that he reflexively calls the short order cook a liberal, let wing woke Marxist.

Gray's career in Wyoming politics is probably shot.  Barlow will get the Governor's office, Hageman won't run for it as she knows that, so she'll keep her office, Lummis is the Wyoming sphinx, rarely saying anything, and she'll keep her office.  Gray will be lucky if he doesn't draw opposition and lose his.

On wind, all the fossil fuel true believers were dead set against it but now oil is hovering around $60.00 and it appears that the Federal Government might be pushing to depress the price.  A well placed GOP politician told me the other day that the administration wants it at $30.00/bbl next year, which would wipe out domestic production and throw Wyoming into an oilfield depression.

On a different note:  

Cattle Ranchers Revive Nebraska Town With Bold Producer-Owned Beef Plant

December 16, 2025

US payrolls fell by 105,000 people in October, and then rebounded to add 64,000 in November.

Sort of a mixed message there, assuming that such figures coming out of the US government are trustworthy.

Cont:

Well, apparently those who are schooled in this kind of data view this as a pretty negative jobs report.  The economy is cooling, and the unemployment rate is up.

December 17, 2025

Feds, Wyoming greenlight new helium plant, among world’s largest: The Dry Piney helium production and CO2 sequestration project would rival ExxonMobil's neighboring Shute Creek plant near LaBarge.

Wyoming Aims To Turn EV Charging Into A New Post-Pump Marketplace

December 21, 2025

‘A Gut Punch’: Nebraska Town Shell-Shocked By Tyson Closing Huge Beef Plant

 

‘A Gut Punch’: Nebraska Town Shell-Shocked By Tyson Closing Huge Beef Plant

December 22, 2025.

Jim Beam is ceasing production from its principal facility for all of 2026.

The price of oil in Wyoming today:  $43.73.  Below the price for further exploration. . . by a huge margin.

December 23, 2025

Rogue Brewing in Oregon has shut down and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

December 24, 2025

Headline in the CST:

Gordon awards $100 million

in matching funds to

BWXT nuclear fuel facility

And the story:

Gordon awards $100M to northern Wyoming nuclear fuel manufacturer: The state-backed grant will support BWXT's proposed TRISO fuel manufacturing facility in Gillette.

December 25, 2025

Wyoming Oil And Gas Operators Cheer Delay Of Biden-Era 1,400% Bond Rate Hike

The price of oil today is $58.0/bbl.  Wyoming's oil is at $43.90.

December 28, 2025

The news that so many simply refuse to believe:

2025 is projected to be Wyoming’s second worst coal production year

As part of this:

Wyoming coal is projected to have its second worst production year since its peak in 2008. Economists say the decline will likely continue, putting the state’s economic future on shaky ground.

We've discussed this trend line before, but to put it bluntly, it's going to decline into oblivion.

December 30, 2025

Lack of snow and economic uncertainty foretell a grim outlook for winter resorts

Related threads:

Seemingly missed in the story of prices at the pump being down is that the rig count is down too. And the coming economic storm in Wyoming.

Labels: Coal, deflation, Economics, Ignorance, OPEC, Petroleum, Russo Ukrainian War, Taxes, trends, Venezuela, Wyoming Freedom Caucus

Last edition:

Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 12. Don't look . . . everything's just fine edition.

Labels: Agriculture, Economics, Food, Health, Predictions, technology, Technology is ruining everything, Wyoming (Gillette), Wyoming Business Council, Wyoming's boom and bust economy

Sunday, December 27, 1925. Between time.

Basil III (الأنبا باسيليوس, Ⲁⲃⲃⲁ Ⲃⲁⲥⲓⲗⲓⲟⲥ) bebame the 17th Metropolitan of the Holy and Great City of Our Lord, Jerusalem (Holy Zion), and Archbishop of the Holy and Ancient Archdiocese of Jerusalem, all Palestine and the Near East.

A mine explosion killed 52 coal miners in Palaú, in the Mexican state of Coahuila.

The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky, December 27, 1925

Last edition:

Saturday, December 26, 1925.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art, Boxing Day, Communism, Crime, football, Imperialism, India, Italy, J. C. Leyendecker, Somalia, Somaliland

Seemingly missed in the story of prices at the pump being down is that the rig count is down too. And the coming economic storm in Wyoming.

Down 6.32% compared to this time last year, which means that less petroleum exploration is going on.

