And today news is published in the Tribune to the effect that in spite of a recovery, to an extent, in coal, and in spite of a new regulatory environment, coal will not only never become what it once was it is, yes, on a continued downwards slide in the near term.
More specifically, the Tribune reports:
Production in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin could fall to about 260 million tons by 2023, according to the Annual Energy Outlook.
Of the three coal regions in the country, the West and Appalachia are
both poised to lose. Midwestern coal production may increase slightly.
This down from a pre crash output of 400 million tons.
Why?
. . . declining demand for coal to burn in
power plants has rapidly eroded coal’s dominance in the electricity
market. In the last three years, coal went from producing about 40
percent of the country’s electricity, to 30 percent. Wyoming in particular has lost nearly 1,000 miners since 2015, though a fraction has returned.
* * *
Low natural gas prices
are the key factor in the challenge to coal, said Linda Capuano,
administrator of the Energy Information Administration, in a live
release of this year’s outlook data.
As
gas outcompetes coal in the electricity sector, the most expensive coal
plants to run will continue to be shut down, she said.
Wyoming
has already lost customers to this trend. Two coal-fired power plants
slated to close in Texas bought the majority of their coal from Peabody
Energy’s Rawhide mine north of Gillette.
Yup. Just what I reported here a year ago.
Not that this should be news. As I also reported, this trend is a century old now. It's just entering a final and accelerated phase. A phase which Wyomingites need to take note of, given the role coal has played in our budget for years.
Indeed, on that budget, we learned just yesterday that one of the legislators, contemplating the end of the a Federal severance tax that funds the Abandoned Mines fund, wishes to replace that tax with a state one. That would have no impact on the overall tax rate on coal, it would remain the same, and therefore it's not a bad idea. But at the same time this report demonstrates why funding models based on coal have to be temporary in nature, or that they certainly can't occupy the place they once did.
Wyomingites in recent weeks had been increasingly reading, in their local papers, about food shortages and unrest in Germany and Austria. It was beginning to seriously look like the war was devolving into a race. Would the Central Powers be able to move enough troops off the Eastern Front prior to starving to launch a crushing spring offensive, or would starvation and revolution overtake them at home as American troops began to pour into France.
Today, however, the news was a bit different, and not at all settling, not that it had been otherwise. German naval power, in the form of submarines, was more than adequate enough to continue to be a danger in the Irish Sea. The loss of the American transport Tuscania came as unwelcome news on this day. The loss of life wouldn't include Wyomingites, but it would include a lot of National Gaurdsmen as the ship was carrying Federalized Wisconsin and Michigan Guardsmen, as well as soldiers of the Regular Army.
Also on this day, at least in Laramie, Wyomingites were learning that things might be getting out of hand once again in Mexico. Carranza's grip on power, it seemed, might not be as strong as had been supposed in recent months. . .
2018 Leslie Blythe, well know figure and spokesperson for Rocky Mountain Power fell victim to the terrible flu epidemic afflicting the nation.
I don't usually worry much about the annual influenza outbreaks, but this year's is truly scary. I heard in the same meeting that there's been four deaths in the county, which would not be the norm at all, and lots of people have been hit.
So far, it's anything like the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, but it's scary enough, and its hard not to recall that horrible event of a century ago. And there's a lot of flu season left to go.
On this day in 1918 the Representation of the People Act of 1918 passed into law.
Representation of the People Act, 1918
AN ACT TO
Amend the Law with respect to Parliamentary and Local Government Franchises, and the Registration of Parliamentary and Local Government Electors, and the conduct of elections, and to provide for the Redistribution of Seats at Parliamentary Elections, and for other purposes connected therewith.
