Americas Newest Boomtown

[Mark]

WILLISTON, N.D. -- They're pulling in fat paychecks, but now they're also homeless.
In the town of Williston, N.D., America's newest oil boomtown more than 6,000 job seekers have come from every corner of the country looking for work. Yet, oil companies and other developers haven't been able to build housing units fast enough.

In the past year, only about 2,000 new housing units have been built, leaving many workers out in the cold.
With dozens of job seekers arriving by the day and fewer and fewer spots for them to live in, people are taking some desperate measures.
Newer arrivals who can't find vacant hotel rooms or apartments sleep in their cars or in sleeping bags on spare patches of grass along the highway. The luckier ones nab a spot in one of the dozens of dorm-like facilities, known as "man camps," that the oil companies have built to house their workers.
The living conditions are far from ideal, but to some of these workers the lure of doubling or tripling their salaries far outweighs the physical and mental toll it can take.
My street address is the Walmart parking lot
In July, Matt was transferred from a Walmart in Minnesota to Williston's only Walmart -- more than doubling his salary. After arriving in the town he bought an RV to live in and soon realized that the store's parking lot was going to be the closest thing to home he was going to have for some time.
Each day, he buys something from the 24-hour Supercenter so he has an excuse to stay there. At night, Matt (who asked that his last name not be used) and his neighbors break out their lawn chairs, a grill and some beers and tell stories into the wee hours about where they have come from and what they are doing -- or hope to do -- with the money they will make off of this black gold rush.

Entry level jobs everywhere from restaurants and grocery stores to convenience stores and local banks pay a minimum of $12 per hour, according to the McKenzie County Job Development Authority. Truck drivers make an average of $70,000 to $80,000 a year.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/21/pf/a...sing/index.htm

[Wingfoot]

Playing the Banking Game
How Cash Starved States can Create their Own Credit

On February 19, 2009, California narrowly escaped bankruptcy, when Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger put on his Terminator hat and held the state senate in lockdown mode until they signed a very controversial budget. If the vote had failed, the state was going to be reduced to paying its employees in I.O.U.s. California avoided bankruptcy for the time being, but 46 of 50 states are insolvent and could be filing Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings in the next two years.

One of the four states that is not insolvent is an unlikely candidate for the distinction – North Dakota. North Dakota is a sparsely populated state of less than 700,000, known for cold weather, isolated farmers and a hit movie – Fargo. Since 2000, the state’s GNP has grown 56%, personal income has grown 43%, and wages have grown 34%. For 2009, North Dakota had a budget surplus of $1.2 billion!

What does the State of North Dakota have that other states don’t? The answer seems to be: its own bank. In fact, North Dakota has the only state-owned bank in the nation.

As Gandhi said, “When the people lead, the leaders will follow.” We the people can beat the Wall Street bankers at their own game, by moving our legislators to set up publicly-owned banks that create credit using the same banking principles that are accepted as standard and usual in the trade by bankers themselves.

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[sprayandpray]

Don't credit unions serve the same purpose?

[Wingfoot]

Don't credit unions serve the same purpose?

For those of us not living or banking in North Dakota, ABSOLUTELY! Anything to transfer our money away from the corrupt, greedy, corporate, FAT-CAT bankers.

The Occupy Wall Street protestors are asking Americans to send a message to these moneygrubbers and pull our money out of any corporate bank and do our banking with a credit union.

The largest corporate US banks:

Bank of America
Barclays Capital
Citigroup
Credit Suisse
Deutsche Bank
Goldman Sachs
JPMorgan Chase
Morgan Stanley
Nomura Securities
UBS
Wells Fargo Securities



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[Dave72]

Heck ya, Ive been with a credit union since '88, moved my mortage there in '98 or so. Cant move my ccard there yet though.. big bank is charging me 11%, credit union ccard is 19.8.. no thanks.. (I guess they (or mine anyhow) doesnt have the pull with the big label ccard co's to offer lower % ?)