Thread: America has a massive truck driver shortage. Here's why few want an $80,000 job

I imagine she used some of her inflationary gains on the house sale for down payment and had a bank loan on the apartment building, possibly a partnership with her construction company, which is where the "good deal" came from, and she used the apartment rents to pay off the loan and supplement her income. I'm sure when she sold the apartment building after she remarried, she realized some very nice inflationary gains again. California is one of the most inflationary states in the country when it comes to real estate and was when you were growing up. You were just a kid and didn't know all the details. In those days, parents didn't talk all their business in front of the children for fear they would run to school and tell it and then everyone would know their business, steal their ideas and compete with them! Smart people.

Originally Posted by Judy

I imagine she used some of her inflationary gains on the house sale for down payment and had a bank loan on the apartment building, possibly a partnership with her construction company, which is where the "good deal" came from

As I pointed out, the inflation in the value of the house was equal to the inflation in the price of the property. So there was virtually no gain there.

Actually she bought property with an old house on it with renters already in it. Her company gave her a discount on the construction and probably helped her find financing. She built the additional seven units from scratch.

When I was a senior, she sold the place and we moved to an upper part of town, right next to the judge. That place had a large back yard, a swimming pool, and a poolhouse, which I lived in after I got out of the Air Force. I thought of buying that place back in later years. But the entire town has gone down since that time.

Originally Posted by Judy

and she used the apartment rents to pay off the loan and supplement her income.

Of course! That was the plan!

Originally Posted by Judy

I'm sure when she sold the apartment building after she remarried, she realized some very nice inflationary gains again.

She banked much of the rent money from the other units, which is what a responsible person would do.

Originally Posted by Judy

California is one of the most inflationary states in the country when it comes to real estate and was when you were growing up. You were just a kid and didn't know all the details.

I knew enough!

Originally Posted by Judy

In those days, parents didn't talk all their business in front of the children for fear they wp;d run to school and tell it and then everyone would know their business, steal their ideas and compete with them!

Boy, you had a rough childhood!

I knew little of my parent's divorce as I was only about five. But both she and my father filled me in later in life. So I pretty much know what went on.

LOL!! Your Mom did what I told you to do, sell the house, pocket the profits and move to an apartment. It's so funny how you reveal a story that proves my point to the letter about inflation. Americans have made small and large fortunes through inflation, in wages, earnings, profits, and oh my yes, real estate. That's how our economy works. Always has, always will. And when we get rid of that evil capital gains tax, it will work even better.

Originally Posted by Judy

LOL!! Your Mom did what I told you to do, sell the house, pocket the profits and move to an apartment.

You got that one wrong! Your advice was to sell my house and move into an apartment. My mom sold the house and BOUGHT an apartment, or 8.

Maybe you should get some reading glasses!

Originally Posted by Judy

It's so funny how you reveal a story that proves my point to the letter about inflation.

Just the opposite. The profit she made was building the apartments and renting them out for money, not sitting on a bank account, stock certificates, or property waiting for inflation to make her "rich". It was the hard work in building the apartments and maintaining them for the rent money that made the property far more valuable than the predominantly vacant land she bought.

Originally Posted by Judy

Americans have made small and large fortunes through inflation, in wages, earnings, profits, and oh my yes, real estate.

Only in specific areas. But for the overall economy, it has been bad! That's why we have a 22 trillion dollar national debt burdening our economy. The interest on that debt eats up about 1/3 of our tax revenue just to make rich bankers richer. If we didn't have that debt, we could do 50% more for the people of our country with the same tax revenue. Or we could blow it helping the rest of the impoverished world.

But the bottom line is INFLATION IS BAD!

Originally Posted by jtdc

You got that one wrong! Your advice was to sell my house and move into an apartment. My mom sold the house and BOUGHT an apartment, or 8.

Maybe you should get some reading glasses!

Just the opposite. The profit she made was building the apartments and renting them out for money, not sitting on a bank account, stock certificates, or property waiting for inflation to make her "rich". It was the hard work in building the apartments and maintaining them for the rent money that made the property far more valuable than the predominantly vacant land she bought.