(1) A woman shall be entitled to be registered as a parliamentary elector for a constituency (other than a university constituency) if she –
(a) has attained the age of thirty years; and (b) is not subject to any legal incapacity; and (c) is entitled to be registered as a local government elector in respect of the occupation in that constituency of land or premises (not being a dwelling-house) of a yearly value of not less than five pounds or of a dwelling-house, or is the wife of a husband entitled to be so registered. 2) A woman shall be entitled to be registered as a parliamentary elector for a university constituency if she has attained the age of thirty years and either would be entitled to be so registered if she were a man, or has been admitted to and passed the final examination, and kept under the conditions required of women by the university the period of residence, necessary for a man to obtain a degree at any university forming, or forming part of, a university constituency which did not at the time the examination was passed admit women to degrees. 3) A woman shall be entitled to be registered as a local government elector for any local
government electoral area-
(a) where she would be entitled to be so registered if she were a man; and (b) where she is the wife of a man who is entitled to be so registered in respect of premises in which they both reside, and she has attained the age of thirty years and is not subject to any legal incapacity. or the purpose of this provision, a naval or military voter who is registered in respect of a residence qualification which he would have had but for his service, shall be deemed to be resident in accordance with the qualification.
And so all British men upon reaching age 21, and soldiers who had obtained age 19, were fully extended the franchise (that part of the text is omitted). That was an expansion of the franchise in and of itself. And British women, upon reaching age 30 obtained the franchise if they were married, married to a member of the Local Government Register, a property owner, or a graduate voting in a University constituency.
No doubt to modern readers this seems more than a bit odd, but it wasn't until World War One that all British men were extended the vote. The UK had a parliament, of course, and had for centuries, but it had never been the case that 100% of men had the vote. With this act, they did, upon reaching age 21. They even did if they were 19 and in the service.
The voting age in the UK now is 18 for legally binding votes, although in the recent Scottish referendum the vote was dropped down to 16 years of age, a pretty amazing fact if you have 16 year olds in your household.
Most of the "we recall" type posts about this today will be about women obtaining the vote and the more informed commentary will note that this was restricted. Still, while restrictions were in place, they door had been opened, and this was a massive change in what had been the case before.
While this day would have come, the connection of the event to World War One is fairly obvious. The nation's manhood was at war and down to the desperate levels in terms of replacements by this point in the war. . .extending the vote to all of them was only fair. And women were manning the home front and the factory floor, so the same was true of them.
The first US troops ship to be sunk during World War One, the SS Tuscania, went down due to German torpedos launched by the UB-77. 210 lives were lost.
We've posted a lot about Wyoming's Boom and Bust economy over the years, particularly the last few years as we've slid into a bust. Supposedly we're coming out of that right now, although a report that the state issued last week stated the opposite. Citing employment figures, the report felt we were still in a bust. Perhaps note noted in that, although I've discussed it here, a revived petroleum economy is not likely to be quite as labor intensive as prior booms as technology has developed to the point where exploration and drilling are not as labor intensive as they once were. This will not be true. . . yet, of the support infrastructure where more of the jobs actually are, but we note this as the oil industry as subject to the labor reducing aspects of technology just like everything else. This should give economic planners in Wyoming pause.
Anyhow, a study was commissioned by the Legislature on this topic, not that such legislative committees are that unusual. The committee had some heavyweight executive members at that. So what did the committee come up with? Here's its very first recommendation:
ENDOW Preliminary Findings and Recommendations:
Focus on Infrastructure
Improve and Expand Wyoming’s Commercial Air Service
Finding
Commercial air service is a significant limiting factor to expanding and diversifying Wyoming’s economy. Multiple pressures within the aviation industry have forced many states to compete for a limited number of opportunities to solve this problem. Wyoming must be aggressive in finding a solution that will support attracting and retaining reliable air service. Air service is critical to supporting businesses, residents, and entrepreneurs.
The Aeronautics Division of the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) has proposed a Commercial Air Service Plan (CASP) that will create a predictable, reliable and affordable option for air service in Wyoming.
Recommendation
The Executive Council supports WYDOT’s 10-year CASP to augment the existing Air Service Enhancement Program (ASEP) and recommends the Wyoming Legislature appropriate funds necessary to fully implement an approved CASP.
What's the WYDOT Commercial Air Service Plan? Well, its the Wyoming Department of Transportation plan to have subsidized intra state air travel here. It had some legislative support, but it seems marooned right now. None the less, according to Joan Barron of the Casper Star Tribune, something will be happening in the legislature, that being:
To that end, the Legislature this month will be asked to consider a bill
to set up an 11-member commission comprised of a mix of legislators,
executive branch and private sector representatives and the public at
large. The governor serves on the council but without a vote.
