Friday, March 25, 2016
Lex Anteinternet: The Demise of the Magazine
Back in November I ran this item:
That included the sad news about the National Geographic, which the National Geographic Society had sold, but it also included this item:
Lex Anteinternet: The Demise of the Magazine: When I was young, I was an avid magazine reader. My father subscribed, when I was very young, to Life, Look, Time, Newsweek, Spor...
Well, I suppose its in the nature of gloating, but that journals effort at reviving its fortunes by finding a few clothes for the sad waifs who appear on and in it may not be working. The entire company is now far sale.Another magazine that's been in trouble for years and which I also doubt will survive has been in the news as well, that being the trash put out by an ossified freak whose main achievement is to help objectify women since the early 1950s. I'm glad its in trouble, but the reason that it is, is the same that the National Geographic is, the Internet. Here the story is more grim. The National Geographic has not declined and is simply the victim of free information. The other magazine, on the other hand, helped take debasement out of the gutter and into everyone's homes and now it can't make a go of it, as the Internet allows trash to be circulated for free. In other words, having helped pollute the culture, there's too much pollution everywhere in order for it to make a go of selling it.
So is the mansion where the perpetrator of this act against women lives, although even should you buy it for the listed $200,000,000 you have to let him keep living there. Regarding that location, I can't help but note that one of the frequent visitors on the location in its glory days was comedian Bill Cosby, who is now in trouble for allegedly acting in a way that seems hyper objectified women. The mansion's owner expressed dismay over that early on, as supposedly one of the bad acts occurred on his premises (I've forgotten the details) but the shocking thing to me is that Cosby, who was so beloved, seems to never have had any compunctions about gong there, which when you consider that his reputation was somewhat family based, shows how far we've fallen.
Anyhow, if you buy the place, you have to let the guy keep living there. I suppose at his advanced age you're just running down the clock, but so far it hasn't sold.
The rest of the business is for sale for $500,000,000. It's interesting that the house has an asking price of about half the entire business. It's for sale, as its doing badly.
And meanwhile, in the current war. . .
I haven't been posting in a long while on the war on ISIL, but it's hard to ignore this week, as ISIL struck Brussels.
Once again, people seem surprised. I don't know why they'd be surprised. Brussels is a major European capital and in some ways is the Capital of Europe. To the deluded eye of ISIL, Brussels is a seat of power of the Crusader Empire they imagine to be hounding them, and which they wish to conquer, rather than a sad secular reminder of what Europe once was (which they'd still wish to conquer).
There will be more of this. This certainly isn't the last ISIL attack on an European city, and for that matter an attack of some sort on a US one is only a matter of time. Just after the news of the attack on Brussels came news that ISIL had sent out about 400 operatives into the West to conduct such affairs. Now, that's a high number, but only a fraction of them will ever do anything. Still, that number is enough so that some, I'd guess about 10%, will try something.
Brussels may have been particularly prone to this, it should be noted, as pre attack commentators noted that it has not been successful, as much of Europe has not been, in integrating its Islamic residents. This is a huge difference between the US and Canada as compared to Europe. Europe does let in immigrants (although, the recent refugee crisis aside, not anywhere near the rate the US does), but European societies generally do not "melt". Indeed, for Americans and Canadians one of the really shocking aspects of European culture is that they do not. It's probably an example of Holscher's Third Law of History, but while the cultures change (less than imagined) over time, they stick. So immigrant cultures in Europe tend to end up immigrant islands, where as that tends to last only a generation in North America.
That doesn't mean that some Islamic immigrants do not secularize. They do, but that also ends up putting the same societies in danger. I haven't seen anything about it in this instance, but it is notable that in the Paris attacks the attackers decried the "apostates", i.e., those of Islamic culture who have not stayed traditionally strict in their observance of their faith (although in many parts of the globe even Islamic societies aren't particularly strict in their observance). So, an attack on Brussels was pretty predictable.
Even as this comes, however, ISIL's fortunes are declining in the Middle East and much more rapidly than I would have guessed. In Syria, the Syrian government is clearly going to win and is retaking lost ground fairly rapidly. ISIL's days in Syria are numbered, and for that matter the entire rebellion there is on the decline. This is largely due to Russian assistance, which perhaps shows the degree to which Russia correctly read the entire situation. ISIL will likely be without territory in Syria fairly soon.
