Prospects for Rural Pennsylvania

I'm wrapping up a research study with my colleague, David Yerger. We're looking at unemployment and underemployment in rural areas of Pennsylvania.

Good news: If you graduate from high school (or complete your GED), you'll be ok continuing to live in these beautiful Laurel Highlands, or other areas in the commonwealth.

Bad news: If you are a college graduate living in rural areas (or a college student expecting to maintain residency in rural areas once you graduate), you're likely to find yourself complaining about your job and your wage (i.e., you are more likely to consider yourself "under-" employed). Unless there are some changes in the economy or some policies targeting job growth for college graduates in these rural areas, you ought to think about making a move to Phila or da 'Burgh, or Harrisburg (is there any slang term for Harrisburg?).

The full report will be available at a later date.

boo to bad ebayers

Ok people, if you're selling something on ebay and someone pays right away with paypal, you really ought to acknowledge the receipt of payment. You really ought to coddle the buyer.

There is someone out there who has failed to do that on something I purchased three days ago. It could be in the mail or you could be just a rude and ignorant seller. I don't care if I receive the package tomorrow, you're not getting any positive feedback.

Boo.

Union City Blues

As many of you might know, I had been complaining about my office for a few years. For the most part it is a great office but the desk, being one of those "workstation" type of set ups, pieces bolted together and bolted to the wall, was not immediately movable or reconfigurable. Moreover, if it was reconfigured it would require finesse as well as approval, in particular by the dean, a former occupant of this office space.

So I finally come up with a good plan that would be easy to execute and I got approval. Well, wouldn't you know that I was not permitted to disassemble university property like that on my own. It required a work order for maintenance to do this. Ok. Sounds great. Must be a union thing. (It is indeed.) So they finally arrive but find that they need a "carpenter" to employ a drill needed to unbolt the hardware.

It took two carpenters and two maintenace workers to handle this task. It was something I was able to do on my own but I was not allowed to. I guess I'm privvy to more information on this than you are, dear reader, however, I couldn't help but be stupefied by this event.

Just so you know, I'm not thrilled about being a union guy myself. This institutionalized adversarial relationship between "management" and "labor", terms which I loathe in this academic environment, also results in the creation of additional institutions, offices, bureaus that use resources but don't really produce anything.

Back to work.

Yay

I noticed gasoline dropped 6 cents at Sunoco today. It's about time.

Oil and gasoline prices are falling

Oil prices have been falling.

So when the fuck are they going to drop gasoline prices around Indiana?

Although my analysis is not rigorous, I've been following gas prices between Ohio and central PA over the last few years. Gas prices have not been quick to adjust around here. Tell me if you've seen gasoline below $2.359 for regular around IUP? Sheetz, Sunoco, they all price the same and without volatility. Anyone regularly traveling to Ohio or Philadelphia will notice that pump prices are consistently lower. In Ohio, more volatile. Over the holiday break I've seen lowest priced gas as high as $2.259 and, most recently this weekend, $1.979. I returned to Indiana and noticed $2.259 at the Sheetz on US 422 near New Castle and, low and behold, holding steady at $2.359 in Indiana. Don't say it is taxes. My argument still holds even controlling for that. I'm not suggesting prices around here need to be closer to Ohio's. I'm saying they ought to be lower than they are now. They haven't moved downward when the prices in much of the rest of the country have fallen. Is there price fixing? Probably to some extent. Difficult to prove, but I think I smell an oil soaked rat at Sheetz.