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[rockchucker]

Article at the Casper Star-Tribune -- Selling the Cowboy State

Organized in part by the Casper Area Economic Development Alliance, several Wyoming groups packed up this week for a visit to economically hurting areas in Michigan: Flint, Lansing and Jackson.

[...]

In all, 13 people from Wyoming traveled to Michigan for the recruitment trip, including representatives of Wyoming's Department of Workforce Services, Campbell County Economic Development Corp., Gillette Campus, P&H MinePro Services and Casper College.

Partly, I'm posting this here because, I admit it, it's likely to just get lost in my browser bookmarks, and I might want to refer to it later. But I figured maybe some other folks might find it useful.

[Roy J. Tellason]

So I did look at the article,  and then found the organization mentioned with a quick search,  and did a little poking around.  Too bad the folks that put those web sites together (several of them) don't seem to be able to supply the sort of info I'd need to get a feel for how things are out in that part of the country...

For example,  I would imagine that the first thing I'm gonna need is some place to live -- do you know offhand what typical rents are likely to be?  Or around where you're at,  for that matter.  I couldn't find that info for some reason,  unless I wanted to go and visit sites that were put up by a bunch of individual real estate brokers,  and I really didn't want to spend that much time on it at this point.

I did find some salary figures,  but those were averages,  I guess I'd have to go job-searching to get a feel for what starting salaries might be like.

Any of you folks who are out in the west care to comment on these points?

[Fardan]

this probably doesn't help much but I was through Wyoming on I - 80 from Laramie on west to Nv a couple of months ago and there sure seemed to be lot of help wanted signs.

[merlin419]

I read the article then scrolled down to the very bottom of it, clicked on "Classified" and it took me to the current classified ads for the Casper paper. Jobs, real estate is all there...

[Wyomiles]

Roy, I'm new here ,came over from the FSW forum. I lived in Wyoming for 27 years and am now in Denver.(but have land in Wyo. and plan on retiring in the Wyo. mountains) The FSW forum is starting to jell and you could find lots of info and links to answers to your questions. We are downloading info from our Yahoo forum tonight so may not be able to get in tonight. The info from the yahoo forum will also have info about jobs and housing. Come on over and take a look.  Generally , Wyoming is in the middle of a large boom, mostly gas wells. And everything that goes with it. Home construction is booming along with it. Lots of jobs in the medical fields too. It all depends on where you settle, housing in "boom" towns can be tough to find but there are good deals if you look around out in the country. Miles

[Rawles]

Laramie is doing the same thing, and quite successfully. 
See: http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_3633343

You can't argue with economic freedom!

[Basil Fishbone]

The new Montana Alliance for Liberty site has a bunch of useful information collected, mainly for Montana, of the sort you were talking about.

[I'll try it again.  For some reason, the link didn't show, instead there was a line/box of some sort that I've seen cutting off other people's posts as well. ?? ]  http://www.montana-alliance-for-liberty.org/phpBB2/index.php
http://www.montana-alliance-for-liberty.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=3&sid=913fe1e32b5ebf669e38e190c4852ef4

http://www.montana-alliance-for-liberty.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=3&sid=913fe1e32b5ebf669e38e190c4852ef4

[Duncan]

One little problem, which is no place to live.

A severe housing shoratge has sent many workers packing and others not showing up.

If you do find a place to rent the cost is so high that you soon discover that you will be in debt to the landlord.

[Gus]

Housing shortage? Someone oughtta build some houses or something- supply a demand, make a buck!

[Wyomiles]

Yep it is a good time to be an entrepreneur in Wyoming. House prices are up. If you have experience building homes or putting in subdivisions you could probably make some good cash.

[Duncan]

To far to drive to get materials needed to build homes. In the mean time you will be forced to live out of your car and the winters get real cold in Northern WY. There are not enough building contractors around to fill a demand and in WY to work as an electrician you must be lisenced by the state and the the state of WY will only recepricate with just a few states. This goes for any trade that requires a lisence i.e. plumbers, carpenters etc .... . The local contractors hate competition and they will get their pals with the state and county inspectors office to deny you a CO. This is how things worked in Sublette County when I worked there and saw an oil boom in the mid 1980's. So you can see that WY is no better than the other states when it comes to sticking it to you.