Not that there isn't some action. As her article also notes:
Since 2004, Wyoming’s Air
Service Enhancement Program has provided financial support to airports
in communities around the state with a 60 percent state and 40 percent
local match.
The current funding level, however, has dropped to $2.4 million per biennium.
“We can run it for another year,” [Converse County Senator] Von Flatern said.
This whole topic, we should note, is just full of interesting ironies. The lack of adequate air travel in the state has long been noted as a real deterrent to economic development in the State. Indeed, since World War Two Wyoming has actually suffered, long term, an infrastructure decline. Coming out of World War Two we had little regional air travel (we did have service however) but we had bad roads and good rail. Following the 1950s, however, we lost commercial rail and had the highways, which were being much improved post war, including the introduction of Interstate Highways, and we had expensive air to the neighboring state and somewhat intrastate. That continued on into the 1970s but by the 1980s we'd lost air connections except to Denver and Salt Lake, including the loss of much of the intrastate connections. Now we have poor air travel for the most part and are reliant on the highways.
Those highways receive a lot of Federal funding, making our "get the Federal government out" campaigns fairly absurd, unless we hear wish to return to an 1880s level of transportation around here. Without Federal money, our roads are going down the tubes and we know it. We have no passenger rail, and we are dependent upon subsides already for air travel as it is. If the Federal bucks were gone, the Interstates would become major state liabilities and quite frankly that would end any economic development here at all. Of course, we know that the Federal government isn't going to pull the finding for the Interstate highways, but we seem not to notice that subsidies for highways differs very little from subsidies for any other type of transportation. Indeed, a person can make a really good case for subsidies for rail and air travel being much more efficient in some ways.
Anyhow, its interesting that when this comes up, and it does repeatedly, air travel is always mentioned. And the only way to get this off the ground, so to speak, is to have the state do something. ENDOW has noted that and is expressly endorsing what WYDOT came up with. But the legislature, while stating some support for WYDOT's plan, didn't carry through with it, or at least hasn't yet.
And, as the same time, we have three GOP candidates all claiming that the Federal Government needs to get out of the state, and presumably take their money with them, which would flat out kill air travel in some towns where it's barely holding on.
Now, I'll be frank that not only do I have an opinion in this, I have a vested interested. In my occupation, I have to travel a lot, and that means traveling by car a lot. In the winter its risky, and it takes hours and hours to do it. It makes simply doing business in Wyoming expensive, and the legislature knows that. Heck, they have to drive to Cheyenne, they can't get there any other way.
The 308th Infantry, comprised of men conscripted from New York state, went on parade down Fifth Avenue on this day in 1918 prior to their departure that day for shipment to France.
These photographs taken on 5th Avenue show the unit parading past the New York City Public Library.
That day they'd board troop trains as part of the first step taking them from their just completed training at Camp Upton, New York , to France.
I went to work on Monday and found that I'd left my reading glasses somewhere else.
I have to use reading glasses now thanks to my deteriorated near vision. Indeed, I've worn bifocals for quite awhile but had to start using "computer glasses" for office work. That proved untenable as I was constantly switching between my bifocals and my computer glasses. Switching to contact lenses lets me get away with one less set of glasses.
I'm not hugely keen on the contact lenses, quite frankly. I probably should be, but I'm not. Anyhow, I apparently left the office the other day with reading glasses in a pocket as they weren't at work when I returned the next day.
I had to go out, therefore, and buy another set. With a full day ahead of me, that was actually easier than returning home to search for my missing reading glasses. . . which I still haven't found. I have a couple of sets here, but they aren't the ones I had at work. Oh well.
Where the Woolworth's once was. . . now a clothing store.
Anyhow, when I was young, even still into my teens, there was a Woolworth's downtown. Indeed, it was on the same block as my office building is on. On the corner there was a "cigar store" that did in fact sell cigars, but also sold newspapers and magazines (not all of the latter of which were decent. . and there were always rumors what else you could buy there) and an amazing assortment of odds and ends, particularly for a store that was no larger than than big closet. It remained in business up until its owner died in the 1990s, although it opened back up in the last decade, now solely a cigar store (with malts, which the original also had, and a small legit magazine stand) and remained open until the new owner died. A couple of blocks away there was a Safeway grocery store. And a couple blocks of way in another direction there was Brattis Grocery Store, a local company. Across the street from the Safeway was Bi Rite, a large pharmacy that was also a liquor store and a small grocery store. Indeed, Bi Rite sold so much its a little difficult to describe what it actually was.