Only in specific areas. But for the overall economy, it has been bad! That's why we have a 22 trillion dollar national debt burdening our economy. The interest on that debt eats up about 1/3 of our tax revenue just to make rich bankers richer. If we didn't have that debt, we could do 50% more for the people of our country with the same tax revenue. Or we could blow it helping the rest of the impoverished world.

But the bottom line is INFLATION IS BAD!

Your mom did exactly what I told you to do. What she did with the extra was invest it. You would invest it too. You could put it in savings and earn interest, you could put it in stocks or bonds and earn returns, or you could do what she did which is buy some investment property and earn income. That is all still possible today. You claimed you can't do that today, of course you can, people are doing it every day all over the country.

Inflation is not bad, but if you want to sit there thinking it is, then have at it.

The original article is about truck driving jobs being available for people who need jobs

and then the comments went out in all directions, way out.

WE need to do a better job of staying on subject.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

The original article is about truck driving jobs being available for people who need jobs

and then the comments went out in all directions, way out.

WE need to do a better job of staying on subject.

Let's see:
Post #2 by JohnDoe2:
A California Chick-fil-A Will Pay Its Workers $17 an Hour

Post #12 by JohnDoe2:
Conservative Leads Effort to Raise Minimum Wage in California

7/27/16


Donald Trump supports raising federal minimum wage to $10

Post #13 by JohnDoe2:
Romney, Santorum back minimum-wage hike

Mitt Romney: Raise Minimum Wage

Post #20 by JohnDoe2:
in·fla·tion
inˈflāSH(ə)n/

You wanted lots of discussion to get counts up!

Shale country is out of workers. That means $140,000 for a truck driver ...
www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-shale-oil-boom-20180608-story.html
1 day ago - Shale country is out of workers.
That means $140,000 for a truck driver and 100% pay hikes.
By David Wethe. | Bloomberg |. Jun 08, 2018 ...
==========================

Shale Country Is Out of Workers and Dangling 100% Pay Hikes

By David Wethe
June 6, 2018, 4:00 AM PDT

• ‘This economy is on fire,’ and that’s not necessarily all good
• How to compete with $140,000 a truck driver can pull down?

Everything You Need to Understand Fracking

Jerry Morales, the mayor of Midland, Texas, and a local restaurateur, is being whipsawed by the latest Permian Basin shale-oil boom.


It’s fueling the region and starving it at the same time. Sales-tax revenue is hitting a record high, allowing the city to get around to fixing busted roads. But the crazy-low 2.1 percent unemployment rate is a bear. As the proprietor of Mulberry Cafe and Gerardo’s Casita, Morales is working hard to retain cooks. As a Republican first elected in 2014, he oversees a government payroll 200 employees short of what it needs to fully function.

“This economy is on fire,” he said from a back table at the cafe the other day, watching as the lunchtime crowd lined up for the Asian Zing Salad and Big Mo’s Toaster hamburger.

Fire, of course, can be dangerous. In the country’s busiest oil patch, where the rig count has climbed by nearly one third in the past year, drillers, service providers and trucking companies have been poaching in all corners, recruiting everyone from police officers to grocery clerks. So many bus drivers with the Ector County Independent School District in nearby Odessa quit for the shale fields that kids were sometimes late to class. The George W. Bush Childhood Home, a museum in Midland dedicated to the 43rd U.S. president, is smarting from a volunteer shortage.




Weekly rig count in front of a bank in downtown Midland.
Photographer: David Wethe/Bloomberg

The oil industry has such a ferocious appetite for workers that it’ll hire just about anyone with the most basic skills. “It is crazy,” said Jazmin Jimenez, 24, who zipped through a two-week training program at New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs, about 100 miles north of Midland, and was hired by Chevron Corp. as a well-pump checker. “Honestly I never thought I’d see myself at an oilfield company. But now that I’m here -- I think this is it.”

