In an Oil Boom Town, Even a Barber Can Make $180k | Hacker News Reader

In an Oil Boom Town, Even a Barber Can Make $180k

wsj.com

28 pointsNearAP48 comments

Barbar /= "Barbershop owner".

I am really sick of reading about "carpenters" and "plumbers" in these articles. These are people who own and operate small businesses, with employees. We have a local billionaire (Jim Paterson) who people jokingly call a "used car salesman". He didn't make his millions selling cars. He made billions by owning the car dealerships where other people sold cars for him. Wealth comes now from operating a business but from owning it.

I hear what you are saying, but how many of these people were able to start as a barber, carpenter, or plumber, and build up there business from there? If a barber starts their shop, and off the back of their effort, are able to bring others in to work for them, isn't this effectively the barber earning that?

The barber, using their skills, were able to start a small business that hired others. It's not merely a case of some non-barber just buying a small business that happened to be cutting people's hair. So while they didn't start at 180k, they ended up there because of barbering.

You're right, except for the fact that it wasn't the skillset obtained by being a barber that helped build the business - it was the person's business acumen.

You can be great at cutting hair, but abysmal at leading individuals, much less operating a business.

Good point. But I wonder if they would be just as successful in another business. e.g. If the barber suddenly opened up a restaurant. The important point is, it's the fact that this person with this set of skills that include being a barber and their business acumen that allows them to succeed. Remove one, I don't think they'd be as successful in starting a new business.

Business acumen, access to credit, a market niche, decent regulatory environment... and a bunch of other stuff. Mobile barbershops might not even be legal in many places. It is a very regulated area. More training to cut hair than be an EMT.

Are you talking about Jimmy Pattison?

I encountered similar in Wyoming in 2014 when driving through. I was on motorcycle and needed a place for the night. The one city (name I can't recall) where I was ending up at sunset looked ok; but I was shocked that I could barely find a hotel room under $200/night. Apparently that had become the normal (I got one for $130/night eventually after calling literally everywhere in town), due to the oil business there. The people at the desk told me fast food places were starting people at $15/hr, because there was just so much demand for absolutely anyone to work there.

For context, in other equally rural places such as South Dakota, I think I was spending a princely $30/night at cheap motels, but there were none to be found there.

https://causeaction.com/2019/03/01/in-this-oil-boom-town-eve...

https://outline.com/PJ8Pxw also works but doesn't have the photos.

Isn't it a bit questionable to use these services to subvert paywalls? I dislike the notion of DRM and paywalls and I especially abhor it when it is limiting access to academic papers, but if a content creator does not want to give you access to their content without you paying, it seems reasonable to comply with their wishes.

I can't find it now, but there is a comment from an HN moderator from a while back saying that it is OK to link to such pirated paywall news content if the usual tricks for bypassing the paywall (such as going to the site via a Google search result) don't work.

The Are paywalls ok? FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html ?

I was thinking about an actual comment from a moderator in a regular thread discussion. In almost all the discussion I've seen from the mods when they talk about "workarounds" they were referring to ways to read the article on the original site.

For example, searching for the article's title to find the link on Google and clicking that, or following the link in a private browsing window (often works for sites that give everyone N free articles per month).

I never got the impression that linking to pirate copies of the article counted, but then found a moderator comment that said it was OK. I don't remember the exact context, but I think it was in a thread where an account that posts a lot of such links did so, someone asked if this was OK, and a moderator said it was.

I'm curious what the crime rates are like in these oil boom towns.

I live in a city whose boom ended a few years ago. After it ended, it was fascinating counting how many former oil workers with substance issues ended up in our local paper’s criminal court coverage.

Shale is not going to last for much longer. Halliburton has already started the layoffs.

Some estimates say that 90% of earth's oil is in shale rock.

Maybe, but we can't use it without killing the planet. We've already burned too much oil.

Petroleum has many uses that don't involve burning it as fuel.

It's the extraction process that's the problem with shale, moreso than the burning of the gas.

According to this Wikipedia page[0], 81% of every barrel of oil is used for fuel. Although dropping to 1/5th size is not the same as going away, it won't be a very enjoyable ride. The picture might get even worse for petroleum as a chemical precursor once the economies of scale supported by fuel use go away.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_product

Yes and no. Yes there are a lot of uses, but they amount to a small amount of our current oil use. If I read https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=41&t=6 right 75% of crude oil is burned directly as fuel.

edit: note that my numbers are different than the wiki below. I suspect that is because of a difference in what counts for what...

Shale oil and oil shale are different things. You're talking about oil shale, which the US has a ton of, but it is not currently economically viable, but could be in the future. Shale oil is different and is recovered by hydraulic fracturing. It can be economically viable depending on the quality of the deposit.