The Rialto Theater. Just below the tall sign, which usually says "Rialto" but which is being refurbished, there was a cigar store.
None of these remain.
Where the Woolworth's was is now a nice clothing store. The cigar store is closed awaiting an anticipated reopening in some other form. Brattis' closed as a grocery store upon the death of the last of the two brothers who owned it and the surviving entity reopened as a butcher shop (its meat counter was always legendary). Bi Rite closed about a decade ago and its now a series of shops and a bakery.
So what, you say?
Well, what this means is that in order to get a pair of cheap reading glasses I had to drive a few miles to go to Walgreens, which while it may be on the corner of Healthy and Happy, that corner apparently doesn't occur downtown in my town.
Of course, this is just a local example, but for towns and small cities, I think this is pretty common. If we were speaking of a bigger city, the situation would be different.
Our downtown remained fairly viable until "the mall" came in during the late 1970s. That hurt the downtown severely. The mall is now hurting itself, and downtown has undergone a revival, but the corner markets just didn't come back. Lots of other things did, but they didn't. There's probably a demographic reason for this, but it's sure inconvenient.
There's probably some sort of lesson in here about the illusion of "progress". When the mall came in, during the big boom of the 1970s, it was "progress". It's still there, but it certainly isn't what it once was. Downtown, which really took it on the chin as a result of that, became really grim when the crash came. During that same episode oil companies that were headquartered in town pulled out, and they never returned. Starting before the last boom, however, the downtown started staging a slow recovery, centered oddly enough on the two movie theaters that had never left, but which had been taken over by local entrepreneurs, and improbable but actual revival. Stores started to reappear downtown and restaurants as well. People even started living downtown, which seems rather odd to me for this local. But the corner store, or the small department store, never did. Now we have to drive for the convenience of going to one. . . which isn't very convenient.
As Americans and Canadians are no doubt well aware of, this is Groundhog day. A day in the US in which it is maintained that a big squirrel (Marmota monax) while predict the remaining length of winter. Winter this year has been extraordinary mild, so perhaps the groundhog got around to things early, but anyhow. . .
Today is also Candlemas, a Christian Holiday. And for Candlemas, coincidentally, we have this proverb that is also weather related:
Showing just how extreme, or maybe desperate, things had become during World War One, the US was debating "giving up" "heatless days".
Heatless days?
Yes.
As the war effort that had brought in Porkless Days (which, the paper reported, caused the Groundhog to stay in on this Groundhog Day), Meatless Days, and Wheatless Days, every Monday was a Heatless Day.
Brutal.
In spite of what people may think, the teens were colder than things are today, and today February can be pretty cold. No heat in that era would have been truly brutal, and frankly I'd think a rather poor idea. Granted, it no doubt saved on coal, but at a certain human expense, I'd think.
Irish American Southie Boxing legend John L. Sullivan died on this day, at age 59, in 1918.
Sullivan was one of the greatest boxers of all time. Born to devout Catholic Irish immigrant parents he did well in Boston's public schools and entered college after graduating from them. His parents hoped for him to become a Priest. However, early in his academic career the athletic Sullivan dropped out of school to play professional baseball. Already familiar with boxing, he soon switched to that and went on to fight around 450 fights in his career, something that would be unheard of now.
Boxing was a hugely popular sport at that time, but it had not reached the zenith of its professional organization that it would reach in the mid 20th Century. Sullivan was clearly a "titlist" in the true sense, but not in the fully recognized sense that Muhammad Ali would be later. Boxing was also much less regimented as to fight length or rules at the time. Sullivan fought, for instance, the last title London Prize Rules fight, i.e. bare knuckle, and therefore can claim to have been the last bare knuckle champion. That fight was emblematic of boxing at the time in that it was not only bare knuckle, it went 75 rounds.
The Sullivan-Kilrain fight, the last bare knuckle championship fight. Kilrain threw in the towel, or rather his manager, in the 75th round of the July 1889 bout.