That’s understandable, considering the $28-a-hour she makes is double what she was earning until December as a guard at the Lea County Correctional Facility in Hobbs. When the boom goes bust, as history suggests they all do, shale-extraction businesses won’t be able to out-pay most employers anymore. Jimenez said she’ll take the money as long as it lasts.



A roughneck cleans the drilling floor of a rig for Chevron in the Permian Basin near Midland.
Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

And this one could go on for a while. Companies are more cost-conscious than ever, and the evolution of oilfield technology continues to make finding and producing oil quicker and cheaper in the pancaked layers of rock in the Permian. It now accounts for about 30 percent of all U.S. output.

There’s no question the economic upside is big in the basin, which covers more than 75,000 square miles in west Texas and southeastern New Mexico. Midland saw year-over-year increases of at least 34 percent in sales-tax collections in each of the last four months. Morales said coffers are full enough that he may ask for raises for city workers -- so they don’t bolt for the oil fields.

How Low Can You Go?

Oil boom drives Midland to record-low unemployment at 2.1 percent

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics


The labor shortage is inflamed by the real-estate market: The supply of homes for sale is the lowest on record, according to the Texas A&M Real Estate Center. The $325,440 average price in Midland is the highest since June 2014, the last time the world saw oil above $100 a barrel. Apartment rents in Midland and Odessa are up by more than a third from a year ago, with the average 863-square-foot unit commanding $1,272 a month.

That’s one reason the Ector County Independent School District has more than 100 teaching positions open, said spokesman Mike Adkins. People who move for jobs are stunned by the cost of living. Armin Rashvand’s apartment is smaller and costs more than the one he rented in Cleveland before moving last August to run the energy-technology program at Odessa College.

“That really surprised me,” he said, because Texas’s reputation is that it’s affordable. “In Texas, yes -- except here.”



The George W. Bush Childhood Home
Photographer: David Wethe/Bloomberg

Another surprise: Some of his students, with two-year associate degrees, can make more than he does, with his master’s in science, electrical and electronic engineering. At Midland College’s oil and gas program, which trains for positions like petroleum-energy technician, enrollment is down about 20 percent from last year. But schools that teach how to pass the test for a CDL -- commercial drivers license -- are packed.

“A CDL is a golden ticket around here,” said Steve Sauceda, who runs the workforce training program at New Mexico Junior College. “You are employable just about anywhere.”

And you can make a whole lot more money than waiting tables at Gerardo’s Casita. Jeremiah Fleming, 30, is on track to pull down $140,000 driving flatbed trucks for Aveda Transportation & Energy Services Inc., hauling rigs.

“This will be my best year yet,” said Fleming, who used to work in the once-bustling shale play in North Dakota. “I wouldn’t want to go anywhere else.”



McDonald’s hiring event
Photographer: David Wethe/Bloomberg

Morales, a native Midlander and second-generation restaurateur, has seen it happen so many times before. Oil prices go up, and energy companies dangle such incredible salaries that restaurants, grocery stores, hotels and other businesses can’t compete. People complain about poor service and long lines at McDonald’s and the Walmart and their favorite Tex-Mex joints. Rents soar.

“This is my home town. I don’t want that reputation,” he said. He’s not yet quite sure what to do about it as mayor of a city that has been on the oil-industry rollercoaster for nearly 100 years.

He has, though, come up with strategies for his restaurants.

For example, he now issues paychecks weekly, instead of twice monthly, and offers more opportunities for over-time hours. He also makes common-sense bids to employees tempted by the Permian’s siren call.

His pitch: “If you’ll stay with me, I can give you three quarters of what the oil will give you but you don’t have to get dirty or worry about getting hurt.” And just maybe, when crude crashes, they’ll still be employed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/09/u...njunction.html

Damn, that is music to my ears!! GO TRUMP GO!!! Beautiful. Save the money, workers, this is a boom in the oil business, it won't last forever, so save your money for the future when they're finished drilling.

Shortage of truckers starting to cause prices to rise

This makes Judy happy. That means more INFLATION, which she thinks is a good thing.