Also in Iraq, however, has the tide been seen to turn, albeit slowly. The current Iraqi government, amazingly, seems to have gotten its military act together, but with a huge amount of American military assistance. The news broke this week that the number of US troops in Iraq is in fact much larger than previously estimated. So, giving credit where credit is due, the Obama Administration seems to have quietly read the situation correctly and this is leading to the slow victory in Iraq.
What a defeat in Iraq will mean for ISIL isn't completely clear. Will it go underground? Or will it simply disappear? Al Queda remains around, but it's a mere shadow of its former self. Perhaps we have more reason to be optimistic than we could have previously hoped.
On that, a person has to wonder if the Kurds are optimistic. The Kurds have been an ironic beneficiary of the war on ISIL as they always had their act together and managed to hold on to their ground in both Syria and Iraq. In Syria, they've now declared their region to be a federal region, which doesn't mean that the Syrian government is going to view it that way, or that the Turks will like that either.
Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: Today In Wyoming's History. Bad economic news
I posted this a day or so ago, and then heard later that same day that these rates were even worse in some other Wyoming counties than I'd posted here.
Oddly, this comes at the same time as a rebound, to some degree, in prices. But it takes a long time to turn things around, and the prices still haven't risen to he level that makes further exploration viable.
Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: Today In Wyoming's History. Bad eco...: Today In Wyoming's History: March 23 2016 : For the first time since 2000, Wyoming's unemployment rate is higher than the nation...Added to that, the rig report for the US indicates that the number of U.S. drilling rigs is now at an all time low. The lowest ever, apparently which is a few shy of the prior low in 1999.
Oddly, this comes at the same time as a rebound, to some degree, in prices. But it takes a long time to turn things around, and the prices still haven't risen to he level that makes further exploration viable.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Blog Mirror: Tim McCoy: Wyoming Postscripts: Wyoming Cowboy, Military Officer, Politician and Movie Star
Wyoming Postscripts: Tim McCoy: Wyoming Cowboy, Military Officer, Politician and Movie Star
On this day in 1928, the movie “Wyoming” starring Tim McCoy was release. The movie was filmed outside of Lander, Wyoming. . .
The Punitive Expedition: 10th Cavalry reaches San Diego del Monte. March 24, 1916
The U.S. Army's 10th Cavalry Regiment reached San Diego del Monte. The 10th was one of the U.S. Army's two black cavalry regiments. The regiments were made up of black enlisted men and normally all of the officers were white, but the 10th was unusual in that the senior major of the regiment, Maj. Charles Young, was a black West Point graduate. Indeed, the unit had a total of six black officers.
Blog Mirror: Today In Wyoming's History. Bad economic news
Today In Wyoming's History: March 23 2016: For the first time since 2000, Wyoming's unemployment rate is higher than the national average.
The unemployment rate only comes in a little above 5%, which shows how high the rate of employment is statistically in the country right now. This is high enough nationwide that we fit into what used to be regarded as technical full employment. It's never possible to have 100% employment. In recent years, however, figures in this area have been regarded in a negative light and some claim the actual nationwide rate of employment is higher.
At any rate, the real unemployment rate in Wyoming is undoubtedly higher. Natrona County has a 7.2% unemployment rate and Carbon County has a 6% unemployment rate. Both counties are energy dependent for their economies, as is of course the state generally. Given as Wyoming had a high migrant employment rate in recent years the high unemployment rate now probably reflects a significant degree of reverse migration, so the actual rate is likely much higher than what we're now seeing reported.
The unemployment rate only comes in a little above 5%, which shows how high the rate of employment is statistically in the country right now. This is high enough nationwide that we fit into what used to be regarded as technical full employment. It's never possible to have 100% employment. In recent years, however, figures in this area have been regarded in a negative light and some claim the actual nationwide rate of employment is higher.
At any rate, the real unemployment rate in Wyoming is undoubtedly higher. Natrona County has a 7.2% unemployment rate and Carbon County has a 6% unemployment rate. Both counties are energy dependent for their economies, as is of course the state generally. Given as Wyoming had a high migrant employment rate in recent years the high unemployment rate now probably reflects a significant degree of reverse migration, so the actual rate is likely much higher than what we're now seeing reported.