Sullivan lost his title status in 1892 to "Gentleman" Jim Corbett in a gloved boxing match under the Marquess of Queensberry Rules and he never regained it. He retired as a professional boxer after that match, and he was in fact already old for a boxer at that time, but he did continue to fight exhibition fights for the remainder of his life. He also undertook being a stage actor,
speaker, celebrity baseball umpire, sports reporter, and bar owner. Late in life, but probably too late, he broke a life long addiction to alcohol and became a speaker in favor of prohibition. He died on this day in 1918.
This blog won't become the This Day In 1968 Blog, like it threatened to become for 1915, 16, 17, and 18.
But it is 50 years ago, and it was quite a year, as already noted. We may, therefore, take note of some things that occurred during it.
Here's what we already missed:
January 4: Mattel introduced Hot Wheels.
I, and every boy I knew, loved those little cars.
Shoot, I still do.
January 5: Alexander Dubcek chosen as the leader of the Czech Communist party, ushering in the Prague Spring.
This seemed to usher in some hope that Communism in Eastern Europe would evolve into Democratic Socialism, something, it would would soon show, that the USSR was not prepared to accept.
January 21. The Battle of Khe Sanh, a diversion of for the Tet Offensive, commences.
The battle was one of the few real sieges of the American war in Vietnam. The Marine Corps defended the base valiantly, supplied from the air by the United States Air Force. In April the siege ended when the U.S. Army reestablished ground connection with the base. While an American victory of a sort, the fact that the NVA was capable of laying an American force to siege, would be a factor in the change in the public's mind on the war. And, we started to look like the French, in a way, with there being shades of Dien Bien Phu.
January 22: Rowan & Martin's Laugh In debuts.
Funny, and irreverent, and featuring a mild form of the exist humor that characterized a lot of American humor at the time, it was hugely popular.
January 23. The USS Pueblo taken.
As if there wasn't enough grim news, the seizure of an American vessel, and the poor performance of the Navy's officer corps as it happened, made the Americans look anemic and caused concern that the Korean War was about to revive.
The ship is still held by North Korea.
January 30. The Tet Offensive launched.
We'd win the battle, but the public's mind was lost by the fact that the NVA and VC could launch such a major offensive after years of war. A desperate gamble on their part, it proved to be a gamble that would pay off.
January 31: The US embassy in Saigon attacked by the Viet Cong.
No longer shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, nor anyone who does not live a full lifetime; One who dies at a hundred years shall be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred shall be thought accursed.
Isaiah, Chapter 65
Clive Law was a predominant figure in memorializing Canadian military history in recent years, something that Canadians have tended to seemingly be happy to forget. He was 63 years of age when he died this past June. I wasn't aware of that until I read the current issue of the Journal of the Company of Military Historians, which just arrived.
The son of an English father and an Scots-Irish mother, Law had served in the Governor General's Foot Guards and the RCMP. In his 50s he deployed to Haiti as a civilian representative in the RCMP and he was known for his dedication to philanthropist causes. He was also the author of twelve books and many other written works.
I didn't know him, but I did have some occasional correspondence with him at one time. That's quite awhile back and it was interestingly before he became such a major figure with the Company of Military Historians, of which I'm a member and with which he has been, as noted, a central figure in recent years.
I'm somewhat noting his passing for another reason, however, and its been one on my mind recently.
I'm 54 years of age. My father's father died in his late 40s. My father died at 62. Law died of an apparent massive stroke, totally unforeseen, at age 63. There's really no telling when a person will pass and that's particularly the case for men.
I note this as I find myself, now at this age, meeting quite a few people who have plans for their future retirements, which they are placing on hold in anticipation of making a few more bucks. Men who work until their 70s with this hope. Added to that are men and women who have simply become so acclimated to working that they know nothing else and keep doing it. If a person loves their work so much they want to keep on keeping on, no matter what, so be it. But at the same time, the common American idea that a person is going to live into their 90s, with perfect health, and clear mind is, well, based more on hope than reality. You may well live that long indeed, but your mind may be clouded and your health wrecked. Or you may not live anywhere near that long.
