Mid Week at Work: Aircraft mechanics. 1942.

Air Transportation

I really like aircraft.

 

My son, the pilot

But I hate flying.

So, here I'm dealing with a modern means of transpiration that I use a lot, dread taking, have a lot of familiarity with, have written about a lot here, and I find interesting.

I take airplanes all the time.  I've logged in more air miles than any member of my immediate family, and far more than my father, who was in the United States Air Force during the early 1950s.  As a kid, my fascination with aircraft lead me into the Civil Air Patrol, at which time I could imagine flying airplanes, prior to having to ride in them much.  But, while I like airplanes, and travel on them a lot, I really don't like flying.  Oh well.

Anyhow, as anyone who has ever stopped in this blog at all knows, I'm apparently interested in transportation topics, as they show up a lot. Recently I've been summarizing changes in transportation over the past century or so, and have discussed walking, water transportation, equine transportation and rail.  Here we'll look at one of the most revolutionary changes in how we get around.  It's one I've discussed here frequently, but its certainly worth taking another look at.

Trains were the fast transportation, and the basic means of interstate transportation, for most Americans after some point in the late 19th Century up in to the 1950s.  Now we wouldn't think of trains as fast, but they're a lot faster than equine transportation and water transportation, and prior to the Interstate Highway system, they were a lot more convenient and even more practical than automotive transportation, which tended to be local as a rule.  Now, as we know, for long distance transportation, aircraft are the default means of transportation for most people, with automobiles being a close second.  In much of the country, you couldn't board a passenger train if you wanted to.  And, with FeEx and the like also shipping by air, what the U.S. Postal Service started with air mail has become a major factor in mail and packages, paying a bit of a premium for shipping by air, of course.

 

FedEx Cessna at Natrona County International Airport.

How did this huge change come about?

Flight rose amazingly quickly. Faster, really, than any other means of transportation. And it evolved much quicker than any other as well.

Powered flight, i.e., the aircraft, only came about in 1903, as is well known.  Even prior to that, however, there were some who pondered the possibilities of air transportation on a grand scale.  Even prior to the American Civil War, one visionary took subscriptions for the construction of a dirigible to be powered by steam engines which would cross the Western prairies and mountains by air, safely (hopefully) delivering its passengers on the Pacific coast.  Of course, it was never built, but such a craft in fact did make a flight in Europe in 1852.

Dirigible patent, 1874.

In spite of their seemingly somewhat goofy nature, airships showed a lot of promise, which is why its somewhat surprising that in spite of a 50 year head start on the airplane, they really didn't get launched as a commercially successful means of transportation until After World War One.  There's undoubtedly a variety of reasons for that, with the weight and horsepower of available power plants being one, but they just didn't manage to really get started as a commercial endeavor by the time the Wrights flew in 1903.  They did get started as a military implement by 1900, however.

Given that airships had a big head start, you'd think the really primitive and scary nature of early aircraft would have still given them a big advantage, but aircraft evolved at such a rapid pace, it's stunning.

Early Air Transportation

The first attempt at an airliner was made by Igor Sikorsky, an early Russian aircraft designer who born in Ukraine and who later immigrated to the United States following the Russian Revolution.  He's most famously recalled today for being the founder of an American company that pioneered and dominated large helicopters for decades, but early on he designed large aircraft.  His airplanes were amazingly large for their era.  Sikorsky was a visionary, and he designed the Ilya Muromets to be an airliner in 1913, although World War One's arrival meant that it made but a single, fourteen hour, flight prior to his heavy designs being used for bombing during the Great War.  The early airliner was a luxury craft to a degree, even featuring a bathroom.

Multi engined 1913 design, the Ilya Muromets, the worlds first airliner, which made but a single flight in that role.  This airplane was designed only a decade after the Wrights first flight.

While the Ilya Muromet was a massive purpose designed aircraft, it would fall to the underpowered and utilitarian Curtis Jenny, the JN4, to be the first commercially used airliner, even though it isn't a big craft, and it wasn't designed for that. Elliot Air Service gets the credit for being the first commercial enterprise that moved people and items by air, using that craft.

The utilitarian Curtis Jenny, the United States first real military aircraft.  Built in large numbers during World War One, the airplane was really too underpowered for a combat role but is sparked the real dawn of American civil aviation.

The Curtis JN4 was an underpowered weak, but durable, aircraft whose real combat role would peak during the Punitive Expedition, where it was sued by the First Aero Squadron, an Army units whose trucks proved to be of nearly equal utility to this planes. But the Jenny would go on to become the first really popular civilian airplane in the world, being sold in large numbers in the United States and being pressed into every conceivable role by private pilots.  Jennys were used as trainers in the US during the  Great War but were pressed into the first really significant parcel delivery by air service in the US, by the Post Office, before World War One was over, with the Signal Corps Jennys being used to deliver mail starting in May, 1918.  Regular air mail would be a fully governmental service for the first eight years of its existence, with the air mail pilots being looked upon as glamorous, as individuals in dangerous occupations often are, but after that, the US went to commercial air carriers for the air mail, thereby encouraging private enterprise in this area.

Delivery of mail by air would seem to be a separate topic from passenger service, but in many ways it is not, as the early history of commercial air transportation dovetails the two, just as the late story of rail transportation also does. Passenger trains carried mail and people, and indeed mail hooks for railroads were set up along the rail lines so that trains didn't have to stop to pick up mail.  A video of that taking place, as a demonstration with a modern train, has just been posted on this site.  Moving mail by plane therefore was a natural extension of what was occurring by train, with a new means of transportation that began to compete with the train nearly immediately, or at least soon after World War One.

In order to make that competition realistic, of course, planes larger than the Jenny, and less scary than the Sikorsky, had to be developed, but they very soon were. Even late war aircraft had sufficiently evolved so that their conversion into airliners wasn't wholly unrealistic. The Farman Goliath, for example, was designed as a bomber but with a closed cockpit and fuselage, it made it possible to be converted into an airliner, a role which it was occupying by the early 1920s and still occupying at the end of that decade, a pretty amazing service life for an aircraft in the early history of commercial aviation.  In the 1920s, or even starting in the late teens just after World War One, some surprisingly modern monoplane passenger aircraft were introduced, however, and the future for some time was pretty set, with large biplane airliners, descendants of World War One bombers, yielding to more efficient monoplanes.

Starting in the mid 1920s, some really serious purpose built airliners started to be introduced.  Ford Motor Company introduced one of the earliest and best with the Ford Trimoter, relying on design lessons learned by its German born designer.  The Ford Trimotor almost immediately saw its twin spring up in Europe in the Fokker Trimotor, which is darned near the same aircraft as it was designed b the same people.  The Fokker and the Ford were amazingly reliable aircraft and they carried on in some locations for decades, with the last ones being retired only relatively recently.  In Europe, the type went on to be the basic cargo aircraft of the Luftwaffe during World War Two, although the military expression of the aircraft was hardly limited to the Germans, as variants were used by Switzerland, Spain, and the United States, amongst others.

United States Army Air Corps Fokker.

