Which answers the bigger question I always mention instead of the political platitudes. It's up to the producers not the government, regardless of who's in office. What would be great is if the regulations would be cut/streamlined and incentives would be put in place to encourage refining investment, either in upgrades/repairs or new facilities. Those are the longer term investments that can really impact our energy independence, but are low margin capital depleting expenditures producers avoid.Doc Holliday said:I'm in that business too and you should damn well know that operators/companies have largely left behind their drill baby drill days and have adopted strict capital discipline. Investors want dividends and share buybacks, not all their capital spent immediately.J.R. said:I'm in that direct business, clown. I know how it works. I can explain further if you need,, since you don't seem to grasp simple economics.TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:Yes you should have added it. lol.Malbec said:Was the "/s" really necessary?Mothra said:I understood his point, but thanks. My question was unrelated to the specific point, and was more general in nature. As this thread evidences, we hear how much he disagrees with Trump quite often (some might even say, all the time). Thus, since he alleges he is conservative, I was curious if he ever has any positive thoughts on Trump's policies.Malbec said:He's simply trying to explain to you, that the more oil you produce, transport, refine, transport, sell and consume, the less blue-collar employees you need.Mothra said:As a self-described conservative, are there ANY of his policies you like?J.R. said:
oh, and you forgot Drill, Baby Drill. He are the unintended consequences of that. While it could bring down the gasoline price as the price of WTI will tank causing lots of layoffs as the profitability threshold will diminish causing big layoffs in the oil field. You know, those blue collar folks that depend on that industry for great paying jobs.
Moreover, as to his point, I think the good of the public as a whole outweighs the needs of a much smaller percentage of workers who will be affected by such policies.
Interestingly enough, I think the same could be asked of you, since you claim to be conservative.
But yes, JR's argument is that America will produce more, export more, transport more, consume more, drill more, explore more, manufacture more, and on and on, yet we will need fewer blue-collar workers. That's JR for you.
If the price were to drop due to external price pressures, sure we'd have fewer blue collar workers, But if we are doing MORE baby MORE, we will be increasing the blue-collar workforce.
On top of that, the production growth that slowed down last year is going to continue for at least another two years. China is struggling, their demand is super low.
The blue collar worker dream that keeps getting touted won't find reality until we take seriously what's required for heavy industry production, from raw material extraction and to real mass production. Extraction still requires higher labor ratios (although continuing to be reduced thanks to technology), while production continues to get automated and requires less and less human participation.
The future has always been about higher labor skills, but the educational death spiral we've been in continues to hinder the future. Meanwhile we think low/moderate skill blue collar work is some type of savior of the economy. It just isn't because it has an easily replaceable value. BTW, I view trades as higher skill labor just so we're talking apples to apples. But trades go back to a failure of our educational priorities.