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
The Punitive Expedition: The Casper Daily Press, March 23, 1916
Let's look at the entire evening paper this go around.
This is the first issue of the Casper evening paper in which a story about the troops in Mexico is not on the first page, since the raid on Columbus.
The editor was casting doubts on the distance between Villa and Carranza.
I've never even heard of Wyoming Light Lager.
This is the first issue of the Casper evening paper in which a story about the troops in Mexico is not on the first page, since the raid on Columbus.
The editor was casting doubts on the distance between Villa and Carranza.
I've never even heard of Wyoming Light Lager.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Clothing standards, men's suits, and the price of gold. Observations on 1916 and 2016
I shouldn't have been, given the dress standards of the day, but I was surprised that a clothing store would take out a full page add day after day for men's suits in 1916 Casper Wyoming.
On the suits, I've heard it claimed that a good man's suit has cost approximately the same as one ounce of freely traded gold for over a century (keeping in mind that there was a protracted period of time during which gold was not freely traded in the US. An ounce of gold today is $1,254.30. In 1916 it was $20.67, so maybe that's sort of freakishly correct. As we can see, suits in this advertisement traded for about the price of an once of gold.. Brooks Brothers suits, according to their on line site, start at a little over $600 and range up to about $1200. So that observation isn't far off.
Not that I'm making some stunning observation regarding it. Just an odd fact.
Of course, a lot bigger percentage of the population spent that once of gold on suits in 1916, as opposed to 2016.
That last fact, I'd note, is particularly important. A lot higher percentage of the male population had a suit, in 1916, than now, I'm pretty sure. And a lot higher percentage of the male population wore a suit every day. So that says something about the allocation of resources.
But the cost ration has freakishly held all those years.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Postscript.
It turns out that this phenomenon is widely noted, fwiw, so while it was surprising to me, it's apparently not surprising to everyone.
For example, one article reports that "History Shows Price of an Ounce of Gold Equals Price of a Decent Men's Suit, Says Sionna Investment Managers". Another notes:
So, it appears, what I've commented on is not only well known, but forms some sort of routine observation by many. A rule of thumb.
That last fact, I'd note, is particularly important. A lot higher percentage of the male population had a suit, in 1916, than now, I'm pretty sure. And a lot higher percentage of the male population wore a suit every day. So that says something about the allocation of resources.
But the cost ration has freakishly held all those years.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Postscript.
It turns out that this phenomenon is widely noted, fwiw, so while it was surprising to me, it's apparently not surprising to everyone.
For example, one article reports that "History Shows Price of an Ounce of Gold Equals Price of a Decent Men's Suit, Says Sionna Investment Managers". Another notes:
The expensive clothes store at the entrance to our office building is advertising “two hand-made suits for $1,500.”
This tells that the price of gold will decrease a lot more. For historically the price of gold has been equal to the price of a suit for a well-dressed man. It cost an ounce of gold to buy a toga for a Roman senator; it cost ounce of gold to buy the outfit Lord Capulet wore at that fateful ball where Juliet met Romeo; it cost my father $35 for a good suit when he was a miner of gold at $35 an ounce. Why should I pay twice the price of an ounce of gold for a suit?Another site declares the price of gold at the time the article was written as "out of whack" as the ratio wasn't quite holding.
So, it appears, what I've commented on is not only well known, but forms some sort of routine observation by many. A rule of thumb.
Monday, March 21, 2016
The Punitive Expedition in the Press: Casper Daily Press for March 21, 1916.
Note how the horror of World War One has made its way back onto the front page of the newspaper.
Blog Mirror: Law Prowse: LawProse Lesson #25: Whatever doesn't help positively hurths
Sunday, March 20, 2016
As the grim economic news kept coming in. . . mixed signals
Just yesterday I ran our item featuring news from a couple of energy outfits. It likely can't be regarded as cheery.