As good as the Trimotors were, a crash of one in 1931 would bring about a revolution in aircraft and the next great series of air liner.  TWA's Flight 599 crashed in a Kansas prairie on March 15, 1931, killing all eight occupants including legendary football figure Knute Rockne. Subsequent investigation revealed that structural failure of the wooden structured wings was the cause of the crash and the strict restrictions on such construction followed.  Taking that up as a challenge, Douglas Aircraft Company introduced the all metal DC-1 in 1933. The DC-1 soon yielded to the DC-2, after a single DC-1 was built, which came out in 1934.  Proving the type, DC-2 yielded to the most successful commercial aircraft of all time, the DC-3, of which a vast number were built.

The DC-3 itself was only constructed from 1936 to 1942, under that name, but the start of World War Two meant that the military version, the C-47, was built until 1945.  Production of a larger version of the airplane was commenced in 1949, but so many DC-3s and C-47s were in the air, with over 16,000 of the type having been built, that the new version wasn't really needed.

The impact of the DC-3 can hardly be overstated.  The aircraft remained in service all the way into the 21st Century and chances are that a few are still flying commercial short hops somewhere.  The DC-3, a sturdy, reliable aircraft, was the airplane that really brought regular commercial air service to the United States and the world, or at least interstate and somewhat international air transportation.  If you were going to your local airport in the late 1930s, the 1940s, or the early 1950s, your chances of boarding a DC-3 were good. And if you were shipping parts of something by air from the mid 1930s to the 1950s, chances are it was going by DC-3. For that matter, this would also be true in much of the Third World well into the 1970s or later.

 C-47s being built during World War Two.  The last U.S. Air Force use of the C-47 would come during the Vietnam War, during which some were changed from air transport aircraft into air assault aircraft by being equipped with automatic cannons.  Nicknamed "spooky", they were later transferred to the Central Intelligence Agency and used over Angola in support of SWAPO during the 1980s.

Which isn't to say that the DC-3 did or could do everything.  For transoceanic travel in the 1930s a person was likely to board a Pan American Clipper, or a similar aircraft owned by British Overseas Airways, but only if they were rich.  Planes like this were "flying boats", a type that acknowledged the lack of runways and the need for larger passenger compartments in an era prior to World War Two expanding airfields absolutely everywhere.

 Flying boat, 1930s.

In the United States, it was Pan American that exploited this market and dominated.  Started in 1927 to deliver mail (that again) and passengers between the United States and Cuba, Pan American very early saw the practicality of expanding into near shore routes and it accordingly set the market for flying boats.  Buying the products of Sikorsky, Boeing and Martin in the 1920s and 1930s, its air fleet was actually surprisingly small, with any one run of aircraft being also fairly small. At the same time, however, if a person was going to engage in international air travel from the United States, Pan American was by default the airline that a person took.  With a captive market, and high operating expenses due to the unique limited run aircraft and very long routes, it was a luxury airline, with travel being expensive by its very nature.  In that era, for example the luxury of taking Pan American to Hawaii is something that we can hardly imagine now, and which was only dreamed of by most people then.

During this entire period, it should be noted, the first device that was thought of in terms of commercial air travel wasn't idle.  Air ships, like aircraft, had received a big boost during World War One, and just as big aircraft were used for the first time as bombers, so were airships. The Germans in particular developed and dominated this technology, with Zeppelins, giant airships filled with explosive hydrogen, being used, as dangerous as they were, as bombers.  Zeppelins were even used to bomb London, although the Germans did that with Gotha bombers as well.

 Early (1908) Zeppelin passenger airship.

Following the war, Zeppelins kept on keeping on and were being sued for trans Atlantic air travel out of Germany.  Serious thought was given to switching the craft to Helium, which doesn't explode, but this proved impossible after the Nazis took over Germany, as the U.S., which controls the globes Helium market, wouldn't allow export to Germany.  Hence the airships continued on full of explosive gas.

Aircraft, coming on strong, would have taken out airships as a means of trans Atlantic air travel anyhow, but the explosion of the Hindenburg on May 6, 1937, ended airships day as a commercial carrier forever.  Occasionally revived in concept, airships have never gone away, but their lasts really major world role came on during World War Two, when U.S. Navy blimps patrolled for submarines off of the Atlantic.  Even at that, however, light private aircraft used by the Civil Air Patrol had a pretty major role.

And then came World War Two.

But before going there, let's summarize the first 45 years of air travel.  Basically, what the story is, is as follows"

1.  Airships got really rolling around 1900, but they didn't expand into passenger or commercial service right away.

2.  The airplane was invented in 1903.

3.  Visionaries could see commercial air travel as being viable by 1913.

4.  By the 1910s militaries around the globe were developing military aircraft.

5.  The first passenger, and mail, service started in 1915.

6. It isn't really possible to separate mail service from passenger service early on, and mail service got really rolling in 1918.

7.  Passenger service got rolling in the 1920s as World War One vintage bombers were redesigned for passenger service, and then real passenger planes were introduce in the 1920s.

8. Air disaster lead to air innovation, and the Douglas DC 3 came in during the mid 1930s.

9.  Over water air flight opportunities were picked up by Pan American who soon expanded into luxury transoceanic flight.

10.  Elsewhere, such as in Europe, the story is largely the same, but with the market for aircraft already being international.

Transcontinental air mail route, 1924.

And, while this was going on, private pilots flying really risky odd aircraft in the teens bought various World War One surplus aircraft immediately after the war and the age of private pilot civil aviation was really on.light dangerous war surplus airplanes soon gave way to relatively inexpensive single engine airplanes, and by the start of World War Two the United States and Canada had a pretty big private pilot fleet.

And then World War Two happened.

World War Two

C-47, rebuilt after World War Two as a D.C. 3, being rebuilt.

We've noted here before that Holscher's Fourth Law of History is that "War Changes Everything".  And so it does. And so it was for civil aviation.

Aviation was advanced incredibly rapidly from 1903 to 1939, but it can't help but be noted that during 1914 to 1918, World War One, it received a big boost.  In a lot of ways, however, that boost kept on keeping on following the war.  The top of the line fighter aircraft of 1918 were already obsolete by the early 1920s, hopeless relics of an earlier era.  By the early 1930s, the military aircraft of 1920 were obsolete, and by 1939 the military aircraft of 1930 were largely obsolete.  The best civil aircraft of the 1930s made those of the 1920s look pretty inadequate, although commercial designs, such as the Fokker and Ford Trimotors that came in during the 1920s were still serving.  Commercial aircraft made or designed by Marin, Fokker, Boeing and Douglas that saw service in the 1920s and 1930s would all see military service during World War Two.

United States Army Air Corps C-47, an airplane that hauled equipment, men and even mules everywhere, during World War Two, and which saw service in about every Allied air force, including the U.S., Canadian, Royal New Zealand, Australian, British and Soviet air forces.  Perhaps the greatest single airplane ever made.

But the war would change certain things about air travel in a way that would soon revolutionize it, in spite of the production of so many airplanes that it could have rationally been assumed that the post war manufacture of them would have collapsed.

Post War Aviation

During the war, U.S., British, German, Canadian, and Australian engineers put in airfields absolutely everywhere.  Locations in the United States that had been served by only a tiny airport, if at all, suddenly had massive airfields designed for bombers, as the US had put them in for training.  Casper Wyoming is a good example. Served by a small airport prior to the war, that airfield wasn't even really flat.  But during the war, the U.S. Army built a massive air training facility just outside of town, with runways so long that they remain long enough for the biggest aircraft today.