Presidents seem to always want to take the credit for the price of petroleum going down.  They also eschew taking the blame, and correctly at that, when the price goes up.  But because Americans are economic ignoramuses, this story repeats again and again.

Wyomingites tend to follow the price of petroleum as it directly correlates to jobs in the state.  The price must be over $58.00/bbl for Wyoming petroleum oil to break even, and really has to be over $62.00/bbl for it to be profitable.

Today it's at $55.95 for WTI and $59.72 for Brent.

Oh oh.

That doesn't seem to have made the news, but it has started to impact the field.

Part of the reason that it is going down is that investors are worried about the Trump buffoonery in Ukraine, where he's siding with the Russians, and because the US has taken up seizing Venezuelan ships carrying oil.  The latter might actually be justified for reasons having nothing to do with the murdering of drug boat crews, and it's interesting to note that the ship that was seized was seized by the Coast Guard, not the Navy which is relying on the Nuremberg defense for its actions in spite of the Government war manual actually referencing the murder of distressed crews as against the laws of war.  On the latter, Americans have become so psychologically fragile since the Vietnam War that we can be assured former sailors will be reporting that they have PTSD due to their role as hitmen in a few years, but that's another topic.  So, basically, Trump can take some credit for lower prices, but it's basically due to international investors figuring he's a rogue bufador, which he is.

Trump getting out his big box of GI Joes isn't the only reason, however.  Lots of refineries completed turnarounds, which are scheduled years in advance, and OPEC has an oil glut, things that would be causing Democrats to claim that Harris had lowered the price of oil, had things worked out differently.

So here's the thing.  How long will this slide go, and how low will it go?

Rumors, and that's what they are, are circulating that there's hopes that oil will go down to $30/bbl.  I  don't see how that can happen, absent an economic depression, and if that did occur, that's exactly what would occur in Wyoming.

For that matter, if oil stays this low, that's what's going to happen here.  

I wonder if all the MAGA loyalist here will be cheering in that event?

If oil stays down around $55/bbl for about three months, the oil economy in Wyoming will be very badly damaged.  Natural gas will prop some of it up, of course, and we really are more a natural gas explorating state now rather than a crude oil one. Still, crude is the rig count driver.

And if that happens, all the alternative energy projects which existed under the Biden Administration are drying up, the attack on them lead by the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and people like Chuck Gray.  Coal prices are up, but not so much that anyone ought to be deluded enough to thinking that there's going to be a second era of King Coal.   Meanwhile, the Freedom Caucus is gutting the state's ability to fund anything.

And that is probably where we should close.  The Freedom Caucus basically would like the entire US to be a variant of 1930s Appalachia.  If this trend continues, we may get to be.

More Wyoming football, less propaganda

More Wyoming football, less propaganda: When the University of Wyoming played a video at a recent football game of Trump celebrating coal, it politicized an event that should be about unity, writes alumna Jessica Nyffler.

Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 10. The killing the messenger edition.

August 2, 2025.

Eight months into the year, and our 10th edition for 2025.

Uff.

Mad King Donald fired Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as he was upset by the Bureau's negative job report, which he stated was rigged.

It was rigged, of course, because facts in Trumpland are rigged if they aren't universally pro Trump.

This is likely to get a lot worse as the fact is that a lot of things Trump has set in motion are going to start having pretty negative consequences.  Likewise, some firmly held GOP beliefs on economics and science aren't going to hold up to reality.

Speaking of reality and the news, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is closing its doors due to the budget rescission.  The CPB, NPR and PBS are separate entities, but this is not a good development.

Republicans, who don't actually seem to realize the three entities are separate from each other, are rejoicing that public funding is ending for "left wing" media, by which they largely mean media that reports reality and the truth, as opposed to propaganda.

August 3, 2025

Three Kentucky distilleries, all small ones, have filed for bankruptcy within the past eight months, with the lastest coming last week.

While I haven't seen any analysis on it, distilleries were particularly worried about the Trump tariffs and, surprise surprise, booze can be made anywhere.  Canadians have pretty much sworn off of US alcohol and were actually a major market.  They make their own anyway.  Seems like Europeans might be doing so also.

And part of this is probably the impact of an artisanal whiskey boom of the last decade fading.

August 5, 2025

Proposal to address ‘nation’s worst workforce exodus’ fails to get support from Wyoming lawmakers: The Wyoming Business Council says it has more policy ideas forthcoming to address "vicious" shrinking workforce conundrum.

