Make it happen!
Posted on 03/13/2012 8:48:58 AM PDT by Mikey_1962
The continuing boom in North Dakota seemingly has no end. Last June oil production from the Bakken Formation exceeded 11 million barrels a month. In February it reached 16 million with estimates that by late spring North Dakota could be producing more oil than either California or Alaska. That’s more than double what the state produced just two years ago.
The population boom in Williston and elsewhere continues to set records. The oil industry employs more than 30,000 people and could exceed 100,000 if production rises as expected to a million barrels a day. There are so many job openings that the state is sponsoring trade fairs across the country and has to deal with — are you ready? — budget surpluses!
Comparisons between North Dakota and other states struggling with deficits and high unemployment abound. Steve Moore wrote about it in the Wall Street Journal, noting that North Dakota has a budget surplus of $1 billion out of a $3.5 billion budget and it has already cut income taxes and is considering further reductions. Complete funding for the state’s pension plan is accomplished every year and the state is building “infrastructure” projects: roads, bridges, railroads and pipelines.
Moore compares this to the issues facing California: five straight years of budget deficits with the current fiscal year’s shortfall expected to exceed $6 billion. Brian Calle wrote in California’s City Journal:
How did North Dakota pull it off? Oil production has driven the recent boom. Drilling restrictions in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, and even Canada have given North Dakota an opportunity to expand its oil industry substantially. North Dakota now accounts for 6 percent of U.S. domestic oil production and already ranks fourth in the nation behind Texas, Alaska, and, yes, California…
The state imposes no energy-efficiency resource standard for electricity or natural gas, and it has no mandatory statewide residential or commercial energy code. North Dakota lawmakers have let market demand dictate coal and oil production… [Emphasis added.]
While California is rich in both conventional and renewable energy, gridlock in the state legislature has hampered development of these resources. Unlike North Dakota’s officials, who welcome the economic growth and new revenues, California lawmakers seem intent on reducing the state’s role in domestic oil production [Emphasis in original.]. Legislators have imposed laws much stricter than federal standards and worked aggressively to subsidize alternative energy sources and mandate their use. California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 and subsequent legislation—requiring that the state obtain at least one-third of its energy from renewable sources such as wind, solar, and geothermal—will impose onerous costs not only on businesses, but on every ratepayer and consumer in the state. Estimates vary, but at least one study projected that the law would cost the state economy $183 billion—a staggering burden for Californians already struggling under the highest energy prices in the nation.
North Dakota has deliberately let the free market operate — which has resulted not only in the virtual explosion in the oil fields but numerous side effects as well. Servers at the local Taco Bell in Williston make $15 an hour and more, waiters earn upwards of $25 an hour, and truckers can make $80-100,000 a year with overtime.
Nathan Pittman considered retiring from his trucking company in Indiana when he heard about what was happening in the Peace Garden State. Within weeks of moving to Watford, North Dakota, his income doubled to $2,225 a week. He now shows others how to set up shop there. He says: “There’s not a business you can start in North Dakota right now that wouldn’t make it.”
Despite their dubious societal benefit, even so-called exotic dance clubs are doing well. The Williston club Whispers receives applications from "exotic" dancers in Hawaii, Alaska, the Czech Republic and Germany, according to co-owner Melissa Slapnicka:
We used to have to beg people to come, and now we have to turn them away because we don’t have room for all the people who want to dance. My best girls would rather dance here than in Vegas, because they make more money here.
How much money? Kit, one of Slapnicka’s employees, said, “We make more than doctors. Back in the day, it was hard to make $200 a night. It was like pulling teeth. Now you can pull in $2,000 a night.”
The rough and tumble hurly-burly of the free market will allow amazing things to happen. The statist mentality that holds instead that free markets must be reined in is the difference between California and North Dakota. If statists would just step aside, the free market would prove once again that “there aren’t very many problems that sufficient freedom couldn’t solve.”
Very true.
California still has many natural resources that could be mined and drilled responsibly, with virtually no harm to landscapes and habitats. Liberals have not (yet) taken over North Dakota — it’s still an honorary part of Crackerland — that’s the only difference.
And hopefully they won’t take it over. The mentality of most people in that region is ‘leave us alone and stay out of our way’. They don’t take too kindly to a bunch of liberals and their ideas on how they should give their money to people who needlessly would fritter it away. Remember, liberals like to spend other people’s money, not their own. THe biggest drawback about moving to that region is the absurd cost of property. The oil boom has driven prices a little out of whack. When they correct, down the road, there are going to be some sad folks.
Sounds like a marvelous place to rent....
It’s a boon to us next door in Mn too:
Get pumped: Crude from Canada, North Dakota means lower gas prices for Midwest
As gasoline prices soar on the coasts, less-expensive crude oil from Canada and North Dakota is easing the pain for Minnesotans.
By: David Shaffer, Minneapolis Star Tribune
As gasoline prices soar on the coasts, less-expensive crude oil from Canada and North Dakota is easing the pain for Minnesotans.
The average pump price in the state, running this week at about $3.60 per gallon for regular, remains 75 cents behind California, where gas has been over $4 for weeks. It’s the biggest price gap between the two states since 2009, according to data from AAA.
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/225288/
I can see this happening to the whole US, given the RIGHT leadership at the top. I have told friends that I could actually see the possibility of top leaders having to actually put some brakes on the growth that would explode with ND type management and leadership. Way ta’ go ND.
Make it happen!
Am proud of the state I grew up in...
What are you talking about???
Clearly this is an opportunity to pass “The Equalization of Opportunity Bill!!!”
But sometime before I left the state for good in 1988, it transformed from a can-do anything free market state into one which wanted to get their share of government favors. Our congressional delegation became 100% Democrat. 90% of the college graduates left the state for work, never to return, just as I did.
Then slowly, the state started to rebuild. The RINO GOP leadership was replaced with real conservatives, people started to stand their ground and the RINO-Democrat alliance begin to crumble, spurred on by the totalitarian statist brand of Democrats represented by Obama's minions.
In the 2010 election, 2/3rds of the state's congressional Democrats were replaced. The last one will be gone by 2012. It didn't happen from the top down, it happened from the bottom up. Other states would do wise to take note.
Finding an apartment to rent is harder than it sounds. Landlords looking to make a killing by building rental properties are finding the real estate very expensive. Timing is everything.
Other states would do wise to take note.
Once again:
"All Politics are LOCAL"
Oh I hear folks are camping out in Walmart lots. Then there are the man camps. (Haven’t heard of woman camps though.) The market will answer with more supply of housing given the time and lack of government interference.
1) North Dakota would be wise (as a government) not to follow the steps of another oil economy, Alberta, Canada. That government somehow managed to have a deficit in the middle of good economic times. Other words, ND would be wise to manage their income conservatively.
2) Oil economies are a double edged sword. If the world economy fails to emerge from a recession, oil consumption could dramatically fall off a cliff sending oil prices back down to the $60 level.
Or - Obama could just sign one of his Executive Orders to halt fracking and send the whole thing into the dumpster.
Why does it feel like the US in the book Atlas Shrugged?
This has to be a right wing lie because I remember just a few years ago the media told us that drilling for our own oil wouldn’t make a difference because it would take 15 years to make a difference and as soon as the windmills were in place we we all be okay because Obama was the President and stuff.
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