C-17 Globemaster at the Natrona County International Airport, an airport that was built as an air base during World War Two.

In addition to this, however, in spite of the superb serviceability the pre war airliners gave as military cargo planes, the technological leap that aircraft had taken during the war not only meant that the prewar designs were implicitly obsolete, but also that people and nations that had become acclimated to advances in air power would expect the civilian employment of them.

When the war started, an airplane like the DC3 was a big serviceable and modern airliner.  The really big aircraft just prior to the war were military bombers, but none of them were suitable for airliners and only a few nations had them.  Going into World War Two, in fact, only the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and Japan had really large strategic bombers, and the USSR's were not all that nifty.  It's notable that all of the powers that had really significant bombers were naval powers with oceanic concerns, which had a lot to do with the development of that type of aircraft.  Of those nations, arguably the United Kingdom's bombers were the best going into the war.

By the wars end, strategic bombing had caused the development of successive models or even generations of bombers, and the United States come out of the war with the best, if most problematic, bomber, the B-29.  The B-29 was generations ahead of the B-17 with which the US had entered the war, and the B-17 is indeed downright primitive in comparison to it.  The significant thing here is that during the war, four engined large aircraft had been completely proven and had developed considerably. And, additionally, new generations of air transport aircraft were also coming in.

At the same time, during the war, piston engines had become better and bigger.  More significantly, however, jet engines had also been proven. Introduced first by the British, in a plane that turned out to be significant but lackluster, it was the German ME262 that demonstrated that all future combat aircraft would be jets, at some point. And the introduction of jet engines meant, in spite of what might have been expected, that pretty soon every air fore, and every air line, would soon want fleets of jets.

That didn't happen right away. What happened at first is that the transport, and even the bomber, aircraft of World War Two came in right after the war as new, faster, and longer ranged, civilian aircraft.

Boeing Stratocruiser.  The Stratocruiser was one of two airliner versions of the B-29 which went into production in the late 1930s and which were retired in the early 1960s.  A luxury long distance airliner, they only carried a little over 30 people.  They were the replacement in the Pan American fleet for the flying boats.

These were soon followed by aircraft specifically designed as four engine commercial aircraft, such as the Lockheed Constellation.  The day of the flying boat ended nearly immediately, with the type relegated to odd search and rescue aircraft in various coast guards and navies.

 The four engined Lockheed Constellation started off as a military cargo plane in an era with the C-47 was the standard.  With modifications after the war, it would be the standard for airliners for a time.  A retired fleet of Constellations was parked at the end of a runway at our local airport for decades after they were no longer used in this role, and after that set had been briefly used as firefighting bombers.  One of them was the plane used by General MacArthur during the Korean War.

As new airplanes came in, competition between airlines increased.  Air travel seemingly came in everywhere.  And then, starting in the 1950s, jet airliners began to arrive.

Before we look at that, however, we have to look at two other areas, private and light air transportation, and a brand new aircraft, the helicopter.

As already noted, light aircraft had become big in the United States starting with the Curits Jenny. The US had a well developed private aviation community prior to World War Two, and indeed the country harnessed that population for anti submarine efforts during the war, in the form of the Civil Air Patrol.

Light airplane in Civil Air Patrol use during World War Two.

After the war light aviation took back off.  Cessna introduced the Cessna 120 and Cessna 140 right after World War Two, which introduced a basic type that it still makes today, although the 120 and 140 were tail draggers.  In 1956 it introduced the 172, which is the greatest light plane in aviation history.Still made today, with updates, the plane set the standard for light private aircraft.  With planes being affordable, at first, civil aviation really took off, so to speak.

The Jet Age

Introduced first by the British in the early 1950s, the U.S. introduced its first jet airliners by the late 1950s.  New fleets of piston engined airliners were obsolete nearly overnight.  By the 1960s they were rapidly on the way out, and by the 1970s only regional flights, if any, used piston engined aircraft.  By the late 1960s, jet airliners were the rule.

Still relatively expensiveness, jet air travel none the less totally supplanted long range train travel in the United States by the early 1970s, a process that had started off with big piston engined airliners like the Constellation.  Railroads discontinued passenger service most places, save for those places where local commuter rail continued to be viable.  Intrastate air travel and regional air travel also became more common, with turboprop aircraft being common there.  In most states local air travel became an option for at least business travelers.

Deregulation of the 1980s really ramped up air competition and the market became unstable but highly competitive.  Air prices steadily dropped and left us with the situation we have today, in which air travel has never been cheaper, or more uncomfortable.

Also in this age, but for a different set of reasons, the helicopter really came into its own.  An oddity in some ways when first developed, it proved itself during the Korean War and became an indispensable military tool by the Vietnam War.  Soon after the Vietnam War, one of the primary uses of the Army helicopter was carried over to civilian life, and the medical "dustoff" which sent in the Medivac UH-1 "Huey"  became a familiar site, with other helicopters, in the United States.  Now medical helicopters are in almost every town, and helicopters in all sorts of local uses, from traffic reporting to pipeline flying, are quite common.

Bell 206 helicopter flying a pipeline.

Private aviation, however, has taken a pounding since its glory days of the 50s and 60s.  By the 1970s law suits had taken their toll on the industry and Cessna even ceased offering light planes for awhile.  Federal intervention through statutory relief allowed it to reenter the market, but there's no doubt that lawyers and lawsuits pose as great of threat to light aviation as flak guns did to Allied bombers during World War Two, I'm sorry to say.

So this is basically where we are today.  In less than a century, given that early aircraft were both dangerous and really not practical for much, we've developed a wholly new means of transportation. That means of transportation had an incredibly rapid evolution, much the way, I suppose, personal computers have in our own age.  They displaced the train for long distance travel to a large extent, rendering the massive US rail passenger fleet obsolete.  They've become, moreover, a common tool of our daily life, and had been a not uncommon avocation for many who just liked flight.  Costs of air travel, except for the cost of being a private pilot, have decreased enormously, while at the same time its become faster and more uncomfortable.

 

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Mark's Episcopal Church (the original one)

Churches of the West: St. Mark's Episcopal Church (the original one):

Jeans and Offensive Marketing

Just recently I commented on the year old topic of Jeans in this thread here, Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Levis, in which I commented on the insanity of $700.00 "designer jeans"  Earlier this week, I posted on Froma Harrop's thesis that we might be seeing the end of the consumerist economy.  Many times in the past here I've posted on trends and developments.  Here, all dovetail in a story on pants.

Or, rather, the marketing of what are simply jeans.

Some company is marketing jeans in the United States under the brand name "True Religion".

I suspect that this is calculated to offend, but if it isn't, it certainly does.  It also says how numb our society has become to being truly and unconscionably offensive.

Pants are religion, nor does the depiction of hip, young, pretty adults clearly in an extended adolescence have anything to do with religion.  Indeed, as there isn't a religion on Earth that doesn't advocate selflessness and humility, what the subtle message of this marketing is, is anti religious, or perhaps more accurately the worship of cheesy slick consumerism as a religion. Critics of our consumerist economy have, at their most blunt, criticized consumerism for this very reason.