August 10, 2025

Some really interesting things are going on that are definitely Wyoming centric that we haven't noted, or haven't noted much, and should.

The first might be that a proposal to put in a nuclear generator construction facility in Natrona County north of the town of Bar Nunn has really turned out to be controversial.  This comes on the heels of a nuclear power plant in Kemmerer that is also controversial.

The ins and outs of the controversy are a little difficult to really discern, but at some level, quite a few people just don't like the idea of something nuclear.  It's not coal, and its not oil.  Chuck Gray, for example, has come out against this and wind energy.  Chuck hasn't worked a day in his life in a blue collar job and he's just tapping into the "no sir, we don't like it" sort of thought here.

What's going to happen?  We'll have to see.

Another local controversy is the approval of a 30 lot subdivision on Casper Mountain.  This has drawn the ire of a lot people who live on Casper Mountain, and most of it is posed in conservation or even environmental terms.

The irony there, of course, is that people who have already built a house on the mountain are somewhat compromised in these arguments.  I get it, however, as I really don't think we need more rural subdivisions in the county, at all.

On the mountain, I'd note that one of the really aggravating things that has happened recently is that last year a joint Federal/State project paved the dirt road on the backside of the mountain to the top of Muddy Mountain.  It didn't need to be done and it just encourages land rapist to built houses on the backside of Casper Mountain.

Natrona County Bans Big Trucks On 26 Roads Amid Gravel Mine Controversy

I understand the opposition here, but in context, things seem to lack consistency.

Which gets back to this, I suppose.  If a person just doesn't want development, they can say that.

What you can't do, however, is pretend that some major pillars of the state's economy are going to be here forever.  The extractive industries are basically on their way out right now.

One of the amusing things about all of this is that the MAGA hat wearers locally who are opposed to nuclear energy are facing it in part due to the current administration.

Uranium Operation Is Wyoming’s First Fast-Tracked By Trump’s New Energy Rules

August 13, 2025

Longtime Wyoming newspaper executives to buy, reopen eight shuttered newspapers: Overjoyed newsroom staff in communities across Wyoming are back on the job with pay after corporate closure laid off 30 employees.

 Trump greenlights 14.5 million-ton coal expansion in Wyoming: The newly accessible tract represents a little more than half of the Antelope mine's annual production but signals more coal mining actions to come.

Wyoming Board OKs 50% Battery Storage Increase For Laramie County Solar Project

Casper’s west-side City Brew Coffee location has reportedly permanently closed

August 15, 2025

Headline in the CST:

US producer prices surge

And the tariff chickens come home to roost.

One Of Wyoming's First Combo Agriculture-Solar Farm Can’t Find A Buyer For Its Power

Trouble north of the border, where unions remain much stronger than they do here:

Air Canada cancels flights (August 15) due to labor trouble.

Air Canada is facing a flight attendants strike and is basically starting to shut down.

Cynthia Lummis on a comment from the Treasury Secretary saying the US needs to explore ways to buy more Bitcoin:

America needs the BITCOIN Act.

No, it doesn't.  Focus on Wyoming issues and pay attention to them Senator.

August 17, 2025

Social Security Benefits Are an Estimated 8 Years Away From Being Slashed -- and the Cuts Are Even Bigger Than Initially Forecast

August 19, 2025

Federal mineral taxes are being reduced from16.67% to 12.5%.

They had been raised during the Biden Administration.

August 20, 2025

In Blockbuster $15.4 Billion Deal, Black Hills Energy To Merge With NorthWestern

August 23, 2025

Employees at Laramie's Mountain Cement voted to unionize.  They will be joining the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers.

August 30, 2025

Well, there's absolutely no surprise.  Trump's illegal tariffs were affirmed to be illegal.

D'uh.

The Court's decision starts:

The Government appeals a decision of the Court of International Trade setting aside five Executive Orders that imposed tariffs of unlimited duration on nearly all goods from nearly every country in the world, holding that the tariffs were not authorized by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), 50 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq. Because we agree that IEEPA’s grant of presidential authority to “regulate” imports does not authorize the tariffs imposed by the Executive Orders, we affirm.

Even here, however, the Court granted a stay of thirty days on the implementation of its order, which a private litigant would be unlikely to have received, and the government shouldn't have received here.  The order should have gone into effect immediately absent the government posting a bond to cover the damages, which would be all the tariffs collected while the matter was on appeal, and all that it has already collected, which should need to be fully refunded.