After I published that, I ran into somebody I know who worked in a service company. A local, in his early 60s, he told me he'd been let go a couple of months ago. Notably, he's a Wyoming native and he was taking it well, and not even worried really. Almost 62 years old, he was basically marking time until he could take early retirement, which he now intends to do. Ironically, at the same show I ran into my wife's old landlord (from before our marriage), a really nice guy, who once worked for one of the refineries. He's actually gone back to work as a parts runner as he was finding retirement to be boring.
Anyhow, in today's Tribune, which now features a Sunday "energy" section, there's a detailed article noting that prices at the well head are up to $40/bbl and aren't falling. They might be rising a bit. They're now high enough that a couple of local outfits are contemplating drilling if the price holds. We might keep seeing some layoffs for awhile, but if the price holds, and it looks like it will, we will probably be returning to an exploration economy in the petroleum industry, but not a superheated one. This might be a good thing overall. It won't happen right away, but I wouldn't be surprised to see an increase in rigs by late 2016.
Today's Tribune also had a column written by the new state Superintendent of Public Instruction. She was in the news taking a little heat over eliminating a position in her department recently, but was featured today regarding her term in office so far. In her column she summarizes her time in office so far noting, in one paragraph, the challenges that declining revenue are putting on the education budget. She noted the trouble in the petroleum and coal industries specifically.
I note that here not only because it's real, but because she termed the coal problems as "the war on coal.". That's a common perception here but it is a political one as well.
On what she noted, I'm surprised she mentioned petroleum as petroleum only directly impacts the education budget. It's coal that really does. When this system was set up in the 1970s coal was doing really well and there was no reason to add petroleum to the mix. As hard up as coal has been recently, however, we might really want to think about adding petroleum severance taxes to education funding. Petroleum is doing poorly, but it will come back at at least some level. Indeed the articles in the tribune noted that US production will fall next year which will cause the price to at least stabilize. Natural gas, part of the petroleum story, is likely to do increasingly better in the future as power generation is switching over to it nationwide.
Which brings me back to "the war on coal". It's been popular here to conceive of the troubles coal is having as part of a dedicated effort against it. I suspect that was thrown out as a little political kibble to the public, but she may perceive it in that fashion. Quite a few people in the state do. But such thoughts should be realistic. It is true that coal has lost favor in the eyes of much of the public. But, no matter what we here in this state may think of coal, we need to be realistic. That view is going to increase, not decrease. Indeed, while the state is funding "clean coal" efforts, the trend evidence is that production curve on coal may have shifted forever. The industry itself was banking on Chinese importation of coal, not American consumption, and that gamble proved to be a bad one. The conversion to natural gas for power generation appears to be irreversible and in the future that's what fossil fuel burning plants will burn. Indeed, no new coal burning ones are being built in North America just as the construction of oil burning power plants, which used to also exist, is now a thing of the past. So, even while there are those who are dedicated opponents of coal out there, it's really economics and long term trends that are imperiling coal. The industry is well aware of that, I'm quite sure. Coal mining is not about to disappear overnight, but those who are looking to the 1970 to 2010 era in coal to reappear are going to have to face the hard facts that certain fundamental things have changed in the industry, and fundamental changes need always to be adapted to.
After I published that, I ran into somebody I know who worked in a service company. A local, in his early 60s, he told me he'd been let go a couple of months ago. Notably, he's a Wyoming native and he was taking it well, and not even worried really. Almost 62 years old, he was basically marking time until he could take early retirement, which he now intends to do. Ironically, at the same show I ran into my wife's old landlord (from before our marriage), a really nice guy, who once worked for one of the refineries. He's actually gone back to work as a parts runner as he was finding retirement to be boring.
Anyhow, in today's Tribune, which now features a Sunday "energy" section, there's a detailed article noting that prices at the well head are up to $40/bbl and aren't falling. They might be rising a bit. They're now high enough that a couple of local outfits are contemplating drilling if the price holds. We might keep seeing some layoffs for awhile, but if the price holds, and it looks like it will, we will probably be returning to an exploration economy in the petroleum industry, but not a superheated one. This might be a good thing overall. It won't happen right away, but I wouldn't be surprised to see an increase in rigs by late 2016.