There's a lesson in there, and I'm not necessarily saying that Clive's example is purely applicable. But in a way all of the early deaths noted above are. Death comes, when it comes. Planning on scheduling it late in life, well, you'll either win the genetic lottery, and avoid accidents, or not.
In my own case, on that genetic lottery, so far I seem to have inherited more strongly from my mother's family in regards to that than my father's, although my father's siblings are, as I write this, all still living (this will very shortly cease to be the case). My mother's family lives seemingly forever, it seems. But as part of that, they're lucky if they live into long life with clear mind. My mother was incredibly active up to about age 90, which skewed my view of what old life must be like. But her last few years were really miserable as her mind closed in on her, a scary thing to watch. I hope to avoid that, but then frankly, I figure I'll be lucky to get past my six decade at all, for reason that I can't really explain. Something for me to consider.
The Casper Star Tribune started running retrospectives on 1968 this week, and is going to run them all year long.
The first one wasn't great, just a collection of snippets on fashion and the like, but still I'm encouraged.
While this blog is focused on things 50 years, more or less, prior to 1968, we do stray widely (rather obviously) and so I'll be interested to see with the Tribune comes up with. I'll be particularly interested as while I can recall 1968, from a child's prospective, as an adult I've been baffled by the year. It was a year of global revolution and the consequences of the year were mostly negative in my view. Not wholly of course, but largely.
1968 seems to be the year that the Boomers, for a variety of reasons, tore down much of made Western civilization. The repercussions have been permanent. Western civilization kept on keeping on, of course, but the attack on the foundations of it, from 1968, were like termites going after the foundation beam of a structure.
And this happened everywhere.
There were riots in the United States over the Vietnam War. That's easy to figure. But there were riots in Berlin and Paris as well. A seeming middle mildly left political coalition that had come into power in some places (the United States, France, the UK) and a middle mildly right political coalition that had come into power elsewhere (West Germany) collapsed. Cultural values and underpinnings that had existed for decades became untethered, not disappearing, but sort of drifting.
Now, of course, no sudden change simply arrives. When things break out, they break out after years of development of some sort, for some reason. But what was it?
The egg beater in slightly happer days, but after its service as a time and temperature sign had ended. Note the mod orange peel design of the bank itself. Library of Congress photograph.
Anyhow, the news articles on this story show how widespared the old M60 really is. Even the Reuters article about Germany cancelling updates on Turkish Leopard IIs due to their user by Turkey in Syria featured a photo of an M60 in Syria.
Today, however, the news reports that Chesapeake Oil is laying off about 500 employees nationwide, with 5 of those people being located in Wyoming. Chesapeake only has 50 employees in Wyoming now, we also read, so that's not unsubstantial amongst their remaining workforce.
We've received some warnings that a new boom might not reflect itself in employment like the old ones, although in the service industries it would seem likely to. A sign of this, perhaps?
HOUSTON
— A substantial rise in oil prices in recent months has led to a
resurgence in American oil production, enabling the country to challenge
the dominance of Saudi Arabia and dampen price pressures at the pump.
The
success has come in the face of efforts by Saudi Arabia and its oil
allies to undercut the shale drilling spree in the United States. Those
strategies backfired and ultimately ended up benefiting the oil
industry.
That would be, quite frankly, a huge American victory and a major defeat for the Petroleum Kingdom if its correct.
And it very well may be.
All throughout the price collapse of a couple of years ago was a thesis, but not the only one, that the drop in price was an effort by Saudi Arabia to crush the American petroleum industry, resurgent on technological advancements and increased prices. If the NYT is correct, and it very well may be, this is a huge development. The potential end of OPEC dominance in oil, and a new, middle price, regime in the petroleum industry with the United States and Canada as major petroleum oil powers.
Oil is holding above $65.00 bbl. That's way below the $100 bbl+ figures that we saw prior to the last crash, and indeed it would have been regarded as a crash price as it was crashing. But it's held steadily above $60.00 now for weeks. $60.00 is the regional threshold for profitability and things are, in fact, now beginning to occur. Or so we hear, and we're hearing that a lot.