I have seen people come here from Michigan who took one of these jobs you have listed and then went back home after a few days. Apparenlty living in a depressed state is better than living in WY.

People are commuting between 50 and 100 miles to get to work and paying $3.00 a gallon for gas so they gain nothing income wise. Many of these jobs require people to work 12 hours a day six and even seven days a week. You will lose the bulk of your overtime money to the fed in taxes. If you refuse to work those hours they will fire you and WY is a "right to work" state meaning that as an employee you have no rights in WY.

[Duncan]

Sounds like a good place to own a business.
What employees rights would you advocate exactly?

The right not to work for assholes'

The right to tell asshole to go fuck themsleves.

The right not work 12 hours a day and the right to quit when you are threatened with your job.

I'm an anarchist what other rights would I advocate?

If its good business then why can't they find anyone to take their shit jobs?

You ever work 12/7's for an extended period fo time?

"When you take a job you have the right to do what the guy paying you says or the right to leave the job if you don't like it."

Or the right to never work for the asshole in the first place.

"What else should there be?"

Don't work for assholes in Wyomig who don't pay for shit and then demand that you work 12/7's. Don't work for anyone one at all only work for yourself unless you find an employer the treats you with respect.

What else should an anarchist do?

[Not a TMM member]

You better believe I've worked 12/7 days.
Years worth.
Truck driver, mechanic, fleet manager, automotive machinist, construction tow truck driver, property manager.
I've worked those hours, gone home on call and gone out and changed tires on 22.5in. wheels on the side of the road in the snow at 0300.
Why?
Because it was available, and the hourly wage wasn't stellar so I worked it.
I got tired of it and quit.
You have all the rights you just posted.
You have the right to tell any employer to fuck off at will.
Who told you otherwise?
Is someone holding a gun to your head and demanding work?
Any expectation you have that an employer should do anything but direct your labor efforts and pay you what is the going rate for that work or minimum wage(which is a stupid concept in and of itself) is false.
Any laws stating otherwise are coercive and counterproductive.
If the employer is paying less you don't have to take the job if it's so repugnant to you.
If the only guy hiring wants to pay you less than what you feel it's worth you're screwed.
That's life. Suck it up. 
From what I understand about Wyoming there are more jobs than people....maybe that's why so many are hiring.
So the jobs are tough....so what.
Most construction and field work is a bitch.  No one said there were gravy high paying jobs there, they just said jobs.
Again, what rights do you want that you don't already have?
BTW there is no such thing as a right to work!
Period, the legal concept is false.

[Duncan]

"You better believe I've worked 12/7 days.Years worth.
Truck driver, mechanic, fleet manager, automotive machinist, construction tow truck driver, property manager. I've worked those hours, gone home on call and gone out and changed tires on 22.5in. wheels on the side of the road in the snow at 0300."

The key words here are "I've worked" You're not doing so now and you will admit that you can't do it for your entire life. I did it for months and I did it in the winter outside doing construction work. Everyone gets burned out with that kind of work load and I don't care who you are.

"Why? Because it was available, and the hourly wage wasn't stellar so I worked it. I got tired of it and quit."

Same here. I was young and dumb and didn't know any better.

"Who told you otherwise?"

The point is employers use the state to pass right to work laws which are used to benefit them. You can't have it both ways were you cry freedom and free market and then run to the state to screw the worker. No 'right to work" BS semantics and tricks imposed by the state. Employers are pissed because they have to pay unemployment insurance, workmens comp insurance, regualr insurance etc ... , but instead of fighting it they take it out on the employees by treating them as if they are a replacable commodity and run tto he state like the any good socialist demading laws to protect them. Employees for most part aren't aware of what an employer has to put up with so they get even with the employer by stealing form the company or slacking off on the job. Abolish the state which in turn would elimnate the taxes which would either increase the wages of the employee and or reduce the cost of goods and services.

"Is someone holding a gun to your head and demanding work?"

Yea the state is. I either produce a SS# and an ID card or I won't get the job and if I don't get the job thenI starve to death or I go and steal what I need to survive. This is not my deal of a free market capitalism. The employers work for the state to impose this kind of fascist crap all under the guise of protecting me from illegal immigrant workers. I'd rather allow the immigrants to work here than to put up with the loss of my privacy and freedom.