But a refund won't happen and the implementation of the ruling is delayed by 30 days, so the government can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which doesn't actually have to take the appeal.

Whether the S.Ct upholds it, or proves to be a pure political arm of the government, is another matter.

There were three dissents in the en banc decision.

September 7, 2025

Postal traffic into the United States dropped by more than 80% after the Trump administration ended a tariff exemption for low-cost imports.

September 9, 2025

Wyoming’s massive new federal coal tract not likely to draw high bids: State and coal industry officials want a new 440 million ton coal tract offered for sale, but opponents warn lease won't benefit public coffers like years past.

Like Star Athletes, WyoTech Grads Recruited For Jobs All Over The Country 

Wyoming Wool Initiative seeks lamb donations for student program

September 13, 2025

Headline from the Trib:

Local board pulls $25M grant application to develop Radiant Nuclear site 

And

Feds fast-track coal mining expansion in southwest Wyoming

And

Court sides with Wyoming utility, rules state should have allowed higher rate increase

Related threads:

The Union Pacific is laying off carmen in Green River and may be closing the shop there.

September 24, 2025

Apparently US immigration raids have caused Michelob Ultra, which is gross, to become the most popular beer in the U.S., displacing Corona, which is gross, for the last 12 months.

September 25, 2025

From the Trib:

Wyoming unemployment falls to 3.2% in August 2025

And the Cowboy State Daily:

Gordon, Local Officials Expect Critical Budget Shortages After Property Tax Cuts

The General Services Administration is attempting to rehire hundreds of employees laid off by Elon Musk's moronic Dipshit DOGE.

September 26, 2025

More tariffs.  100% tariff pharmaceuticals, 30% tariff on upholstered furniture, 50% tariff on kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities, and a 30% tariff on heavy trucks. 

September 30, 2025

The Trump administration plans to open more than 13 million acres of federal land for leasing for coal and provide $625 million in funds to expand power generation from coal, the latter a blatantly socialist move, but apparently Republicans are okay with Socialism now.

In Wyoming, The West Antelope III coal lease will go to competitive auction on Oct. 8.

These will prove to be carbon laden farts in a windstorm as coal will continue to decline, but the action will be damaging to long term power generation and the climate.

Cattle prices are reported to be at a record high.

October 1, 2025

Powell Valley Healthcare is shutting down its oncology services and its internal medicine clinic in Cody  as a way to remain economically sustainable.

Casper air travel should continue during federal shutdown, but ripple effects loom

 

Casper air travel should continue during federal shutdown, but ripple effects loom

October 3, 2025

Chuck Gray, Curt Meier Spar Over Renewing 50-Year Wind Leases In Carbon County

October 6, 2025

(LETTER) Bob Ide personally benefits from his property tax cuts

October 9, 2025

Hard liquor exports to Canada are down 85% this year.

October 11, 2025

The master negotiator got the big middle finger salute from China over his trade policies and now Trump is threatening 100% tariffs on the country.

Markets are reacting badly.

October 13, 2025

China indicated it wasn't backing down on the tariff matter.

Last edition:

Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 9. Waist Deep in the Big Muddy. It's Donald Trump's economy now.

Labels: Coal, Distributism, Economics, Errare humanum est perseverare diabolicum, Hypocrisy, Japan, Localism, Pronatalism, Subsidiarity, Taxes, The Big Ugly, The Second Trump Administration, Wyoming's boom and bust economy European Union, inflation, Taxes, The Second Trump Administration, Wyoming's boom and bust economy

NIMBY? State Board of Land Commissioners denies Prism Logistics lease renewal on Casper Mountain and other ponderings.

This is an interesting story.

State Board of Land Commissioners denies Prism Logistics lease renewal on Casper Mountain

I'm glad this isn't going forward.  It shouldn't, because of where it's located.

But because of where its located is where it drew attention.

In Natrona County, over the past year, residents have risen up in opposition to this gravel mine, a proposed solar farm in the western end of the county, and a proposed nuclear generator manufacturing facility north of Casper.  In Gillette there's some sort of controversy going on over some sort of nuclear facility.  And there's a big debate on a wind farm in Laramie County.

It's hard to know what to make of all of this.

What is clear is that local politicians respond to the controversies.  I'm sure if you asked any one of the Natrona  County Commissioners if they supported energy, they would say yes.  And they'd all say they support mining.  But when the votes come, they're voting like they're members of Greenpeace. 