Indeed, the Tribune, lately reporting on the grim situation for all sorts of businesses that were weathering the oil drought, is now reporting optimistically on a huge expansion of a local gas field. Looking at it the other way, The Economist has been analyzing it negatively for several months with observations that the price of oil is "high". Indeed, it recently ran an article captioned as follows:
Crude thinking
Why the oil price is so high
…and why it might not fall by very much soon.
The economist did start off with an observation that does indeed reflect the observations many who follow the rise and fall of crude prices:
PERHAPS the most vexing thing for those watching the oil industry is not
the whipsawing price of a barrel. It is the constant updating of
theories to explain what lies behind it.
The article goes on to analyze that, coming to the conclusion, perhaps right or wrong, that the perception of scarcity, or lack of it, has a lot to do with market volatility.
Any way you look at it, $65.00 isn't $125.00 bbl, nor is it $25.00 bbl. Maybe things are a little stable, maybe, for a little while, which will mean a recovery in the Wyoming economy and will start to fill up the coffers of the state a bit as well.
Which usually means that the state pretty much instantly, rightly or wrongly, abandons discussion of alternative revenue sources and diversifying the state economy.
Indeed, one of the political candidates may have trouble with this going forward as it will, ironically, cut into her argument on the "getting the Federal Government off our backs" (or words to that effect). Harriet Hageman has been arguing that Wyoming's economy is a three legged stool, with those legs being agriculture, tourism and the mineral industry. Close observers, however, know that this isn't true, and I've expounded on that before. Wyoming's economy is actually a four legged stool, sitting furniture analogy wise, with agriculture, tourism, the mineral industry and government. We don't like to acknowledge that last one, but it's a huge factors in our economy. In fact, Wyoming has a higher percentage of state workers per capita than any of the neighboring states (way more than Colorado, but more than Nordic North Dakota as well). As the tax system is all based on the mineral industry, and as tourism and agriculture cannot effectively support taxes as the level required for our expenditures, when the mineral industry catches a cold the state government catches the flu. Of course, that doesn't impact the Federal government, but right now we have an Administration that's not exactly keen on ramping up Federal employment.
Anyhow, this puts individuals with Hageman's outlook in a strange position. Oil is recovering and it clearly has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with regulation. People with her point of view, however, cannot acknowledge that, as that would mean that the price of oil is purely controlled by external factors, which in fact it is. As The Economist notes:
Beneath the dramatic ups and downs in the oil price and its changing
influence on the world economy are some big themes: the rise of the
shale-oil industry and how OPEC responds; the dependence of the big oil
exporters in the Middle East on high oil prices; the peak in oil demand
in America and eventually elsewhere. These forces will have a big say in
where oil prices eventually settle.
And that's what determines how the oil industry does in Wyoming. But if the state's rights libertarians acknowledge that, that means that this leg of our "three legged stool" and the four leg of our actual four legged one is pretty darned wobbly. And it also would mean that the entire issue of "getting the Federal government" off our backs is moot now, as Trump has cut regulations considerably and, at the same time, while purely coincidentally the price has risen and a new boom, or maybe a boomlet, is on. I.e., you can't campaign on driving the Germans out of France if they've surrendered already. That political ship has sailed.
But in sailing, we should take some caution, and some hope. In terms of hope, this boom, at least right now, doesn't look like it will get overheated. That's always a huge problem in all sorts of ways. But there's real hope that it might not. Right now, the price of oil doesn't appear to be drastically inflating. Most of the producers of oil around the globe have real incentives not to allow that to occur. And as we've noted here in the past, and as The Economist does in its article, technological advances may and societal changes have loosened the world's dependence on oil, even in formerly car crazy America. Added to that, technological changes in the oilfield itself will mean that the return of oil will not mean the return of all the jobs that went with it. The petroleum industry was relying on older rigs in the last boom. So much so that men who had worked overseas were often shocked by the antiquity of the equipment in the US. That was changing, and as rigs come back on line it will the the newer ones in increasing numbers, with the old ones being increasingly a thing of the past.
A
just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law
of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral
law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a
human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.
Ironically I listed to this while on my way to go goose hunting. A hunting trip unfortunately interrupted mid morning by one of the primary evils of modern civilization, the cell phone, with the receipt of a panicky work telephone call I had to address. Following that, I received news of a not unexpected but none the less tragic arrival of "the undiscovered country" for a family member, and packed up and headed home.
