Softball Apathy

[R1Letterman]

What is softball's budget?

[Cajunrunner]

We were told for years the lafayette area economy is an anomaly compared to national economy. If gas/oil prices are high, lafayette economy is good....well the gas prices are high, so what gives.

Few things:

1- High, yes the local economy was generally good in the past, but you still didn’t want too high, as then it offsetted the positives of oil & gas based dollars flooding the local economy.

2- The Lafayette economy is more diverse now, so I would think that high gasoline prices aren’t necessarily going to transfer to a good local economy while the rest of the country might be in a lull.

3- Kind of going with #2, onshore oil & gas exploration in Louisiana itself is WAY down from those past good times years. Natural gas prices no longer follow a relationship with oil prices, and the Tier 1 & 2 acreages in Louisiana for oil plays seems to have been drilled out. Offshore has picked back up in recent years, so that is helping. But if you’re mostly onshore-based, you’re either hoping you can work remote, or you’re moving somewhere out to Texas or Colorado where many of your shale players are based. Not many significant onshore E&Ps left in Lafayette, unfortunately, and while there’s still tons of service companies along US 90 that may still be headquartered in the area, they’ve got massive yards and a large number of employees out in West Texas and Southeast New Mexico.

[R1Letterman]

Few things:

1- High, yes the local economy was generally good in the past, but you still didn’t want too high, as then it offsetted the positives of oil & gas based dollars flooding the local economy.

2- The Lafayette economy is more diverse now, so I would think that high gasoline prices aren’t necessarily going to transfer to a good local economy while the rest of the country might be in a lull.

3- Kind of going with #2, onshore oil & gas exploration in Louisiana itself is WAY down from those past good times years. Natural gas prices no longer follow a relationship with oil prices, and the Tier 1 & 2 acreages in Louisiana for oil plays seems to have been drilled out. Offshore has picked back up in recent years, so that is helping. But if you’re mostly onshore-based, you’re either hoping you can work remote, or you’re moving somewhere out to Texas or Colorado where many of your shale players are based. Not many significant onshore E&Ps left in Lafayette, unfortunately, and while there’s still tons of service companies along US 90 that may still be headquartered in the area, they’ve got massive yards and a large number of employees out in West Texas and Southeast New Mexico.

Wow. A sincere thanks. That clears up a lot.

I really do appreciate it, sorry that you will now be ostracized by the powers that be for answering me.

[Cajunrunner]

Wow. A sincere thanks. That clears up a lot.

I really do appreciate it, sorry that you will now be ostracized by the powers that be for answering me.

Nah…nothing I wrote was political.

But just in case, I agree with VO, T and others above that Coach Glasco has done an excellent job with our program. The previous head coach and his followers did everything they could to burn it down for good on the way out the door.

They failed.

[ZoomZoom]

Thankful we’re more diversified than decades ago.

Absolutely truth, especially in the mid 80’s. RR had the national economy booming a few years after cleaning up Carter’s economic mess. Same time, people here were walking in banks and handing the keys of their homes to mortgage holders. Having to sell a home then was brutal.

[Cajunrunner]

Thankful we’re more diversified than decades ago.

Absolutely truth, especially in the mid 80’s. RR had the national economy booming a few years after cleaning up Carter’s economic mess. Same time, people here were walking in banks and handing the keys of their homes to mortgage holders. Having to sell a home then was brutal.

Regarding the above, this letter to the editor, printed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, from one of Reagan’s former advisors was interesting. He’s replying to a letter by Andriy Yermak, who is head of the Office of President of Ukraine. Mr. Yermak argued that President Reagan intentionally worked with OPEC to drive the price of oil way down, and he insists that the U.S. should work work OPEC to drive prices down to $30/bbl. Truth is, if you do that, it probably won’t be pretty for the Gulf Coast. See below:

[Cajunrunner]

In “The Oil Weapon Against Moscow” (op-ed, March 27), Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, writes, “In 1986, President Ronald Reagan and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia developed a plan to lower the price of oil.” Mr. Yermak then asserts that this plan was designed to cripple the Soviet Union.

I was a senior economist on President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, where I was responsible for energy policy, and later an oil trader who, as reported by Lee Daniels in the New York Times (Feb. 4, 1986), was one of the first to predict the collapse of OPEC in 1986 and an oil-price plunge to below $10 a barrel. I think Mr. Yermak hasn’t consulted the historical record.

To discipline OPEC members who were cheating on their quotas and drive marginal non-OPEC producers out of the market, the Saudis, operating as the OPEC cartel’s swing producer, opened their taps and the price of oil plunged to $9.75 a barrel on March 31, 1986. Contrary to Mr. Yermak’s assertions, however, these events didn’t bring cheers from the Reagan administration.

Instead, the Reagan administration hit the panic button and trotted out no less than Vice President George H.W. Bush for a hurriedly arranged press conference on March 31. The vice president didn’t mince his words: “I think it is essential that we talk about stability [of oil prices].” With that, oil prices immediately turned around.

Prof. Steve H. Hanke

Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore

https://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-pri...r_article_pos2

[R1Letterman]

Nah…nothing I wrote was political.

But just in case, I agree with VO, T and others above that Coach Glasco has done an excellent job with our program. The previous head coach and his followers did everything they could to burn it down for good on the way out the door.

They failed.

I didnt mean political... just from answering me

[R1Letterman]

The 2019-2020 south carolina women's basketball team is listed as "deFacto consenus" national champions. Why is cajuns 2020 softball team not afforded similar honors?

[CajunT]

Regarding the above, this letter to the editor, printed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, from one of Reagan’s former advisors was interesting. He’s replying to a letter by Andriy Yermak, who is head of the Office of President of Ukraine. Mr. Yermak argued that President Reagan intentionally worked with OPEC to drive the price of oil way down, and he insists that the U.S. should work work OPEC to drive prices down to $30/bbl. Truth is, if you do that, it probably won’t be pretty for the Gulf Coast. See below:

Sorry, this is not news to me. Reagan was my first Presidential election. If you follow history, Reagan did break the Soviet Union while forcing them to escalate their domestic spending on their military. Gorbachev tried to keep with our level of domestic spending, including the development of (SDI) Strategic Defense Initiatives. The Soviet Union could not keep up with the spending due to the OPEC and REAGAN agreement.

I don't think you would have seen the destruction of the Berlin Wall without the economic pressure. Of Course, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma paid a huge economic price for his agreement with OPEC.

[Cajunsmike]

I read a story once indicating Reagan and Bush were shocked at the negative implications the OPEC production increases had on the US oil and gas industry. It was on the brink of complete collapse in late 85 and early 86. Once the administration realized that, they asked the Saudi’s to decrease production and the industry survived, barely. Of course that led to a volatile period in which layoffs occurred every 2 to 3 years for the next 30 years.

[Cajunrunner]

I read a story once indicating Reagan and Bush were shocked at the negative implications the OPEC production increases had on the US oil and gas industry. It was on the brink of complete collapse in late 85 and early 86. Once the administration realized that, they asked the Saudi’s to decrease production and the industry survived, barely. Of course that led to a volatile period in which layoffs occurred every 2 to 3 years for the next 30 years.

Some of that, actually a good bit of it over the past couple of decades, has been self-inflicted by the shale companies and a lack of fiscal discipline. I think the bottom truly falling out in 2020 with the combo of the Russian-Saudi price war and government shutting down demand in their overly aggressive responses to Covid has, hopefully, taught that lesson once and for all.