Portland loses 20,000 jobs in past year

[TDNY]

Not every company can sell to the govt. Those that do generally make obscene profits, your company is unusual. Did you every consider that the reason your company is able to offer all those benefits is because they are charging a lot for their services? It is highly unusual for a small business to be able to afford benefits like that. At least the owners give it back, that's cool. I don't think most companies choose to give ****ty benefits just because they can, it's because it's really ****ing expensive. I'm self employed and I pay for all that stuff on my own, it costs a lot, trust me.

[jruss80]

Originally Posted by davefr

There's no reason Oregon couldn't win in both areas. There's no need to sacrifice beauty and environmental stewaradship to achieve a vibrant economy.

It's simply our "moronic politicians" that just don't get it.

Couldn't agree more

[westess]

going back to the idea that texas has more space, cheaper land, and denser population- you have to remember that Oregon puts a lot of importance on protecting it's wilderness- a large amount of wilderness is protected, the entire coastline of oregon is public land, and portland has strict rules to avoid urban sprawl. Perhaps we shouldn't compare the economies of a huge state with many resources with a small state with one small "big city..." I know Portland is often compared with Austin, but I think that comparison lies more in cultural "hipster" and DIY aesthetics and not the economy/industries.

[jruss80]

Originally Posted by PDXBound

Wow... I guess I've been truly spoiled by the ethics of the company I currently work for. It is a small business; we deal with government contracting (so there's little to no profit) and the company runs specifically to give people jobs. I work in accounting, so I know our profits. The one year we made a good profit all the employees got a huge bonus. We get money in, we pay overhead. The employees work their asses off for the contracts, and they get paid. We get full medical/dental/vision/matching 401k. THIS is the kind of company I truly respect; unfortunately they seem few and far between.

What is the profit margin?

[maxredline]

Originally Posted by Brenda-by-the-sea

Oregon will still have healthy forests -- a renewable natural resource -- when Peak Petroleum has drained Texas dry of decomposed dinosaur juice.

That's just silly.

Coal and peat are "fossil fuels", but oil is clearly not. Oil has nothing to do with dinosaurs.

The idea that petroleum is formed from dead organic matter is known as the "biogenic theory" of petroleum formation and was first proposed by a Russian scientist almost 250 years ago.

In the 1950's, however, a few Russian scientists began questioning this traditional view and proposed instead that petroleum could form naturally deep inside the Earth.

This so-called "abiogenic" petroleum might seep upward through cracks formed by asteroid impacts to form underground pools, according to one hypothesis. Some geologists have suggested probing ancient impact craters in the search for oil.

Your view is 250 years old. Back then, there were a lot of "truths" that didn't withstand scrutiny. Your view of oil as liquified dinos is just one of them.

[jruss80]

So, 20,000 jobs huh?

[Lunar Delta]

Originally Posted by maxredline

That's just silly.

Coal and peat are "fossil fuels", but oil is clearly not. Oil has nothing to do with dinosaurs.

The idea that petroleum is formed from dead organic matter is known as the "biogenic theory" of petroleum formation and was first proposed by a Russian scientist almost 250 years ago.

In the 1950's, however, a few Russian scientists began questioning this traditional view and proposed instead that petroleum could form naturally deep inside the Earth.

This so-called "abiogenic" petroleum might seep upward through cracks formed by asteroid impacts to form underground pools, according to one hypothesis. Some geologists have suggested probing ancient impact craters in the search for oil.

Your view is 250 years old. Back then, there were a lot of "truths" that didn't withstand scrutiny. Your view of oil as liquified dinos is just one of them.

Huh. And here I was thinking that most geologists didn't support the idea of abiogenic petroleum.

Although the abiogenic hypothesis was accepted by some geologists in the former Soviet Union, most geologists now consider the abiogenic formation of petroleum scientifically unsupported.[2] Although evidence exists for abiogenic formation of methane and hydrocarbon gases within the Earth,[3][4] studies indicate they are not produced in commercially significant quantities (i.e. a median abiogenic hydrocarbon content in extracted hydrocarbon gases of 0.02%).[5] The abiogenic origin of petroleum has also recently been reviewed in detail by Glasby, who raises a number of objections, including that there is no direct evidence to date of abiogenic petroleum (liquid crude oil and long-chain hydrocarbon compounds).[2]

[PNW-type-gal]

Originally Posted by Lunar Delta

Huh. And here I was thinking that most geologists didn't support the idea of abiogenic petroleum.

We don't. It's not taught in the study of petroleum geology except as a odd footnote.

[hamellr]

Originally Posted by jruss80

Couldn't agree more

Which odd considering Oregon Politicians at the Federal level tend to be pretty big movers and shakers and usually working towards the greater good.

[mwruckman]

Originally Posted by RenaudFR

Portland has lost 20,000 private-sector jobs in the past year and 41,100 jobs since 2005, according to figures released Wednesday morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The raw change in the past year puts the city at a lowly No. 88 on a list of 100 markets.
Four Texas markets have registered the nation’s strongest employment gains during the past five years: Houston has added 129,800 private-sector jobs since June 2005, the largest increase in any market. It’s followed by Dallas-Fort Worth (up 71,300 private-sector jobs in five years), Austin (up 56,100) and San Antonio (up 32,600).
The biggest gain outside of Texas occurred in Raleigh, N.C., which picked up 22,100 private-sector jobs between June 2005 and the same month this year.
[LEFT]
Portland loses 20,000 jobs in past year - Portland Business Journal (http://houston.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2010/07/26/daily27.html - broken link)
[/LEFT]

We need to put these Texas job numbers in context. The Washington Post reported that the number of undocumented immigrants had dropped from 800,000 per year in 2005 to 300,000 in 2009. So I estimate roughly 2.5-3 million people entered the job market in the last 5 years via this route. Given Texas' long border with Mexico and that border isn't a dangerous hot land called the Sonora or Sinaloa, it is likely that half of the illegals came to Texas. So Texas would need hundreds of thousands of jobs just to stand still and keep the states metro areas from becoming barrios with a lot of unoccupied Tejanos.