With the possibly relatively rare example of univeralists beliefs, which seek to incorporate all faiths of all types into a universal truth, and primitive religions that are basically animist in nature, a basic tenant of any faith would be that it is a "true religion" and indeed the True Religion.  Indeed, it wasn't all that long ago that this was sufficiently understood so as to be incorporated into the an ironic line of dialog into a popular film, The Magnificent Seven.  Now the concept of that is so vague that its being used in this fashion with the marketers counting on some vague recollection but not one sufficiently clear as to cause righteous indignation.  It's frankly pathetic.

And its all the more pathetic when realized that this is undoubtedly directly offensive to all the of the monotheistic religions, each of which would maintain that they are the true faith. Here, again, the marketers benefit from the diluted nature of any strong understanding of beliefs in Western society, as the majority of people in Western society are some variant of Christian, and Christians have become used to being picked on in this fashion so that they don't generally react.  One can only imagine what the reaction would be if a person marketed jeans as "True Islam" jeans, or "True Judaism". There would be an uproar, and justifiably so. But, as Islam and Judaism do both maintain that they are the true faith, calling something "True Religion" doesn't vary much from that, really.

Well, things like this should make for a good test of Harrop's thesis that we might be entering a post materialistic age.  If we are, and if the numbers are as high as she maintains, then at some point people begin to buy jeans based on their quality and price, and not the clever marketing.  Jeans marketed in this fashion can only appeal to a consumerist materialistic society, as its some weird sort of image that's being actually purchased, rather than the real product.  As for me, I hope this product fails.

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Prices at the Dawn of the Gasoline Age, Dusk of the Equine

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Prices at the Dawn of the Gasoline Age, Dusk of the Equine

Lex Anteinternet: $40/barrel?

Lex Anteinternet: $40/barrel?:   Driven by Saudi Arabian efforts, the price of petroleum oil is falling through the floor.  When I last checked, it was down under $70...

Now under $60/bbl nationwide, and at $53/bbl in the state.

And still dropping.

Horses In History: Coney Island Ponies ~1904 | Simply Marvelous Horse World

Horses In History: Coney Island Ponies ~1904 | Simply Marvelous Horse World

The end of consumerism?

Froma Harrop, the supposedly liberal columnist, has opined in a recent op ed that Americans may be turning "post materialistic".  If so, that's a massive shift in the dominant cultural view of Americans over the past half century, although it might be a return to a mode of thinking that was once the common one, or perhaps more accurately somewhat akin to an earlier one.

Harrop's article is provocative, and not surprisingly hasn't met with universal acknowledgment on the part of her readers.  When she speaks of "post consumerism", what she speaks of is a type of non consumerist behavior focused on experiences and living, for lack of a better way of putting it, and which de-emphasizes material goods as a part of that, while not proposing that they be eschewed all together.  Basically, she proposes a view of life and economics that those familiar with the writings of Belloc, Chesterton or the Southern Agrarians would recognize.  Indeed, those who have persisted in admiring the Southern Agrarians, should they run across her article, must be rejoicing a bit that what they've advocated since the early 1930s is actually gaining ground, assuming that it is.  The general thesis of "post materialism", apparently, de-emphasizes material acquisition in favor of simply living, with family, friends and experience taking precedence over items, particularly those which are temporary in nature.

Early in it she poses the possibility of a shift to this sort of view in a significant percentage of the population, noting a slow start to the typical Christmas big retail season:

Certainly, some of this frugality is a hangover from the economic trauma of six years ago. The recession smashed Americans’ comfort with debt, belief in real estate and faith in an ever-more prosperous future. Many feel the sting of stagnant wages. Even winners in this strengthening economy seem to be holding back.

But a more fundamental change may be afoot, a change in belief systems. Americans may be moving into an era of post-materialism. If so, retailing faces a whole different ballgame.

What does she mean by this?  We're so used to the concept that capitalism equates with consumerism, that the two are indistinguishable to a lot of Americans, and particularly a lot of Americans in commerce and government.  In fact, however, that's not the case, however, and as various social theorist and critics have long noted, its perfectly possible to have a capitalist economy that isn't consumerist.  She then goes on to discuss the concept of "post materialism"

Post-materialism is defined as a reorientation of values away from the big-ticket luxuries, such as fancy cars, and toward self-expression and quality of life. It could mean choosing more free time over working longer to support a big home.

This trend is strongest in rich countries, where the basics of food, shelter and security are taken for granted. The World Values Survey shows Australia having the highest proportion of post-materialists, 35 percent, followed by Austria, Canada, Italy and then the United States, at 25 percent.

If this is the case, and frankly I have my doubts, it would truly be a revolutionary development, although one that a person can see having gained some steam in recent years.  That 25% of the American population would self identify in this fashion would truly be stunning. But careful students of slow trends and thought in society might find that this isn't quite as surprising as might it might seem, and it might actually reflect the rise of Generation X and Generation Y and the beginning of the the decline of the Boomers.

Consumerism, what Harrop and others sometimes call "materialism", which is an apt description, wasn't always with us, in fact, in the form which we now see it, although it has been for about a century or so in the US, and the rests of the Western world to varying degrees.   The super heated consumerism that we've had in recent memory, however, is really something that arose in the post World War Two world, although the roots of it were there before that.  It's a complicated story, but if we look back into the 19th Century, what we tend to see is that almost all Western economic thought out side of Socialist thought. was highly family oriented and did not tend to acquisition oriented.  This isn't universally true, to be sure, as in the unregulated economy of the industrial late 19th Century there were those who grew fantastically wealthy and exhibited a tremendous drive towards acquisition.  But at every level, the thought that the function of people was to act as the purchasers of stuff was something that was not only not there, but which would have been regarded as highly offensive.  Most common people viewed economic activity as a means of trying to support their family in a decent manner. Even socialism, which is highly materialistic in its world view, had this as its basic premise, albeit in a very materialistic manner.

It wasn't until after World War Two when this began to change in a significant manner.  Consumerism was already there, but the goods starvation caused by the Great Depression and the Second World War created a post war consumer demand that was enormous in the US.  Truth be known, it also created the same in Europe, but Europe was in such poor shape after the war this wouldn't really begin to express itself there until the late 1950s.   The impact of the Depression and the war, combined with the American economic revival of the 40s and 50s, followed by the European economic recovery of the late 50s and 60s, caused a sort of one-two punch on how people valued goods and how they valued their own societies.

The real explosion in this view got really rolling in the 1970s, and in a manner that was highly ironic.  The social upheaval in the 1960s seemingly espoused a very non materialistic view of the world, which at the same time rejected almost any traditional value. But that really didn't last very long and the youth trend of the 1960s towards rejection saw the commercial hedonism in advertising of the 1950s fully adopted by the 1970s. The same generational cohort that was responsible for the upheaval of the late 60s and early 70s very quickly adopted a hardcore consumerist, money generation ethos by the early 80s.  Gordon Gecko's "greed is good" type of view was, ironically, a view espoused by many in the same generation that saw Woodstock as the pinnacle of their generations experience.  Termed the "Me Generations" in the 1970s, this saw its expression in consumerist behavior in the late 1970s and has dominated American economic output ever since.

