Fracking has been very good for Midland, TX, as well as many other cities in the vicinity of fields where the process is in use. Populations have grown. Incomes have gone up. And jobs have been plentiful. That's old news, but less well know is what's happening in the energy city of Yuma.
Washington Free Beacon contrasts the two cities:
As a result of Midland’s fracking-induced oil glut, the town’s increasing population is also enjoying a boost in personal incomes. Per capita income in the city increased by 25 percent between 2009 and 2011. ...
“Every state with shale development across the nation is outpacing the national average in terms job growth,” Energy in Depth spokesman Joe Massaro wrote on Thursday.
In contrast to the successes of those oil and gas boomtowns, Yuma, Ariz., is facing the highest unemployment rate of any U.S. metro area at a whopping 26.1 percent.
Yuma is the site of the Agua Caliente solar plant—the largest photovoltaic solar generation facility in the world.
Agua Caliente received a $967 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy (DOE) in 2011. According to DOE, federal financing helped create 10 permanent jobs.
The money came by way of the same loan guarantee program that financed the notorious—and now bankrupt—solar company Solyndra. ...
“It represents the difference between an industry which exists of its own accord, by providing goods and services that people actually want to buy, and an industry that exists only by the grace of government, which acts to mandate demand and subsidize supply,” said William Yeatman, an energy policy expert with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in an email.
Will voters wake up to the fact that central government planning isn't a viable economic arrangement? Larry Kudlow is right: free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
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