Today's Tribune also had a column written by the new state Superintendent of Public Instruction. She was in the news taking a little heat over eliminating a position in her department recently, but was featured today regarding her term in office so far. In her column she summarizes her time in office so far noting, in one paragraph, the challenges that declining revenue are putting on the education budget. She noted the trouble in the petroleum and coal industries specifically.
I note that here not only because it's real, but because she termed the coal problems as "the war on coal.". That's a common perception here but it is a political one as well.
On what she noted, I'm surprised she mentioned petroleum as petroleum only directly impacts the education budget. It's coal that really does. When this system was set up in the 1970s coal was doing really well and there was no reason to add petroleum to the mix. As hard up as coal has been recently, however, we might really want to think about adding petroleum severance taxes to education funding. Petroleum is doing poorly, but it will come back at at least some level. Indeed the articles in the tribune noted that US production will fall next year which will cause the price to at least stabilize. Natural gas, part of the petroleum story, is likely to do increasingly better in the future as power generation is switching over to it nationwide.
Which brings me back to "the war on coal". It's been popular here to conceive of the troubles coal is having as part of a dedicated effort against it. I suspect that was thrown out as a little political kibble to the public, but she may perceive it in that fashion. Quite a few people in the state do. But such thoughts should be realistic. It is true that coal has lost favor in the eyes of much of the public. But, no matter what we here in this state may think of coal, we need to be realistic. That view is going to increase, not decrease. Indeed, while the state is funding "clean coal" efforts, the trend evidence is that production curve on coal may have shifted forever. The industry itself was banking on Chinese importation of coal, not American consumption, and that gamble proved to be a bad one. The conversion to natural gas for power generation appears to be irreversible and in the future that's what fossil fuel burning plants will burn. Indeed, no new coal burning ones are being built in North America just as the construction of oil burning power plants, which used to also exist, is now a thing of the past. So, even while there are those who are dedicated opponents of coal out there, it's really economics and long term trends that are imperiling coal. The industry is well aware of that, I'm quite sure. Coal mining is not about to disappear overnight, but those who are looking to the 1970 to 2010 era in coal to reappear are going to have to face the hard facts that certain fundamental things have changed in the industry, and fundamental changes need always to be adapted to.
Saturday, March 19, 2016
Marathon, Peabody and the airlines
This past week the state received the bad news that Marathon Oil Company, formerly Ohio Oil Company, which was once headquartered in Casper Wyoming and then later in Cody Wyoming, and which has had a presence in the state since 1914, is attempting to sell its Wyoming assets. At least psychologically, and indeed in reality, it's quite a blow to the state.
The Ohio Oil Company Building in Casper.
The Ohio Oil Company built a major art deco building that it used as its headquarters from 1925 until 1974, when it built a new headquarters in Cody. The building remains there today as a significant downtown building, with the old Marathon sign off so that the Ohio Oil Company name cast in cement above the main door is visible The building is one of four buildings, including the ConRoy Building where I work, that were built by oil companies starting during World War One and through the 1920s and which were still standing when I started practicing law in 1990. The other two were the Pan American Building, built by Pan American Petroleum (founded in 1916 and merged into Standard Oil in 1954) and the Sinclair Building. The Sinclair building, which was a neat two story building that had garden level basement windows, was torn down in the 1990s, which I thought was a shame, as it was an attractive building with Greek architectural elements. It apparently was a building that, because of its comparatively low stature, people didn't photograph much as I can't find a photo of it anywhere, and I never took one. It's the Townsend Justice Center parking lot now. Oh well.
Now the Townsend Justice Center, once the Townsend Hotel, when this photograph was taken I was standing pretty much where the Sinclair Building had once been. Given the nature of the residents of the Townsend in its long declining years, its conversion into a courthouse is either strangely ironic or oddly appropriate.
Anyhow, Marathon's Cody building was also a very nice one, although I remember there being some discontent in 1974 when they moved. That I can remember that at all, as I was eleven years old at the time, must mean that there was some real discontent about it. Having said that, my moving to Cody they were bucking a trend and moving closer to their production. By the 2000s, however, it had another office building in Houston Texas and some years ago it closed its Cody office and moved its headquarters operations solely to Houston. It's sold off some of its assets in Wyoming slowly since the 2000s but it's now looking to completely divest itself of its Wyoming properties, presuming that it can sell them for a reasonable price. It's not conducting a fire sale.
