Great for consumer, horrible for producer

[cjacob316]

Fill me in when you say everything else will tank. Monthly expenses (fuel) will go up for families and businesses, but I don't see high gas prices hurting the working class.

Look at airline industries for example. Their ticket prices fluctuate according to gas prices, they compensate for gas price in their ticket price and not laying off employees.

When OPEC did this in the 80's in completely crashed my town, which is why I ended up growing up in Atlanta. People lost jobs, so they couldn't spend money, so other businesses had to lay off, and so on and so on. Lots of small businesses went under. People don't lose jobs when oil prices go up, we gain jobs. Loss of jobs hurts the economy so much more than fuel prices. More money will be lost in jobs than will be saved in fuel prices.

Nevada thinks the recent decline in the economy was caused by gas prices, but it wasn't, it was caused by people taking on more debt than they could ever afford. People were spending more money than ever when gas prices were at an all time high! Oil prices were at record highs in the 90's and early 2000's. They naturally went up at greater rates with all the minimum wage increases we've had since 2006, but so has the cost of everything else.

 

[Be_Original]

Also the oil and gas industry provides some of the highest paying non college degree jobs in the country, heck higher paying than a lot of people who have degrees. If you think that having thousands of highly paid middle class people out of work helps the economy, you're sadly mistaken. Oil Drives the economy all over the world. the amount of gas it takes to get to work or go to the store does not change, yeah you might have a few extra bucks in your pocket, but responsible people budget everything and extra money doesn't change their spending habits, it stays in their accounts until something happens that forces them to spend more money. Something like losing your job because the restaurant you work at hired extra staff to be able to serve the 200+ oil field workers than came in because of the new local drilling going on, but now that those 200 oil workers lost their jobs, the restaurant doesn't need the extra help anymore, and it just keeps going and going

This is the trend I am looking at as well. Looking at my office we contract many "hot shot drivers", buy thousands of dollars worth of tools from local hardware stores and suppliers, buy various other items from other stores and not to mention even the guys that come out to dispose of hazardous waste or even maintenance our yard. Its a trickle effect, with less profit every month you cut expenses. Those expenses IDEALLY are first cut at your suppliers and contractors. This may not put them out of business but it certainly puts a toll on their income as well with them probably depending on that money for the month.

 

[cjacob316]

People who don't know this stuff, and I mean the real truth, not what they are force fed by politicians and professors, have such a hard time understanding this. The government is the number one enemy to any economy, not the oil industry. Yes they make a ton of money, but they pay very very well all the way down to the chefs. Best paying jobs for welders, pilots, boat captain, general labor, cooks all in oil and gas. You can make more money cleaning oil field equipment with absolutely no education, than a lot of jobs that require degrees. Yes the big wigs get paid too, but other corporations don't pay laborers in six figures.