Consumerism/Materialism has received real criticism for a long time, and has been defined as a  societal evil by its critics for years, receiving erudite analysis from everyone from hard left critics to the Popes at various times.  And that consumerism or materialism pose real dangers to society really cannot be challenged.  As recently analyzed in the Catholic Things You Should Know podcast, consumerism has given rise to a lack of attachment to goods and a lack of attachment to nearly everything by extent.  It's been deeply challenged by moral theorist but its also been attacked by liberal economist as well.  Environmentalist have also deeply attacked it, as it gives rise to a throw away culture that creates obvious environmental problems.  And sociologist have been in the fray as well, noting that a consumerist economy seemingly erodes a societal attachment to any meaningful standards or thought and gives rise to a deeply unhappy population. 

That last item alone has been the subject of extensive analysis in recent years, all of which has demonstrated that the purchase of goods at bests only gives rise to a very temporary sense of happiness followed by the opposite, but on the other hand experiences, shared with close friends and family do the precise opposite. As that's highly demonstrated, what Harrop observes that people may be electing to do would be to elect to act wisely. 

What she doesn't note, but what might very well be worth noting, is that this is arguably a generational change.  Observers of Generations X and Y have noted for some time that they are seemingly unimpressed and unattached to much careerist thought, to a degree that is sometimes maddening to Boomers and the World War Two Generation.  This has been frequently noted, but rarely addressed.  They seem to have low attachment to their occupations, or at least to employers, and in some fields that have traditionally demanded big sacrifices of personal time, they just don't.

Less noticed is that they do seem very attached to experiences and friends.  And they have slowly and conservatively adopted practices and modes of thinking that the Boomers claimed to liberally espouse in the 1960s, but didn't really seem to.  As a generation, they're more interested in what we could regard as Distributist and Agrarian thought, with all sorts of "buy local", know your farmer, etc. etc., type of practices and thoughts.  Activities that seemed in decline only a decade ago are now going the other way.  Local produce and small scale farming are on the rise. Small, just middle class, businesses that have no hope of big time entrepreneurial success are as well.  Hunting, a big activity in more rural and simpler times, has seen an enormous increase in recent years, with women joining the ranks in large numbers for the first time ever.

This would all seem to be a good trend, really, and its one that economist, sociologist and religious advocates have argued in favor of for a long time.  Harrop, however, frets a bit about it, noting

Before going on, let’s put in a good word for consumption. The lust to amass stuff associated with The Good Life is not entirely bad. It fuels the economy, and if budgets aren’t broken in the process, a splurge now and then can at least temporarily raise the spirits — doubly so when done in the company of other merrymakers.

But she also goes on to note:

Sadly, many of today’s shopping experiences do not raise the spirits. Picking up a cheaply made import at a big-box store on a drab strip is not quite the same thing as shopping for toys on a festive Main Street. Surely, the sameness of mall shopping has driven many a consumer online, where prices are transparent, the selection broad and traffic is zero.

If her observations are correct, this is a massive shift, or perhaps a massive return, to the value system of an earlier era, but more so.  Given that, those who have criticized materialistic thought might take some solace in her factual observations.  If people are really making this philosophical shift, it will alter out economy, but it will also mean that people are electing to live deeper lives. 

And if that's so, perhaps its not as surprising as it might at first seem.  Entire generations have shifted the values of their times, their countries, and even the entire world.  From time to time a large number of people do in fact adopt an outlook that has huge changes, sometimes positively, and sometimes negatively.  If she's correct, and this reflects a change in outlook, rather than a simple lack of buying power, this might be a good development.  It'd hard to see it as being a bad one.

Random Snippets. The Rocky Mountain News

Apparently Philip Anschutz is pondering reviving the Rocky Mountain News.

I hope he does.  I always liked the news much better than the Denver Post.

Mid Week At Work: Merchant Marine Recruiting Poster.

Lex Anteinternet: A Day In the Life: Today In Wyoming's History: De...

Yesterday we took a look at December 7, 1941, in this series.  That was, of course, the day the United States was attacked by the Japanese Empire and it remains one of the most significant and well remembered days in recent American history.  We looked at that topic here:

Lex Anteinternet: A Day In the Life: Today In Wyoming's History: De...: Today in this series we take a look at our entry from  Today In Wyoming's History: December 7 : on the topic of the Japanese Attack on ..

But perhaps for many people December 8 was nearly as momentous.  People were making decisions that would impact their lives for ever. What would we have been doing on that momentous Monday?  That's what we look at here.

First of all, for a little background.  My concept of this, in this thread or series of threads, is to look at ourselves in a fashion relatable to where we actually are in life in our modern lives.  It's always fun to imagine that in any one era, we'd be in the thick of things, but for most people, most of the time, on the day of any one big event, that's probably not true.

So, in order to put a little structure to this historical exercise, I'll put some basic facts to it that relate to may life now. So, I'll assume that I'm looking at December 1941 in a manner relatable to December 2014.  If that's the case, I'd be a lawyer, age 51, with two kids and a wife, living in Casper Wyoming.

That would also mean that I would have graduated from high school 33 years ago, which is a bit problematic here as 33 years prior to 1941, there wasn't a high school in in Casper Wyoming.  There would be soon after that, but there wasn't then. There were some public schools, however.  Assuming a basic 33 year prior date, would have put me, in this historical exercise, in the Class of 1908.

Going from there, in 1981, when I graduated from high school, I joined the Army National Guard, and I went to the local community college for three years before going on to the University of Wyoming.  Assuming a kindred path isn't really certain, however, as in 1908 the Homestead Act was still in effect, and would be for some time, and it'd be hard to imagine not availing myself of that.  But then, we do have cattle now, so perhaps I can work that into the mix somehow here.  So I'll assume some connection with cattle in 08.  I'll also assume that I decided to go on to the University of Wyoming in 08, which was an open institution, when Casper College wasn't around (and still wasn't in 1941).  And I'll assume that I graduated after five years, like I did, putting me in the UW class of 1913.  I stayed in the  Guard as an artilleryman for six years, and oddly enough, the Guard at that time was also artillery.  If I went on a similar path that'd put me in the Guard until 1914, but people tended to stay in it then, so I'll extend this imaginary exercise until 1915, which would have put me into the Punitive Expedition and the mobilization for World War One.  My guess is that I would have served as an officer in World War One, mostly because being a college graduate was unusual here at that time. And I would have mustered out with the entire National Guard following the Great War, and probably wouldn't have gone back into it.

 National Guardsman, 1915.

U.S. artillery in the field, Punitive Expedition.

Of course, I've omitted law school here, and if I graduated from UW in 1913, and had a gap of a year as a geologist as I did, that doesn't quite work out.  So, to really make this work out I have to put myself in the UW graduating class of 1912 (not unrealistic) and going on to law school.  At the time I graduated in in 1986 from UW, the oilfield economy had tanked (just like its threatening to do right now), so I went on to law school.  Would I have done that in 12?  The oilfield wasn't tanking in 12, but I can imagine reasons I might have done that.  On the other hand, I might have not gone until after World War One, at which time the oilfield had definitely tanked.

