I got a bad feeling. Quite off topic

As far as jobs -- in the 90"s 00"s you need to have a 4 year degree. What has that got some, no one wanting to start at entry level, I need to start in 6 figures. There is always work in the classifieds you just need to want to work. I lived in West Central Mn until yesterday, I could not find any comparable jobs in agriculture, I worked with a recruiter out of SD and today I am typing in Norteastern CO. People need to be open and try to better themselves instead of whining there is nothing I can do. If it is that bad I am sure Mcdonalds and Walmart are hiring, quite whinning and make minimum wage atleast they would be trying.

Jay

never vote the same politician twice

Rod

To quote a famous country singer: "A country boy can survive."

This here US economy allows me to have a well paying job in the city pushing papers, but if push comes to shove, I'll just move back to the country and making money with my back and hands.

Those that want to check go to Proverbs 18:21
Sure a bunch loving it.

Then, there's the coal. It sticks right up out of the ground across a lot of that area and over into Montana.

You don't drink water up there unless it is piped in or ya buy it in a store. Darned stuff is drenched in oil.

Allan

I've been expecting bad times for 10 years, not 10 months. This country has done absolutely nothing to achieve any kind of energy efficiency and/or independence - and we've known for a long-long time that the current resources we use are finite.

In regard to other nations boosting production of a finite product so they will get less money for it - because other's complain? Why the heck should they?

I don't have any answers except for what I try to do for myself and family. We bought some Euro-based, FDIC insured CDs last year - but if the U.S. dollar crashes - maybe the Euro will follow? So far though, the Euros are doing very well against our dollar.
We've got zero debt - food stored, food on the hoof, 100% solar electric, a lifetime supply of firewood if we can keep it, etc. Own several properties - but if taxes keep going up - partially to subsidize the lazy who do nothing for themselves - it could get to a point where we could no longer afford to keep.

I wouldn't be surprised if things ever got real bad - we'd have our solar panels seized for the "greater good."

Scariest part of the whole deal - right now - is - our inability to protect ourselves (U.S. and Canada) if any kind of large-scale war broke out and we got cut off from oil. Our U.S. strategic reserves might run a war for a few months - if the general population was cut off. That's not what I call good long-term planning. And, just recently Bush was stopped from tyring to fill what little reserve we have.

I see very few people who have done anything to plan ahead - and I know many could if they chose to. Can anybody - on their own - do enough? That remains to be seen.

For the most part - yes, government has failed us in many ways - but many individuals have equally failed themselves.

They are in the biggest boom up there yet. A converted one-bedroom basement apartment will rent for $800 a month. Oil companies are up there in mass, roughnecks everywhere and they are drilling like crazy. Rigs running all over the place (They do this up there every few years when crude hits a certain price).

This HUGE oil pool was discovered in 1951 and is reportedly the largest in the world. Easy, accessable oil.

Now, here is the good part: They are CAPPING the wells, just like they have always done up in that area and bringing sand slurry in across from Canada in the pipelines.

While at the same time, a trucker sitting at a truck stop overhead of this in-ground-oil is paying $1200 to fill his tanks with Texas refined Saudi oil.

There is no “shortage”, never was. If we would all just simply STOP buying, that crude price and everything else along with it would fall like a rock within 30 days.

Just like it did in the seventies.

But, maybe the easier way would be for us to put a hi-yeller and his baboon-bred wife in the white house. Things will be okay then. I know ‘cause he said so.

The inmates have totally taken over the asylum.

Allan

Right on Allan!

Something here in MN for you & me - they are deciding on that Big Stone II coal electric power plant. SD wants to build it, but needs the power lines into MN to be able to use up the electricity made. And Minnesota is fighting it, we can't have any more dirty coal power any more....

And so, 10 years from now, we will be the next California - rolling power outages, high & fluctuating electric costs for poor service, and a lot of folks running gaspowered, expensive, more polluting than coal, standby generators for a week at a time. And everyone who bad-mouthed the coal power plant & prevented it will wring their hands, and wonder why, and say the govt shoulda done something, & I need my electric bill paid for me because I can't afford it any more, blah blah.

This is progress.

My gripe for the day.

--->Paul

• poke

Then he blathers like an idiot when George W. Bush actually used it.

You'll hear the same grips from the anti-corporate folks in a few years; they'll create an energy imbalance like they did in California with their misguided environmentalism, then express shock when the problem they built is exploited by someone.

Yep. That's why I keep tellin' myself I need to tell the banker's daughter she needs to hit the road. But it's just sooo much nicer when I can just not call her and enjoy the silence!

Between the Dirty Thirties (with crop failures and dirtstorms out here you can't imagine), no one having any money at all, and then the threat of possibly losing a world war to either Germany and/or Japan, today's inconveniences are terribly minor.

Back then it was worrying about finding something to feed the kids with for that day - today it is that the 401K is down 2%...

Then it was hitching a ride into town for kerosene for the tractor (because they didn't have a ration coupon for a tire to get the pickup operational), and today it is loan value on the house dipped from $195,000 to $188,000...

Just my 2 cents,
Howard

Today we also hear about massive uneployment (5% this month - actually down a point from last month) while Europe lives with 10% unemployment as a way of life. Back in the 1930s unemployment was 18% to 25% and "unemployment benefits" was a bowl of soup once a day - if you were lucky.

And the really smart people look at as an oppurtunity.

I can remember back as far as the 1960's, and the world was coming to an end then too. Civil unrest, Vietnam, inflation. Seventies brought the oil embargo, even more inflation and high interest rates. Lather, rinse, repeat.