Comments on: A Matter of Perspective

By: Frank the Frakker

Frank the Frakker — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 23:18:49 +0000

Well NBER estimates 725,000:
http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-fracking-employment-study-idUSL8N13159X20151106

But, yes, a lot of biased newsources look only at direct employment. There were a lot of headlines about more solar jobs in PA than gas fracking, but only got there by comparing all electric jobs (Peco) to only those directly employed by fracking companies (not ancillary services like pipes, refiners, etc.).

By: Sporchezza

Sporchezza — Sun, 16 Jul 2017 21:16:23 +0000

Frank, what about jobs? I have never seen an estimate of fracking-related jobs higher than 13,000 total for the USA.

By: Frank the Frakker

Frank the Frakker — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 16:29:35 +0000

The implications of the fracking revolution are only starting to be understood. While conservatives at Swarthmore can stand athwart history and yell stop about changing energy sources in the economy, the rest of the country is just beginning to adjust to the reality that natural gas will have less price volatility than oil, is cleaner, and even at today’s oil prices, still 25% cheaper for most applications.

We still have an entire sector of our economy to repower from oil to domestic natural gas. Electricity, heating, and transportation have differing levels of penetration of natural gas, but it is a process that will take 40 years, and accrue significant benefits to the US at the expense of oil exporters .

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 16:35:14 +0000

In reply to Joshua.

Yes, I can see where that’s possible–WalMart especially–but I don’t think towns feel special by being a retail town unless they’re famed for selling some particular kind of product or unless they’re a “factory outlet” town. The Wal-Mart closing feels like the end of economic possibilities–and maybe a source of distinction between one town and the towns around it that don’t have the Wal-Mart.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 15:52:23 +0000

> The jobs that people really are losing? They weren’t good jobs to begin with, they weren’t what defined a community’s sense of self (nobody thinks of themselves as part of that town or small city that has that street with the Best Buy and the Circuit City and the Kohls and the Target on it). So no one feels anything other than the ordinary desperation of joblessness in a jobless world when the Target or the Sears closes up.

A recent Guardian article argues that people feel precisely this loss of community when a Walmart closes: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/what-happened-when-walmart-left