Anyhow, it's a poor idea to post on things of this type while in a poor frame of mind, but I am anyway. As I do that, I'm sitting getting ready to go to Mass. But as I'm a western American Catholic, I'm in my Sunday street clothes, which in this case includes a t-shirt which has a spork and a the works "Live Simply" on it, a gift from my teenage daughter who obviously knows my heart.
Exactly. And, yes, Sunday morning wear of a type. I'll wear a hooded sweatshirt over it. It's winter here, after all.
I'm noting all of this as I'm both linking in an interview of the author, but as I'm musing, and in a bit of a despondent mood as well. And that reminds me of the footer photograph that I added to this blog after the turn of the year. . . a minor but not insignificant revision to it.
I know that a human population the size we now have can't really go back to our pre civilization state, and we don't even really want to. But a society more like that romanticized (as it surely papered over the bad parts) in I'll Take My Stand, existed not only in the region addressed but in most regions up until then. And all of the objective evidence is that that situation was generally better than the current one. A goal, albeit a return goal, for a society, perhaps, that seems to be aimlessly sweeping away the best parts of its existence and making itself incompatible with what it is creating.
Funeral of Lt. Col. John McCrea who died on this day in 1918. This Canadian work is in the public domain in Canada because its copyright has expired due to one of the following:it was subject to Crown copyright and was first published more than 50 years ago, or it was not subject to Crown copyright, and it is a photograph that was created prior to January 1, 1949,the creator died more than 50 years ago.
McCrea was a Canadian physician serving in the Canadian forces (a relative of mine served in the same hospital and mentioned him by name in her correspondence). While serving in that capacity he contracted pneumonia and passed away on this day, in 1918.
McCrea is most famous for the poem In Flanders Fields, arguably the most famous poem to come out of the Great War, in what was a very poetic age it seems.
All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the
individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.The land
ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils,
waters, plants and animals, or collectively the land.
The Land Ethic,A Sand County Almanac. Aldo Leopold
On this day in 1918 Texas Ranger Company B raided the village of Porvenir, Texas, a Hispanic Texas town, and killed the male inhabitants therein. They were accompanied by elements of the 8th Cavalry which may not have participated in the massacre, at least according to contemporary investigations, and which assisted the survivors thereafter, attempting to keep them from harm and sending for Priest from a local village.
Fifteen Hispanic men lost their lives in the massacre.
The details of the tragedy remain sketchy today, save for the killing of the Mexican civilians. When the news first broke in mid February, it was claimed by the Rangers and some non Mexicans of the town that property from the Brite's Ranch Raid had been found in the town and that the villagers had opened upon the Rangers. This is almost certainly not true. Later investigations seemed to indicate that it was an act of pure race based violence on the Mexican inhabitants of the town. Most of the early information indicated a complete lack of participation by the Army, although a small detail of soldiers was in fact sent with the Rangers. They claimed to have waited outside the town and not to have known what was occurring within it. As noted, contemporary accounts do indicate that some villagers took refuge with the cavalrymen and that protection was afforded to them.
This was one of the instances in which the border war along the Mexican border seems to us today to have a foot in the 19th Century, even while having one in the 20th. Atrocity in war would be something the world would see a lot more of in the 20th Century, so perhaps we should not. But an ethnic massacre within our own borders of this type does indeed seem very peculiar today, as well as being highly tragic.
The incident did lead to investigation when the news broke. The investigation recommended trial for all of the Rangers and exonerated the Army, but a grand jury did not indite any of the Rangers. Texas, however, disbanded Company B. Following this a wider investigation by Texas condemned the Rangers for a history of extrajudicial killings. The Rangers were thereafter reformed into a more professional force and this era of the Rangers came to an end.
In spite of the 1918 exoneration of the Army, a 2015 archeological survey turned up shell casings from period Army weapons. At least one of the investigating archeologist reached the conclusion that Army involvement in the tragedy had in fact occurred.
And so January 1918 would see two tragedies that read now like something out of the Frontier West occurred at same time the global tragedy was playing itself out in Europe.
The town does not exist today. The victims of the raid were buried by their relatives in a nearby town, across the border, in Mexico.