This reflects in another fashion a really long term trend that's occurred in the oil patch. At one time, there were a lot of oil company headquarters. Indeed, there were a lot of them in Casper, which at one time had newspaper that claimed it was the "Oil Capitol of the World". Marathon is unusual in that it moved out of Casper to smaller Cody, which was closer to its assets, but the loss of regional oil companies is pretty pronounced, if not actually complete. Many moved to Denver starting in the 1960s. During the bust of the 1970s those that hadn't moved tended to, and many of the Denver based companies moved to Houston.
The Consolidated Royalty Building, built in 1917 as the Oil Exchange Building, and which remains in use as a downtown office building.
Now Houston, followed by Tulsa, is the undoubted oil headquarters for the US. There are still headquarters in Denver, but not as many as there once was. Notably on that Denver has been booming during this oil bust, unlike the 1970s when it suffered a great deal just like Casper. There have been layoffs in Denver, but Denver's economy has changed so much it just isn't suffering the way that it did in the 1970s. Indeed, while individual and individual companies have suffered, the city itself has a robust economy. Not so much the case for Wyoming.
Marathon's departure is sad for Wyoming. A lot of Wyomingites who have been here for a long time have a connection with Marathon in one way or another. One of my cousins worked for Marathon back in the 1980s and I once defended Marathon in a personal injury action. Even with its headquarters in Houston it seemed like a Wyoming company to many of us.
Wyoming Oil World, June 15, 1918. This issue mentions a couple of items that have figured significantly in the news here lately. The Salt Creek field mentioned here is still in production, but it recently sold. The Ohio Oil Company mentioned in connection with Salt Creek is Marathon, which ceased being an operator in this field long ago.
Peabody, the giant coal company, announced this past week that it will be missing payments to some of its creditors. It's fighting off going into bankruptcy and that isn't good news. I know a lot less about Peabody in Wyoming, and while the Peabody Coal Company hates the song, I can't hear the name without thinking of John Prine's song Paradise. Peabody apparently was counting on Chinese coal imports to keep it afloat and now that the Chinese economy has been in trouble, that isn't working out. Added tot that, for the first time ever, more electricity will be generated in the United States using natural gas as a fuel than coal.
Following these two stories, two others came on the same topic. A local energy industry related entity announced that it was laying off 50 of its employees. Fifty men and women isn't enough to cause a big impact in the local economy, but it follows this occurring in a lot of other local businesses, some of which hit the news, and others which did not. On the same day the local paper reported that Natrona County's unemployment rate is now 7.2%, quite a bit higher than the 5% average for the state, and in second position to energy heavy Fremont County which is at 8.1%. Keep in mind, as I pointed out the other day, that 7% reflects the local unemployment rate but not the local exodus rate, so 7% is more like 8%, or perhaps more like 10%, by the time everything is figured into it.
Following these two stories, two others came on the same topic. A local energy industry related entity announced that it was laying off 50 of its employees. Fifty men and women isn't enough to cause a big impact in the local economy, but it follows this occurring in a lot of other local businesses, some of which hit the news, and others which did not. On the same day the local paper reported that Natrona County's unemployment rate is now 7.2%, quite a bit higher than the 5% average for the state, and in second position to energy heavy Fremont County which is at 8.1%. Keep in mind, as I pointed out the other day, that 7% reflects the local unemployment rate but not the local exodus rate, so 7% is more like 8%, or perhaps more like 10%, by the time everything is figured into it.
I thought that a sure sign that things are slowing down here is a decrease in air service I thought I was detecting, but in retrospect I think I may have been a bit fooled by a change in the electronic booking programs over the last few weeks and the increased Spring Break travel going on. I haven't been tracking that, and I sure should have been.
Last year or the year before I did notice when Delta took out the late night flight back to Casper, which I liked. Next month, we hear, at some point after the big Spring Break rush Delta will be canceling its early morning flight and have a mid morning one only, basically wiping out some travel to Salt Lake for us business travelers. I had thought that United Airlines has done the same in regards to its late night flight from Denver to Casper after not being able to book the late night one earlier this week, but it was probably just the case that I booked to late so it didn't give me the option, on my computer, of looking at the flight I couldn't book anyhow, for which I'm grateful.