Okay, so in this imaginary exercise I'm making myself dull and typical.  In 1941 I would have been a 51 year old lawyer who owned cattle too, which is exactly what I am now.  I'd have been a veteran of the National Guard, which I also am now, but I would almost certainly have been a combat veteran, which I definitely am not.

Okay, so on Monday, December 8, 1941, after an exciting and scary evening on December 7, what would I have done?

Well, at age 51 I'd be beyond regular service age, but having had prior service in this scenario (08 to 18 or 19), I would probably been able to get back in.  The Army, Navy and Marine Corps did take back in veteran NCOs and officers under certain conditions, either because they had experience or because they had specialized training in their civilian life that was applicable to a big war. And I'm in pretty good shape, so the general advancement of age that otherwise took people in this category out of returned service, I'd probably have been okay. Things like transportation, logistics, and industry were often applicable and those guys could get in even without prior service.  A law degree, on the other hand, would not fit this category,a s lawyers were of such sufficient supply that later in the war lawyers drafted into the Army often ended up as privates.

Anyhow, given that, what I've set out here, and knowing myself, my guess is that on this day I'd have probably planned on calling on the Army recruiter to see if I could get back in.  By all accounts, a lot of other people had the same idea on that day..  In 1990 when the first Gulf War was up and rolling, I did contact my old Guard unit in case they were activated, but they were not.  I didn't take that action after 9/11, but frankly like a lot of guys who have some service time, I've felt sort of guilty about it ever since, even though at the time there didn't seem to be a real service to offer in what looked like it'd probably be a short specialist campaign in Afghanistan.  I think I'd feel like a slacker if I hadn't sought to go in World War Two. Indeed, knowing myself, and given that I have a fair number of Canadian relatives, I might have felt like a slacker by December 1941, given that Canada had been at war since September 1939.

 

Canadian poster seeking the reenlistment of older, prior service, soldiers.

Anyhow, in 1941, the Army recruiter was in the Federal Courthouse, one block from my office, which also hosted the post office at that time.  Federal Courthouses were sort of one size fits all affairs in that day.

 

 Wintry view of the Federal Courthouse, as seen from my office.

I'd have probably have gotten to work about the usual time, around 8:00, and I can actually see the courthouse from one of the office windows.  My guess is, however, that there was probably a line out the front door that morning, so I'd have probably tried again around 11:00 or so to see what that looked like.  I'd care for lines much, and knowing that this was going to last awhile, I'd have just planned on later in the week if I couldn't have gotten in.

 Newsstand, December 8, 1941.

But my guess is also that a person wouldn't have been able to get in to see the recruiter that morning, or maybe all day.  Maybe I'd have gotten in later in the day, or maybe later that week, depending upon how things went.  As for my son, no way I would have let a 17 year old enlist in the service.

Anyhow, because of my current age, chances are high that I'd end up in some administrative role in the U.S. or perhaps one in the service overseas, should I have succeeded in getting in. There's a ton of jobs of this type in the service, and they are necessary, but it isn't the sort of thing a person normally imagines themselves doing, and they don't make movies about it.  In terms of film, the only example of such a portrayal I can think of is the clerk figure in 12 O'clock High, who interestingly enough is supposed to have been a lawyer who is a veteran of World War One.  Occasionally, you'll read of the rare older individual who had a combat role in the age range I'm in, but frankly, World War Two, more than World War One, and certainly more than any war before or since, was a young man's war in terms of officers.  Oddly, enlisted men were older than we sometimes suspect, with the average troop in the 20s or 30s, but that's the case with officer also.  Officers over 50, at least in combat roles, were quite rare.  Even general officers over age 50 were rare in the U.S. Army.

On December 8, however, I'd probably have spent most of the day at the office, or most of it, depending if I could have gotten in to the recruiter or not.  And even if I had been able to, I suspect for that guys in my category, they'd have said come back in a couple of weeks when we have our act more together.  It would have made for a pretty unproductive day at work, followed by a return home that evening that would have been both interesting and uncomfortable.  I don't think the news of a person's intent in these regards would necessarily have been happy news, but it would have also been a tense evening of listening to the war news on the radio, and the news of the town from the family.

It's scary, somewhat, for a person my age to ponder this out.  That's because, as noted, my son is 17. There's no way he would have escaped a titanic war like World War Two.  And he would have been of the age in which really seeing the action would have been darned near inevitable. That's a scary thing to ponder.

And how about you?  How would your day have gone.

‘Lawyer Bubble’ author discusses what the future looks like for today’s new lawyers

‘Lawyer Bubble’ author discusses what the future looks like for today’s new lawyers

Interesting interview with the author of a book called "Lawyer Bubble" about the current practice and the future of the practice.  Interesting angle on his view of different generations of lawyers.

The Big Picture:

A Day In the Life: Today In Wyoming's History: December 7

Today in this series we take a look at our entry from  Today In Wyoming's History: December 7: on the topic of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1941.  When I posted this last year, I put in Mountain Time as well as Hawaii Time. Here I'll insert how my day likely would have gone had I been my current age, in my current location, on that Sunday, instead of this one.

December 7

Today is, by State Statute, WS 8-4-106, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.  The Statute provides:

(a) In recognition of the members of the armed forces who lost their lives and those who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, territory of Hawaii on December 7, 1941, December 7 of each year is designated as "Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day". The day shall be appropriately observed in the public schools of the state.

(b) The governor, not later  than September 1 of each year, shall issue a proclamation requesting proper observance of "Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day".

(c) This section shall not affect commercial paper, the making or execution of written agreements or judicial proceedings, or authorize public schools,businesses or state and local government offices to close.

Your Recollections:  What about you?

Do you have any personal recollections about December 7, 1941?  Either first hand, or that you recall hearing from family and friends?  And, by that, not just Pearl Harbor stories, but I'd be very interested to learn of any family recollections from those at home, on that day.  Wyoming is three hours ahead of Hawaii, did your family hear it that morning, or later in the day?  Just after church, or while tuning in fora football game?  Any recollection is welcome.

1941  US military installations were attack in Hawaii by the Imperial Japanese Navy bringing the US formally into World War Two.

It was a surprisingly warm day in Central Wyoming that fateful day.  The high was in the upper 40s, and low in the lower 20s.  Not atypical temperatures for December but certainly warmer than it can be.

Events played out like this:

0342 Hawaii Time, 0642 Mountain Standard Time:  The minesweeper USS Condor sighted a periscope and radioed the USS Ward:   "Sighted submerged submarine on westerly course, speed 9 knots.”

I would have been up at that time of the day, probably shepherding the family towards getting them out the door for Mass.

USS Condor

0610 Hawaii Time, 0910 Mountain Standard Time:  Japanese aircraft carriers turn into the wind and launch the first attack wave.

Chances are by this time, I'd be just about to leave Mass, or would have left Mass.  Now we usally swing by a grocery store and buy donuts, then go home, but at that time I'm not sure if there was a grocery store that was open here on Sundays.  I somewhat doubt it, in which case we'd all just head home.

0645-0653:  Hawaii Time, 0945-0953 Mountain Standard Time:  The USS Ward, mostly staffed by Naval Reservists, sights and engages a Japanese mini submarine first reported by the USS Connor, sinking the submarine.The Ward reports the entire action, albeit in code, noting:  "“We have dropped depth charges upon sub operating in defensive sea area" and “We have attacked, fired upon, and dropped depth charges upon submarine operating in defensive sea area.”

