Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Bakken Oil Field Jobs

Job Service of ND: Is your best resource for locating employment in the region.  The link below will take you to a comprehensive link providing an overview of oilfield employment, current job listings, wage information and frequently asked questions.
422 1st Ave W Williston, ND 58801                                                                
701-774-7900 or 1-800-247-0989 

Q: What if I don’t have any oilfield experience?
A: When searching for an oilfield position, take time to consider what skills and talents you already possess. For example, skills in areas such as welding and construction or the possession of a Class A CDL (commercial driver’s license) are highly valued by many different companies.

Currently, there are a variety of jobs available in the oil industry, with a range of experience requirements. Some positions may require no experience, while others may require several years of experience. Jobs listed on jobsnd.com will include information on what kind of experience is required for each position.

In addition, you will also want to consider some of the many jobs available in North Dakota that are not oilfield related. Jobs are available in many different industries, and the wages for these jobs are generally higher in areas where there is oilfield activity. In some instances, the wages for these positions may rival, if not surpass, the wages of some oilfield positions.

Basic Advice:  http://www.rockinthebakken.com/OilJobs.aspx

Contact Info by City:  http://www.jobsnd.com/office-locations

TheBakken.net  http://www.thebakken.net/bakken-oilfield-jobs/

Doug Casey on the Economy

Since World War II, and especially since 1971 when the link between the dollar and gold was broken, governments around the world have accepted the Keynesian theory of economics, which boils down to a belief that printing money can stimulate the economy and create prosperity. The result has been to create huge amounts of individual and government debt. It has become insupportable. All it has done is purchase a few extra years of artificial prosperity, and we're heading deeper into a very real depression as a result.


Let me define the word "depression." It's a period of time when most people's standard of living declines significantly. It can also be defined as a time when distortions and misallocations of capital – things usually caused by government intervention – are liquidated.

We have been consuming more than we have been producing and living above our means. This has been made possible by: 1) borrowing against projected future revenues and 2) using the savings of other people. The whole thing is going to fall apart. A new monetary system of some type is going to have to necessarily rise from the ashes.

source

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Six Policies Economists Love (And Politicians Hate)

The Proposals


One: Eliminate the mortgage tax deduction, which lets homeowners deduct the interest they pay on their mortgages. Gone. After all, big houses get bigger tax breaks, driving up prices for everyone. Why distort the housing market and subsidize people buying expensive houses?
Two: End the tax deduction companies get for providing health-care to employees. Neither employees nor employers pay taxes on workplace health insurance benefits. That encourages fancier insurance coverage, driving up usage and, therefore, health costs overall. Eliminating the deduction will drive up costs for people with workplace healthcare, but makes the health-care market fairer.
Three: Eliminate the corporate income tax. Completely. If companies reinvest the money into their businesses, that's good. Don't tax companies in an effort to tax rich people.
Four: Eliminate all income and payroll taxes. All of them. For everyone. Taxes discourage whatever you're taxing, but we like income, so why tax it? Payroll taxes discourage creating jobs. Not such a good idea. Instead, impose a consumption tax, designed to be progressive to protect lower-income households.
Five: Tax carbon emissions. Yes, that means higher gasoline prices. It's a kind of consumption tax, and can be structured to make sure it doesn't disproportionately harm lower-income Americans. More, it's taxing something that's bad, which gives people an incentive to stop polluting.
Six: Legalize marijuana. Stop spending so much trying to put pot users and dealers in jail — it costs a lot of money to catch them, prosecute them, and then put them up in jail. Criminalizing drugs also drives drug prices up, making gang leaders rich.

source

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Fiscally Impossible?

source
$222 Trillion Unfunded Liabilities

The expert here is Prof. Lawrence Kotlikoff of Boston University. His most recent report says that total unfunded liabilities went from $211 trillion a year ago to $222 trillion this year.
 
The biggest source of future red ink will be Medicare. In second place is Social Security.

How can the government pay off these obligations? It can't. The possibility does not exist. The government needs a spare $222 trillion to invest in private companies. This investment must make a return of at least 5% to provide the money needed to pay meet the government's obligations. There is no $222 trillion available, and no capital markets large enough to absorb $222 trillion.

Conclusion: the U.S. government will default. 

source

Saturday, August 11, 2012

I, Pencil

 Here is the classic essay I, Pencil.

 Milton Friedman wrote:
"I, Pencil" is a typical Leonard Read product: imaginative, simple yet subtle, breathing the love of freedom that imbued everything Leonard wrote or did. As in the rest of his work, he was not trying to tell people what to do or how to conduct themselves. He was simply trying to enhance individuals' understanding of themselves and of the system they live in. 

I.6
That was his basic credo and one that he stuck to consistently during his long period of service to the public—not public service in the sense of government service. Whatever the pressure, he stuck to his guns, refusing to compromise his principles. That was why he was so effective in keeping alive, in the early days, and then spreading the basic idea that human freedom required private property, free competition, and severely limited government.
 source

 Donald Boudreaux wrote:
There are two kinds of thinking: simplistic and subtle. Simplistic thinkers cannot understand how complex and useful social orders arise from any source other than conscious planning by a purposeful mind. Subtle thinkers, in contrast, understand that individual actions often occur within settings that encourage individuals to coordinate their actions with one another independent of any overarching plan. F. A. Hayek called such unplanned but harmonious coordination "spontaneous order."...

For its sheer power to display in just a few pages the astounding fact that free markets successfully coordinate the actions of literally millions of people from around the world into a productive whole, nothing else written in economics compares to Leonard Read's celebrated essay, "I, Pencil." This essay's power derives from Read's drawing from such a prosaic item an undeniable, profound, and spectacular conclusion: it takes the knowledge of countless people to produce a single pencil. No newcomer to economics who reads "I, Pencil" can fail to have a simplistic belief in the superiority of central planning or regulation deeply shaken. If I could choose one essay or book that everyone in the world would read, I would unhesitatingly choose "I, Pencil." Among these readers, simplistic notions about the economy would be permanently transformed into a new and vastly more subtle—and correct—understanding. 
source

Milton Friedman discussing the pencil.


 Thomas Thwaites:  How I Built a Toaster--from scratch
 

Students:
 Here is the assignment (with answer key)
 Your welcome.

I, Pencil remains relevant today.
Read and Friedman use the pencil to show the folly of central planning: Nobody can possibly know enough to manage the production of pencils. And indeed, history has proven that when governments create Pencil Ministries (metaphorically speaking), they fail – inevitably and spectactularly.
source

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

World's Worst Economies

Worst Debt:  Japan
2012 reading: 235.8% of GDP

Worst Unemployment: Macedonia
2012 reading: 31.2%


Worst Inflation: Belarus
2012 reading: 65.9%

Worst Gross domestic product per capita: Democratic Republic of the Congo
2012 reading: $231.51 
 
Worst Gross domestic product growth: Sudan 
2012 reading: -7.3%