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Texas Oil Rush


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As the price of oil and gasoline skyrocket, sucking money from the pockets of Americans, that money has to be going somewhere. Elizabeth Chambers goes to Texas to see one place where it's going.
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5 responses // Texas Oil Rush

  • For a really interesting perspective, check out this pod where Elizabeth talks to one of the biggest Oil Men in Texas:
    http://current.com/items/texas-oil-man/76328142
    spuglisi
  • Here's another story where the correspondent took me into a world that I couldn't have entered on my own. In this case, Elizabeth showed me how rising oil prices have unleashed energies in Texas that had been pent up by earlier years of oil glut... On the one hand, it must make you wonder, if you're reading this--and I hope that you are, because we want this website to really engage people--why I still have a job when I have to depend on the correspondents to make things happen. I can answer this by saying that my job as producer is to steer Vanguard's correspondents into areas where they're strong. But then I'm going to risk looking more inept by following up with a call out to contributors to look into a question that I haven't been able to answer. Namely, is it possible, when you look back over the past 35 years of American history, that no factor has been as important in determining the well-being of us ordinary citizens as the price of gasoline? Remember the late '90s, known to history as a time when Americans felt great, due to a stock market bubble? But it was also a time when gasoline briefly dipped below $1 a gallon in some areas, and the price of a barrel of oil was way, way below $20... Do you recall that there was a very bad recession in the early '80s? Around the time that it ended, gasoline prices, which had been at record highs, tanked... In 2007, an era of high gasoline prices, we saw wage gains for average Americans, but not because they were earning higher wages, only because they were working more hours. And so on. I think I can make a pretty good circumstantial case for this relationship--possibly because I'm not an economist. But if any of you could illuminate us more comprehensively on this question of gasoline prices and prosperity, I, at least, would find it helpful.
    MitchKoss
  • Austin is a fantastic place.
    Fascinating pod. That watermelon grower super sweet gentleman and the cows you encounter in centerville just reminds us all that Texas is a huge state with not only oil and roughnecks and big trucks and guns, but a very diversified state of different minds and living standards.
    Dont let one dinasty (ahem, born in the east coast with a phoney south accent) fool you about the great Lonestar.
    Good juxtaposition of that lady in the railroad office admitting she drives an SUV. Keep the great work up!
    -
    I also enjoyed your Utah pod (heart of Bush)
    meligrosa
  • I have lived here my entire life and the only time I have been exposed to banjo music is in Fehrenhiet 9/11 and this production. Pretty ingnorant ou your part.
    baaronc
  • Nice work...I respectfully disagree about the music as well. Nice journalism and very authenitic sound track for the setting.
    jimmyp

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