Last year or the year before I did notice when Delta took out the late night flight back to Casper, which I liked. Next month, we hear, at some point after the big Spring Break rush Delta will be canceling its early morning flight and have a mid morning one only, basically wiping out some travel to Salt Lake for us business travelers. I had thought that United Airlines has done the same in regards to its late night flight from Denver to Casper after not being able to book the late night one earlier this week, but it was probably just the case that I booked to late so it didn't give me the option, on my computer, of looking at the flight I couldn't book anyhow, for which I'm grateful.
Over the twenty-six years I've been practicing law my relationship with air travel has been a constantly evolving one. I really like aircraft and I really hate flying in them. I know that's odd, but it's quite true. Anyhow, when I was very first practicing law local air travel was so cheap that chartering aircraft wasn't uncommon for lawyers. We'd charter a flight to Cheyenne or Evanston and convert hours of travel into just a few. This was cheaper for our clients as we could convert hours of travel down to just a few that way, and everyone came out ahead. But by the late 1990s that basically died and, while I've experienced a charter flight once within the last five years, that was really exceptional and it only occurred as it converted a three day trip down to one and it involved quite a few people.
Commercial airliners at the Natrona County International Airport.
Anyhow, one thing that also was the case that air connections to Denver, via the airlines, were so poor that if a person was going to go to Denver or Salt Lake, in the 1990s, they probably drove or, in the case of Salt Lake, flew in and stayed over. It wasn't possible to fly in and back the same day. On odd occasion, I'd drive to Denver and back in a day (which I don't mind doing), but more often than not any trip to Denver, either by car or plane, involved a couple of days.
Then, after oil picked up, the airlines started adding flights. In Casper there was an early morning flight to Denver and another to Salt Lake, followed by morning flights and then even a mid morning flight. A person could get back with a late afternoon flight, an early evening flight, or a late evening flight.
I took up taking the early morning flight down to Denver and the late evening one back. The early morning one was always packed with oilfield workers and businessmen going to Denver. The late night one always had spare seats. Generally, if a person completed their work early they could get to the airport and catch the early evening one back.
Well, as noted, sometime last year, or maybe the year before, the late night back from Salt Lake was eliminated. So much for that.
Indeed, as I had to go to Denver, I was counting on the late night flight and was surprised when I went to book my flights, which I did rather late, to learn that I couldn't and it looked like it was gone. It looked like the second flight of the morning was also gone, but I don't think it is. I booked them anyway but regretted it when I was in Denver as it really put me in a box and I figured I was going to miss it and would end up staying over, which would have really defeated the entire purpose of my flying. As it happened, I did get back to the airport with thirty minutes left before my flight was to take off, and it ended up being delayed as a crew member was late getting in due to her flight arriving late, and then the plane took off late anyhow as it was snowing like mad and the plane had to be de-iced. We left over an hour late. Oh well.
Anyhow, the morning flight had a few oilfield people on it on their way to Houston, but I only know that as I know them. The usually assortment of men in their FRs carrying hardhats was not there.
And now that the early morning flight to Salt Lake will soon be gone, I won't be there either. I can't make that work out very well. Back to driving.
And back to the 1970s, in some ways.
Or maybe even further back.
This all reminds me, in fact, of a conversation between two oilfield people I heard awhile back coming into Casper. One had lived here awhile and the other was just moving in. The new person asked the old one what the town was like. The person who had lived here longer replied that Casper basically had two populations; one from here that knew it was going to stay here and another that moved in and would be leaving when the boom ended. The new employee made some comment about the resident population being unfriendly, to which the employee who had lived here replied "no", that wasn't true, it was just that they knew they were staying, and they knew others would be leaving. I thought then that this was a pretty perceptive analysis.
Indeed, looking back, now that we're experiencing a crash, and so much of it seems so familiar, I'm surprised how resigned to it I myself am. I feel like I should be more worried. After all, I have two kids not out of high school yet but who will be soon and who will be looking for jobs after college. But that's quite a ways away.