We'd probably have just been finishing breakfast and reading the newspaper.

 USS Ward

At this point in time, most Wyomingites would be up and enjoying the  day.  A large percentage would have gone to Church for the Sunday morning and have now started the rest of their Sundays.

0702 Hawaii Time, 1002 Mountain Standard Time:    An operator at the U.S. Army's newly installed Opana Mobile Radar Station, one of six such facilities on Oahu, sights 50 aircraft hits on his radar scope, which is confirmed by his co-operator.  They call Ft. Shafter and report the sighting.

If possible, I'd have headed out the door with my son to go duck and goose hunting.  But if the weekend went exactly like this weekend, in which I branded yesterday, have some work that I probably ought to do today, and where my wife wishes to put up a Christmas tree, maybe not.  We'll see, perhaps.

0715 Hawaii Time, 1015 Mountain Standard Time:  USS Ward's message decoded and reported to Admiral Kimmel, who orders back to "wait for verification."

0720 Hawaii Time, 1020 Mountain Standard Time:  U.S. Army lieutenant at Ft. Shafter reviews radar operator's message and believes the message to apply to a flight of B-17s which are known to be in bound from California.  He orders that the message is not to be worried about.

Hopefully, I'd be checking the creeks and ponds for ducks.

0733 Hawaii Time, 1033 Mountain Standard Time, 1233 Eastern Time:  Gen. George Marshall issues a warning order to Gen. Short that hostilities many be imminent, but due to atmospheric conditions, it has to go by telegraph rather than radio.  It was not routed to go as a priority and would only arrive after the attack was well underway.

0749  Hawaii Time, 1049 Mountain Standard Time:  Japanese Air-attack commander Mitsuo Fuchida looks down on Pearl Harbor and observes that the US carriers are absent.  He orders his telegraph operator to tap out to, to, to: signalling "attack" and then: to ra, to ra, to ra: attack, surprise achieved.  This is interpreted as some as Tora, Tora, Tora, "tiger, tiger, tiger" which it was not.  Those who heard that sometimes interpreted to be indicative of the Japanese phrase; "A tigergoes out 1,000 ri and returns without fail.” 

0755 Hawaii Time, 1055 Mountain Standard Time:  Commander Logan C. Ramsey, at the Command Center on Ford Island, looks out a window to see a low-flying plane he believes to be a reckless and

improperly acting U.S. aircraft.  He then notices “something black fall out of that plane” and realizes instantly an air raid is in progress.  He orders telegraph operators to sendout an uncoded message to every ship and the base that: "AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL"

We'd probably still be out, checking ponds and creeks.

0800 Hawaii time, 11:00 Mountain Standard Time.  B-17s which were to be stationed at Oahu begin to land, right in the midst of the Japanese air raid.

0810  Hawaii Time, 11:10 Mountain Standard Time.  The USS Arizona fatally hit.

 USS Arizona

0817 Hawaii Time:  11:17 Mountain Standard Time.  The USS Helm notices a submarine ensnared in the the antisubmarine net and engages it.  It submerges but this partially floods the submarine, which must be abandoned.

 USS Helm

0839  Hawaii Time.  1139  Mountain Standard Time. The USS Monaghan, attempting to get out of the harbor, spotted another miniature submarine and rammed and depth charged it.

 USS Monaghan

0850 Hawaii Time.  11:50 Mountain Standard Time.  The USS Nevada, with her steam now up, heads for open water.  It wouldn't make it and it was intentionally run aground to avoid it being sunk.

USS Nevada

0854  Hawaii Time.  1150 Mountain Standard Time.  The Japanese second wave hits.

0929 Hawaii Time.  1229 Mountain Standard Time.  NBC interrupts regular programming to announce that Pearl Harbor was being attacked.

If we had a truck with a radio (and of course it'd have been a two wheel drive truck), this is when we first would have learned of anything out hunting. But most pickups didn't have radios, and as my seven year old truck is the most basic one I could find, I doubt a truck I would have owned in 1941 would have had one.  If I'd been driving a rough equivalent, say a 1934 Dodge, probably not.

At home, however, my wife would have had the radio on, she would have learned of the attack and started worrying right then. We have, after all, a 17 year old son.

0930  Hawaii Time.  1230  Mountain Standard Time.  CBS interrupts regular programming to announce that Pearl Harbor was being attacked.

0930 Hawaii Time.  1230 Mountain Standard Time.  The bow of the USS Shaw, a destroyer, is blown off.  The ship would be repaired and used in the war.

 Explosion on the Shaw.

0938 Hawaii Time, 1238 Mountain Standard Time.  CBS erroneously announces that Manila was being attacked.  It wasn't far off, however, as the Philippines would be attacked that day (December 8 given the

International Date Line).

Out hunting, we wouldn't have been back yet. At home, the anxiety would have been increased.

10:00 Hawaii Time, 13:00 Mountain Standard Time

The USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor on this day.

1300 Hawaii Time.  1600 Mountain Standard Time.  Japanese task forces begins to turn towards Japan.

A third wave was by the Japanese debated, but not launched.

Wyoming is three hours ahead of Hawaii (less than I'd have guessed) making the local time here about 10:30 a.m. on that Sunday morning when the attack started..  The national radio networks began to interrupt their programming about 12:30.  On NBC the announcement fell between Sammy Kaye's Sunday Serenade and the University of Chicago Round Table, which was featuring a program on Canada at war.  On NBC the day's episode of Great Plays was interrupted for their announcement. CBS had just begun to broadcast The World Today which actually  headlined with their announcement fairly seamlessly.

We would probably have come home about 3:00 or 4:00, maybe 5:00, and have learned of the days events then.  It'd be a stressful, and dare I say it, exciting night, as the future was pondered.  Including the future of "what will I do tomorrow morning".

And how about you and yours?  How would this day have played out for you? 

Random Snippets: Today In Wyoming's History: December 7

Today In Wyoming's History: December 7:

I also note, at least according to an engineer who explained it to me, that December 7 is also a date involving an astronomical anomaly, that being that it is the day of the year which, in the Northern Hemisphere, features the earliest sunset.  That doesn't, of course, make it the shortest day of the year, it's just that the sunsets the earliest on this day, or so I am told

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Community Presbyterian Church, Shoshoni Wyoming

Churches of the West: Community Presbyterian Church, Shoshoni Wyoming:

Catching the Mail on the Fly

Lex Anteinternet: Levis

A little over a year ago I blogged on Levis with this entry:

Lex Anteinternet: Levis: Rancher, wearing blue jeans, in the early 1940s. The roll up cuff was extremely common at that time. At the time I started this entr...

I was reminded of this as last week I heard a newstory in which theives rammed a car into a store and stole jeans.

Yes, jeans.

That a person would ram a car into a story and steal jeans surprised me, but what really surprised me is that the value of the jeans was reported to be $700.00 a pair.

I'm sorry, but $700.00 for blue jeans is insane.  A person shouldn't be buying what are essentially work pants, no matter how dressed up or fancified, for $700.00 a pair. Shoot, a really good men's suit cost about that, and they're practically hand made for a particular purpose.