And one local legislature says that his nickname is now "No nuke" for his opposition to the nuclear generator facility.

Nuclear energy is the safest and most efficient form of power generation we have, and until the mysteries of fission are unlocked, if ever, it'll continue to be.  In a rational world we'd have a five year plan to replace every coal burning plant in the country with nuclear power.

Indeed, going one step further, we'd mandate the retirement of petroleum fueled everything in that time frame, or perhaps ten years.

The reason we don't is because, for the most part, even though we're the smartest animal on the planet, we're not anywhere near as smart as we like to think we are.  If we were, we'd make decisions based on logic.  Most people don't.  Most people make decisions based on emotion.

It's easy to understand why a person would emotionally resent a gravel pit in their backyard, more or less, or solar panels taking up acres of land.  The same with windmills.  Nuclear? Well, the opposition to nuclear is due to our having used the bomb to murder thousands of Japanese civilians.  It's stuck with us and we fear it, as that was our first use of it.  People will tell you they are worried about contamination and the like. Bah.  It's Hiroshima and Nagasaki they're worried about, even though that can't happen.

I'm old enough to remember when we had open pit uranium mining in Wyoming.  In the early 1980s I knew a few guys who worked out at the Shirley Basin mine site, including one who lived in the little, now abandoned, town of Shirley Basin.  I also knew some who lived and worked in Jeffrey City, where they worked in uranium mines.  When they closed down, the state was distraught.

Now it seems nobody remembers that, and the thought of anything nuclear drives people into fits of despair.

I think a lot of it is fear of change.

That in fact explains a lot about populism  And it explains why the current heavily right wing populist in Natrona County are adamantly against something that the populists in Washington D.C. reading Uglier Home and Paved Garden are for.

Change, we're told, is inevitable.  If it is, it's because we will it so, much of it through our absolute laziness.  We want our lives to be easier and more convenient just for us, but at the same time we want things to stay the way they are.

Which for a person like me, whose an introverted, introspective, agrarian, is particularly amusing in some ways.

I really hate change, myself, and I also want things to be the way they were.  But not five or ten years ago, like so many of the people who protest on these matters.  Indeed, many are quite new imports.

Victor Colorado, 1900.  One of these houses was my great grandparents'.

I'd like them to be like they were in 1879 when my family first arrived in this region. . . or even earlier if possible.  I'd settle for 1963, when I personally arrived.

I won't get those wishes.

I will note, however, a nuclear powered America might look more like American in 1879 than the one of 2025 does.  As I look out at all the protests I'm struck by how many people in Wyoming are absolutely wedded to the oil and gas industry.  It wasn't always so.

Back in the 1960s (I have a long memory) a lot of locals remained pretty skeptical about the oil and gas industry, in part because the state had recently been shafted for its reliance upon petroleum.  People loved it again in the 1970s but when that boom collapsed people swore to never be reliant upon it again.

We apparently got over that.

Now we fear what we know to be true.  Petroleum and coal won't last forever.  The dirty little secret of the petroleum industry in Wyoming anymore is that drilling is really for gas far more than petroleum oil.  Petroleum is on the way out, like it or not, and the United States is an expensive oil and gas province to drill in.  Absent actually prohibiting its import, which I wouldn't put past Donald Trump, Saudi petroleum will always be cheaper.  For that matter, Russian petroleum will always be as well and thinking you can really prohibit India China from importing it is absolute folly.  Coal, which we've dealt with extensively, in a slow but accelerating death spiral.

The sort of imaginary world so many in MAGA wish to return to.  Big powerful cars, driven by guys of course, but at the same time don't want to return to, as living without as much as these people did, compared to us, would be uncomfortable.

Donald Trump may say "drill baby drill", and put thousands of acres up for coal leasing, but Trump in many ways is the last dying gasp of of the 1950s.

And the 50s of our imaginations never existed.  But we fear that it didn't, as we fear the thought that our oil stained hands will reach the point where we'll have to grab a bar of Lava soap and scrub it off, forever.  The jobs will go away.

Funny thing is, from time to time, there's been serious proposals to put in something related to local agriculture, which was here in the beginning of our statehood, and still is.  Wyoming hadn't really supported a big ag project since the 1930s, and indeed local municipalities oppose things related to agriculture.  It's short sighted.

But then, perhaps I'm romantic about for various reasons that recent migrants to the state don't share.