Midland officially the richest MSA now. (Odessa, Spring: 2013, neighborhoods, median income)

[bigboyz06]

My only hope is that Midland/Odessa learned from the past bust and will be prepared when this latest boom ends.

[Cyborgt800]

^^^ Your assumption is that the City itself thinks...it's made up of individuals though, many from other places.
Some people will treat their new found riches with respect and others will be like many rappers, boxers and other sports types and celebrities and blow all of their money trying to show off then wonder what happened when their moment is gone.

This is no different. Even if the oil stays high, at some point the lack of workers will right itself and the hiring craze will slow down. Then the wages will slowly stagnate and everything will normalize.

Just don't take this amazing feat away from these cities! I'll bet that city in CT is full of the new Yawker power brokers and nothing else....it's quite a deal that a small blue collar town in the middle of Texas that no one ever heard of just unseated them!

[SVTRay]

Originally Posted by Cyborgt800

^^^ Your assumption is that the City itself thinks...it's made up of individuals though, many from other places.
Some people will treat their new found riches with respect and others will be like many rappers, boxers and other sports types and celebrities and blow all of their money trying to show off then wonder what happened when their moment is gone.

This is no different. Even if the oil stays high, at some point the lack of workers will right itself and the hiring craze will slow down. Then the wages will slowly stagnate and everything will normalize.

Just don't take this amazing feat away from these cities! I'll bet that city in CT is full of the new Yawker power brokers and nothing else....it's quite a deal that a small blue collar town in the middle of Texas that no one ever heard of just unseated them!

Well said, a lot of the pissing away money I've seen has came from blue collar workers new to the area. I once saw for an example an entire crew spend their $5,000 bonus checks on new ATVs. An example of the opposite would be a good friend of mine who started the oil boom out as a diesel mechanic who now owns a small fleet of water trucks. He simply saved all his bonus checks and extra cash and applied it towards buying a water truck. It took off from there.

Another thing people over look is the old money. Midland has a lot of old money that has been passed down from generation to generation. The children and grandchildren of these people are growing up in a more modern era and inherited multi-million dollar mineral rights. So these kids tend to buy more high end cars and lavish homes vs their parents who lived Conservatively. Buying a $100k dollar car or million dollar home isn't going to break the bank for them, even if the oil goes bust. So just because you see someone pull up at the light in a new BMW or Benz, doesn't mean their over extended and pissing away every dime.

[Cyborgt800]

I've been so up and down in my life and the only thing I can say is that despite economic conditions every up and every down was due to my own actions. I don't feel sorry for people whom squander their resources...

I get the old money thing, every place has that though.

THIS distinction that has been bestowed upon Midland is because of the amount of blue collar workers busting their behinds to make $80k+ each year, which really should be motivating.

Lets face it, it shows there IS a chance for people whom lack and education or the correct education if they are willing to work hard.
Like your friend....some people may take their earnings and make that money work for them...instead of seeking comforts.

I guarantee those that seek the comforts will cry foul when things do end or level off and they have nothing. They will look at your friend as a devil....not as someone whom sacrificed.

Anyway, It's good to see a blue collar city overtake the giant in the room even if it's short lived...it gives us hope and proves it can be done!

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired

I'm pretty sure no bank is going to pay off your house and let you continue to live in it unless the bank has to pay so little that they would get their money back even in a worse case worldwide depression. However, one has only to look at how many people bought into the upside down economics of Obamacare to see where banks know they have a steady supply of customers for reverse mortgages.




No. I think in general most east Texans are not much aware of west Texas. However, much of west Texas was settled by east Texans so west Texans are very aware of east Texas.



I'm sure the generally known conservatism of west Texas is not so appealing to the more urbanized areas of eastern Texas but again, many folks in east Texas just don't have many connections to the western side of the State. When an east Texan takes a vacation, he takes his RV to to New Orleans, Disney World and points east. I think it was my FIL who mentioned the animosity of west Texans to east Texans. Maybe it was just him trying to run me away from his daughter.

As to my own landscape preferences, I always loved the mountains of New Mexico but topography seems to have become less and less important to me since I know I can no longer scale the peaks and canyons that I did as a young man looking for fossils, deer or elk, usually in that order. I have some great memories (and pics, see attached) of standing on some mountainside somewhere near timberline many years ago. I believe I would still prefer to have some isolated mountain cabin at 9,000 feet than this flat-footed South Plains farm but I know I could not withstand the cold and extremes of mountain living any more. And too, I sort of like my wife and I'm sure she would leave me if I became a mountain man.

The pic is of me in northern New Mexico in 1978.

But I suppose we should get back to the subject of Permian Basin economics.

LOL!! Cool pic, thanks for sharing. I love NW NM, and miss the winters there, as I knew I would.

[TT Dave]

Originally Posted by Cyborgt800

Just don't take this amazing feat away from these cities! I'll bet that city in CT is full of the new Yawker power brokers and nothing else....it's quite a deal that a small blue collar town in the middle of Texas that no one ever heard of just unseated them!

Yeah, I think that's pretty cool too!

[Weatherguy]

Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired

21%! I didn't think home loans had gotten that high but as we know, "Jimma" Carter was hard at work back then earning his current title and legacy.

I remember those ARMs. I think about those things every time I see one of those reverse mortgage ads on TV. Anymore I sort feel about bankers like Judge Valkenheiser (Dan Aykroyd) did in that old movie Nothing But Trouble.

Yes, west Texas takes a beating in these threads but it takes a beating pretty much everywhere else. One of the things I had felt when I first came to the area in the 1960s was a certain amount of animosity toward east Texans. I guess I now know why.

I too would hate to see west Texas take another shot to the heart like it did in the 1980s.

Ronald Reagan was President, not Carter. Reagan took office in January 1981, and the prime rate soared to 21.5 percent by June 1982. Although many historians do blame Reagan's policies, I'm not necessarily blaming Reagan entirely, because economics are very complex and related to many factors. That could all be the subject of another thread, but I mainly wanted to clarify who was president.

[High_Plains_Retired]

Originally Posted by Weatherguy

Ronald Reagan was President, not Carter.

On inflation, relevant historians have it correctly recorded but I too do not want to turn a thread on Midland's thriving economy into one on what happened to the economy many years ago.

[Midessan]

Originally Posted by Cyborgt800

Just don't take this amazing feat away from these cities! I'll bet that city in CT is full of the new Yawker power brokers and nothing else....it's quite a deal that a small blue collar town in the middle of Texas that no one ever heard of just unseated them!

Yep, Fairfield is a center of the east coast financial (dis)services industry. If those guys hadn't been bailed out by the Federal government, they would have probably lost the title much sooner.

[Cyborgt800]

They ARE the Federal government though....