I grew up in this area. From boom to bust every 10 years. I wonder why nobody can save here then I realize there's literally nothing worth saving for when I lived there.

In this oil world, few hope to make some quick bucks while putting mankind's future at stake.

eh sounds like all these people’s lives are significantly better. Also, it sounds like we aren’t shipping oil all the way across the world to be refined into gas nearly as much if we are getting directly from Texas. I could even imagine this being co2 net positive

Shale oil is well-known to have significantly higher CO₂ costs than conventional crude.

At least it's (generally) EROEI-positive, finally (though much of that is a result of burning the lower grade stuff to fractionally distill off the higher grades, which materially contributes to the CO₂ problem...).

It's unfair to blame the drillers for producing oil and endangering humanity's future when, clearly, our entire society is in on it. Although you can surely blame them for being irresponsible and releasing fracking chemicals all over the place, that is on them.

We are?

What are "our" options? As far as I can tell my option is to lose my job entirely by not buying any gasoline at the pump in protest. Or write my local senator/congressman who has little control or care.

It's not like there is a "shale oil" pump vs. a non shale oil pump at the local gas station. And asking the majority of the population to pick up and move close to their work (and then hope they have that job for eternity) doesn't really seem like a reasonable solution either.

I think it's entirely reasonable to lay the blame at the feet of the people actually doing it. Just like when the CIA was torturing Iraqi's it was entirely reasonable to lay the blame for torture at their feet vs. copping out by saying "the whole country is to blame".

>What are "our" options?

We choose to buy suburban homes with large gardens. We choose to buy gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. We choose to fly thousands of miles for a week-long holiday. We vote for municipal governments that choose low-density zoning laws. We vote for politicians that promise cheap gas and disparage public transit.

We all have some responsibility to bear for this issue.

In all likelihood, you're currently living in a way that environmentalists would describe as unsustainable, but still shaking your fist at society. This is hypocritical. There are two paths to avoid this hypocrisy:

1. Buy an electric car. Live in a smaller home. Consume fewer material goods. Set your heat cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Do what you can and actually put your money and lifestyle where your mouth is.

The electric car will cost more than your gasoline powered car. You will be uncomfortable. Depending on your viewpoints about stoicism and hedonic adaptation, this won't actually be so bad. However, you will be actionably pulling society in the direction of living in a sustainable way.

2. Decide that you do not care about global warming. Either deny its existence, come to the conclusion that the net effects on planet earth will not be severe enough to be worth the cost to prevent it, or come to the conclusion that it is an unsolvable collective action problem.

Shaking your fist is virtue signalling. Do something.

>1. Buy an electric car. Live in a smaller home.

Better: move to a city, sell your car and buy bikes for your family. Live in a flat.

Edit: as a comment to tw04's reply, do you really believe that the owners and banks of fracking companies choose to ignore changes in demand when investing in decades' long projects? If so, you should just fight capitalism because it would be the most stupid system of capital allocation one can think of.

Many of us work in a suburban office park with ZERO places to live in walking distance, and no bus service. Even if you count bike distance, the office park really needs more workers than zoning codes all to live in a comfortable distance (don't forget the getting over/around hiways often adds significant distance to a commute)

>1. Buy an electric car. Live in a smaller home. Consume fewer material goods. Set your heat cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Do what you can and actually put your money and lifestyle where your mouth is.

Literally none of that will stop the immediate threat of fracking injecting chemicals into our drinking water. Which is the discussion.

In fact, fracking will have done all of its damage long before ANY of those things will cause a change in behavior by the companies doing it.

Your comment that I replied to had a broad enough scope (i.e. asking the majority of the population to pick up and move close to their work) that it is still in context.

Buying an electric car will contribute on the margin to stopping fracking due to less gasoline consumption. It is action rather than yelling and virtue signalling.

>As far as I can tell my option is to lose my job entirely by not buying any gasoline at the pump in protest. Or write my local senator/congressman who has little control or care.

You can't think of another option? Then do nothing, but I'm sure everyone else will think the same and nothing will change until things will start to collapse. At that time, we'll all wonder why we didn't try harder earlier.

I agree with you about the dilemmas but, personally, I believe it's time to recognize that our current economic system refuse to admit that there are hard limits to growths so I'm doing my best to disrupt it. I'm not pushing others to do the same, I'm just answering your question.

Blame the customers then (but they're mere employees), or the employers, then (but they must feed their family too), the banks and shareholders who finance them maybe (but they all have families too), or the FED that makes this whole circus possible (but growth?!).

It's like "First they came..." but in reverse.