That there even are blue jeans that are priced at that level, and that people buy them, is disturbing really.  There's something just not right about that.  Basically, if you want to wear blue jeans, and I do a fair amount, the sane thing to do would be to buy a good pair at a reasonable price.  Levis, Lees, Wranglers, all fit that bill.  They're relatively expensive, it seems to me, but not at the unreasonable rate.  $700 is so high a person is buying them for some reason other than that they like blue jeans, and that ought to be reconsidered.

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Wyoming Sheep Wagons

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Wyoming Sheep Wagons: This year marks the 130 th Anniversary of the construction of the first sheep wagon built by James Candlish.  Many have attributed the inv...

No 'Misteak': High Beef Prices A Boon For Drought-Weary Ranchers : The Salt : NPR

No 'Misteak': High Beef Prices A Boon For Drought-Weary Ranchers : The Salt : NPR

NCHS seeks $350,000 for John F. Welsh auditorium

NCHS seeks $350,000 for John F. Welsh auditorium

I realize it isn't in any way related to the failed effort to get a pool, but I guess I don't want to let that one go.  Here there's a campaign to improve the auditorium, and the more power to them, but what about the pool?

Of course, they're only seeking $350,000 here, not an unreasonable amount, but if a private drive for the auditorium seems wise, why not one for the pool, while there's still space to put it in?

Holscher's Hub: Curious cow, and changing a tire

Holscher's Hub: Curious cow, and changing a tire

$40/barrel?

 

Driven by Saudi Arabian efforts, the price of petroleum oil is falling through the floor.  When I last checked, it was down under $70/bbl.  I read a prediction the other day that it may actually fall as low as $40/bbl. While I haven't checked to make sure, at $40/bbl, it will be at a historic low in real terms.  That is, in actual value, it would never have been that cheap before.

I've been sort of waiting for something like this to happen for awhile, but not quite in this fashion. That's mostly due to having a long term memory.  I have lived here my entire life, and I well remember the last time the price of oil went through the floor.  The irony of our local economy has long been that if the price of oil is high, the times are good here, and the economy super heated.  If the price is low, we locally slide into a recession or even a depression.  For those who experienced this in the early 1980s, a recollection of an oilfield depression is pretty strong.  For those of us who are older with good memories, or who had parents who recalled it, a similar event was also strongly recalled that occurred in the 1960s.  And for students of history, we now that another one happened right after World War One, in the 1930s, and again in the 1940s following World War Two.

Now, not all of these events were the same in scope or impact, although they were all big deals locally. The size of some towns decreased by about 80% following the one in the late 1940s.

Of course, some things have changed.  For one thing, the cause and circumstances of the prior falls were all a bit different than what we're currently seeing.  The declines after World War One and World War Two came during an era when we were a net oil exporter and there was a sudden global decline in demand due to the end of the wars.  The decline in the 1930s was due to a global depression when all economic output drastically declined.

The most recent decline, of the early 1980s, was due to increased Arabian production combined with a fall at the pump, as OPEC began to become a bit unraveled and also as it became clear to the Saudi Arabians that a distressed American economy was bad for its long term economic stability.  That came in an era when we were desperately dependant on Arabian oil, something that came about unnoticed during the 1960s but which became obvious in 1973 when OPEC enacted an embargo on export to the U.S. due to our support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War.  Every year after that the US tried to become more independent of foreign oil but failed, leading to a decade of rising oil prices, until OPEC, or really Saudi Arabia, fearing American economic instability, dropped the prices, and as OPEC lost a lot of its steam in the wake of the Iranian revolution.

The decline of the early 1980s lead to an oil patch depression that really only slowly began to go away in the late 1980s, going into an oil patch recession that really lasted up until the mid 1990s at least. There was some stability after that, and then a boom erupted in the last decade that remains unabated.  Local economist debate if there is a boom, but there is.  Anyone can see it with their naked eyes.  The cost of anything land related has shot up, as its become scarce, and we're up over 100% statistical full employment.

But that's how things were around 1980-1982 as well, and hence the waiting for the other shoe to drop that long term locals have had, and indeed that some in the industry have had.  It can't go on forever, it would seem.  But recently people have sort of dared to think it sort of might, even though that clearly cannot happen. Once all the fields are drilled, they're drilled. That creates its own infrastructure, of course, which must be serviced, but still, it isn't the same as when all the regional rigs are working.

But the times aren't quite what they were in the early 80s either.  For one thing, and apparently the cause of the current Saudi effort, the US is not really that dependant on foreign oil anymore.  Advances in technology have opened up vast resources in the U.S., and the U.S. is an energy, albeit not oil, exporter.   As prices have stabilized at a fairly high, by historical standards, pump rate, it's also been the case that Americans acclimated to it, which nobody expected, making the demand fairly stable.  And as that's occurred, its actually declined.  A new generation of Americans is not car enamored.  And the historical memory of foreign oil enslavement remains strong such that there is widespread support for increased CAFE standards and even from shifting away for oil entirely, if possible, for fuel.  So price stability hasn't resulted so far in a price fall, exploration has kept on keeping on bringing more resources to the global supply at what was the existing rate, thereby increasing the profitable supply while decreasing the foreign imports. And, as North American is one continent and one giant oil province, the technological advances that have made this possible in the United States, that being horizontal drilling, have also made it possible in Canada, which has pretty much supplanted Arabia as our go to source for petroleum.

It took the Saudis a long time to awaken to this, and they probably just didn't believe it would last, but they're awake now and according to what I've read, and what industry insiders have told me, this is a calculated Saudi effort to shut down American exploration.  The thesis is that by depressing the price it'll fall below the level at which it will be profitable to explore in the United States and Canada, and it seems to be working.  According to what I'm reading, drilling is in fact being postponed.  It isn't as if the newly known fields are going to go away, but contrary to what some of the news was on these fields earlier in the recent boom, it isn't as if all of these fields weren't known in some way before.  Some are wholly new, however.

The long term impact of this will be really interesting.  Chances are pretty good that in the new oil provinces in the United States and Canada there will be an economic downturn.  My guess is that it might be pretty stout in North Dakota, which hadn't seen exploration of this type since the Williston Basin days of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and which otherwise had a relatively depressed farm economy.  In Wyoming and Montana, where the boom has been very real but somewhat muted, the impact is unlikely to be as severe.  This will mean, I suspect, that the percentage of oil the U.S. imports will rise, but my guess is that it won't rise as spectacularly as the Saudis hope it will.  Perhaps showing how severe it was, the memory of the import crisis of the 1970s has not really ever gone away and there remains pretty strong support for more and more fuel efficient vehicles, a movement that's also tied into increasing environmental concerns.  Somewhat related in terms of impact, it appears that the American cultural fascination with automobiles is ending, and that also means that cars are viewed increasingly as only one of several utilitarian options for getting around, and not one that's seen as glamorous or even desirable by younger people, who are willing to buy what's economical and abandon cars altogether if economically rational.  Moreover, given the advance in technology in oil production, the United States will retain at this point an ability to increase production, which will mean that the Saudis will have to keep the price low in order to keep their share of production high. That has long term impacts on them, as even though they'll be making money, they have to do it through low prices and high production, a program that has long term impacts on their reserves and their own economy.