"Any expectation you have that an employer should do anything but direct your labor efforts and pay you what is the going rate for that work or minimum wage(which is a stupid concept in and of itself) is false."

If the employer really supports the idea of free market or rather claims to support it then he should tell the fed to fuck off. Not very many people willing to take a stand and I feel they all have a duty to stand up to the fed but the vast majority not only fold up like a cheap suit they often work with the fed to screw working people out of their money. Outfits like HP and Exxon are good at rating off their employees to the fed.


"Any laws stating otherwise are coercive and counterproductive. If the employer is paying less you don't have to take the job if it's so repugnant to you. If the only guy hiring wants to pay you less than what you feel it's worth you're screwed. That's life. Suck it up."

I have sucked it up I don't work for anyone. I'm on strike for no taxation of my wealth. Wroking for soemone else is a no sum gain leaving people with no incentive to work just like the old USSR were the taking of the fruits of our labor and makes us all equally poor.
 
"From what I understand about Wyoming there are more jobs than people....maybe that's why so many are hiring."

That's right but you need to ask yourself why people aren't moving here to take those temporary construction jobs. They don't have to it is thier right. Construction workers know that construction work is only temporary. So why move here were there is no housing or housing cost are to high and then leave after a short while? When you can stay at home and be just as poor? What good does it do a person to make 30$ a hour when you lose 35% of it in taxes and the rest goes to paying rent or making a house payment were you become a slave to the bank? A guys better off to stay in Michigan and work for a lousy $10 an hour to pay no income taxes due  to a low wage and pay much less in rent than he would have paid in WY?

The pay off of staying where they are is greater when you consider all of the factors involved i.e. less headaches involved with relocating, living out of a car a possibly getting sick as a result, paying higher taxes, getting gouged by the local merchants. I did this before. When you move to an area where this a demand for employees and the pay is good then the cost of goods and service goes up so you gain nothing by a pay increase as you lose it all in the purchase of housing etc.. .

This is why I got out of construction by the time I paid for tools, car expenses, taxes I was out less of an income than if I had stayed in CO to work for minimum wage. At home I didn't need any tools for work, I didn't need a car to get to and from work and my income was low enough I paid no income taxes.

[Not a TMM member]

I have sucked it up I don't work for anyone. I'm on strike for no taxation of my wealth. Wroking for soemone else is a no sum gain leaving people with no incentive to work just like the old USSR were the taking of the fruits of our labor and makes us all equally poor.

LOL that says everything I need to know.
No state income tax.
At $30 hr 48 hrs a week that around $72,000 You aren't in the 35% bracket there but for the sake of argument we'll say you are.
At that you would pay the Fed. about $25,200.
You have $46,800 left.
I did some looking. I'm playing the Devils advocate and inflating rent to California standards and calling it $1200 a month. And that's optimistic for the landlord.
That brings us to $14,4000.
That leaves you with $32,400.
Again playing the Devil's advocate I'll toss in what I pay for insurance which is about what most people with a family of 4 pay for the whole group.
$750 every three months or $3000 a year, for take home $29,400.
Another $3000 for gas =$26,400
Let's take out $6,400 just for kicks.
I don't know about you but I have had years where $20k after expenses would have been a Godsend.
You never in your life made $20,000 after expenses on minimum wage, never.

I just talked to a friend up in Thermopolis last night.
He laughed when I told him what you said.
He's a mechanic on flat rate at 16.50 an hour.
Let me define flat rate for those not familiar......Boom/Bust. Commision...no work...no money.
His wife doesn't work and he has two kids.
He had a chance to work in Alaska for Chevron for about three times the money and opted not to because he thinks Wyoming is paradise.

BTW he was born and raised in Denver and I lived in Durango and Hesperus.  It ain't Californians fuckin up the scene there.  It's local tweaker trailer trash.
Same in Ft. Collins.
Same as Craig.
Same as the Springs.

That whole tax strike protest BS is code for can't or won't hold a job.
You, Mopgayboy and Voided37 need to go bowling or something.