Who should we hold responsible? Aren't we all part of this dumb experiment?

Edit: I spent a lot on a tiny flat just to live in a dense city so I can bike to work and heat my place as little as possible. I can't do much more to limit CO2 emissions actually, but I'm certain that those who make $180k to do haircuts because fracking are responsible one way or another.

"Who should we hold responsible? Aren't we all part of this dumb experiment?"

Yes. That's why blame is counterproductive when it comes to systemic injustices or unsustainable practices. Focus on incentives instead - why do the various actors do what they do? Is there a link that can be broken by creating an alternative or changing the payoffs to a certain action, and what's the cost of breaking that link?

First we must blame ourselves. We won't go far if we avoid that.

I'd disagree with that too. Lots of recent psychological research has shown that blaming & shaming does not work - it makes people (including yourself) shrink away from the problem, because the experience of being blamed is uncomfortable and as much as our conscious mind may tell ourselves to "embrace discomfort because we deserve it", the unconscious mind recoils.

A better perspective is to accept that this is how things are and that we have the ability to change it into something better, and then take that as a call to action to search for what that "something better" might be.

That's obviously false because once I self admit that I was a big contributor to climate change and started blaming myself for it, I completely changed my way of life, for good.

Why would you change if you are not to blame? And how can you convince/encourage others to change if you don't do it yourself first?

Maybe "shrinking away from the problem" is a good think when the problem is excessive consumption / pollution. Being uncomfortable is necessary sometimes, otherwise you can't experience the reality of the problem (we're killing us, yes, it's uncomfortable, for sure). Your better perspective seems to be wishful thinking. Just say things as they are, accept some temporary discomfort and act to make things better from there.

Someone else did not blame you, you made the choice for yourself.

You call it blame, but that's the wrong word.

> Edit: I spent a lot on a tiny flat just to live in a dense city so I can bike to work and heat my place as little as possible.

That didn't help anything though. If you didn't get that flat, someone else would have. In the net you made no change at all.

> I can't do much more to limit CO2 emissions actually

Isn't that kind of the point the person you are replying to is making? You can't do anything else, and the one thing you did do, didn't even help.

> but I'm certain that those who make $180k to do haircuts because fracking are responsible one way or another.

And you don't see how this kind of attitude makes things worse? This is a system issue, not an individual one. If any individual (even a huge number of them) decided "I won't", someone else will, so their action did nothing whatsoever.

This isn't going to change at the individual level.

The person you are replying to has the correct idea: Change things so that naturally everyone switches to the better behavior, without blaming or saying "your fault".

you hold voters/politicians responsible. Voters are the ones who keep voting for politicians that subsidize the oil industry. We need to stop the subsidies. And then add in some steep extra taxes on oil/gas to offset the damage to the environment. Once prices rise, all the sudden people and companies will start making the right decisions.

Certainly not. Rich people can afford to pay very high prices so they don't have to change their life one bit.

Only the poor will suffer if you want things to change meaningfully, nbut they aren't stupid so you'll end up with yellow vests everywhere, and government will become even more authoritarian (if not dictatorial) to "restore order and stop the eco-bullshit".

Edit: I live a few blocks away from where yellow vests have been demonstrating for 20+ Saturday in a row. I had cars burning in my street several times now, so I'm just describing what's already taking place. Macron's government is getting more aggressive day by day, enough for the UN commission for human rights to send several warnings. Macron has made clear he won't change its policies one bit -- e.g out of the question to put back the tax on ultra riches (aka ISF) but poor people will have to pay more to drive to work... aaaaand we've now got the most violent protestations in France since the Algerian War!. The two former presidents (N Sarkozy and F Hollande) just said they expect the far-right to come to power very soon.

TLDR: Don't expect people to pay taxes on essential goods if the riches don't have to change their consumption too. Either we, collectively, change or we don't. The message is quite clear.

I've been trying to follow the yellow vest protests but media attention has died down here is in the US.

How many people are protesting at this point? Are the protests getting worse in damage and severity? Is the French government actually solving problems or just cracking down harder?

does the 0.1% really make that much of a difference in the environment? even if they were driving a 12mpg aventador all over the place, that's still only 5 times more pollution than a prius. and most likely they'll be driving less than a working person anyways.

Quick money has allured humanity for generations. Gold rushes, investment banking, SV startup boom... its in the nature of people to try and make a quick buck.

>its in the nature of people to try and make a quick buck.

Just say it's yours (or bank's, startups'...), cause it sure ain't mine.

You should meet some people who try and do things differently. For instance, entrepreneurs who start cooperative, owned and controlled by employees and with no capital gains (we aren't hiding but the media sure don't like to speak about us).

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