More than that, however, I know that I've lived through this entire cycle before and my parents had lived through it at least twice, maybe three times. It's part of the economy here and, I think, it's part of the native culture. Just like we hear about the generation that grew up in the Great Depression having had it impact their characters and personalities, the fact of living in a boom and bust economy does the same.
And we've always had it. Wyoming was basically built on an cattle boom, but that collapsed in the late 1880s in a massive way. That was followed by a revival of the cattle economy, and during that period Casper was founded. In spite of being in the heart of cattle country, and indeed the town was the disembarkation point for the invaders of the Johnson County War, the town looked to oil from the very day of its founding, a pretty remarkable fact given that in the 1890s oil didn't amount to much.
The oil industry really took off during World War One, for obvious reasons. Agriculture boomed at the same time, for the same reasons. Casper and other regional cities took off as a result, although Casper had already seen quite a bit of oil development by that time. And of course, following the war, there was a crash in both industries.
Oil started taking off again not all that long later, during the 1920s, as the national economy rebounded. Agriculture not so much. In the 1930s things went the other way as the country entered the Great Depression, but both industries picked up again during World War Two. Since the Second World War we had at least to bust cycles in the oil industry, not including the current one. Agriculture's fortunes have worked a bit differently, reflecting changes in the market over time. Agriculture seems to always be there in the background, which is something that perhaps the state should consider when it considers its economy.
Anyhow, we've been here before. Perhaps we'll be here again. The regional economy seems long established and for those who are from here, part of what we're used to.
Or maybe even further back.
This all reminds me, in fact, of a conversation between two oilfield people I heard awhile back coming into Casper. One had lived here awhile and the other was just moving in. The new person asked the old one what the town was like. The person who had lived here longer replied that Casper basically had two populations; one from here that knew it was going to stay here and another that moved in and would be leaving when the boom ended. The new employee made some comment about the resident population being unfriendly, to which the employee who had lived here replied "no", that wasn't true, it was just that they knew they were staying, and they knew others would be leaving. I thought then that this was a pretty perceptive analysis.
Indeed, looking back, now that we're experiencing a crash, and so much of it seems so familiar, I'm surprised how resigned to it I myself am. I feel like I should be more worried. After all, I have two kids not out of high school yet but who will be soon and who will be looking for jobs after college. But that's quite a ways away.
More than that, however, I know that I've lived through this entire cycle before and my parents had lived through it at least twice, maybe three times. It's part of the economy here and, I think, it's part of the native culture. Just like we hear about the generation that grew up in the Great Depression having had it impact their characters and personalities, the fact of living in a boom and bust economy does the same.
And we've always had it. Wyoming was basically built on an cattle boom, but that collapsed in the late 1880s in a massive way. That was followed by a revival of the cattle economy, and during that period Casper was founded. In spite of being in the heart of cattle country, and indeed the town was the disembarkation point for the invaders of the Johnson County War, the town looked to oil from the very day of its founding, a pretty remarkable fact given that in the 1890s oil didn't amount to much.
July 15, 1891 edition of Casper's first newspaper, when the town had just been founded. While cattle dominated the local economy, a discovery of gas in an oil well located just outside of town was noted on the headlines, which was fairly typical for the paper at that time. Asbestos, which would come to be mined in Natrona County, and Iron, which would note, also are noted. Alcova would become a town, but the hot springs would not be developed. Today that location is the site of a Depression era dam which serves to create a major reservoir. Period papers are full of optimistic boosterism.
The oil industry really took off during World War One, for obvious reasons. Agriculture boomed at the same time, for the same reasons. Casper and other regional cities took off as a result, although Casper had already seen quite a bit of oil development by that time. And of course, following the war, there was a crash in both industries.
Oil started taking off again not all that long later, during the 1920s, as the national economy rebounded. Agriculture not so much. In the 1930s things went the other way as the country entered the Great Depression, but both industries picked up again during World War Two. Since the Second World War we had at least to bust cycles in the oil industry, not including the current one. Agriculture's fortunes have worked a bit differently, reflecting changes in the market over time. Agriculture seems to always be there in the background, which is something that perhaps the state should consider when it considers its economy.
Anyhow, we've been here before. Perhaps we'll be here again. The regional economy seems long established and for those who are from here, part of what we're used to.
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