The Marvel Of American Resilience

Fracking is making the U.S. the world’s leading oil and gas producer. How did this happen?

  • Not because of any great advantage in geology—many countries have larger recoverable shale gas reserves.
  • Not because America’s big energy companies are uniquely skilled or smart or deep-pocketed:
  • Not because enlightened mandarins in the federal bureaucracy and national labs saw the future potential.

It happened:

  • Because Americans, almost uniquely in the world, have property rights to the minerals under their yards.
  • Because the federal government wasn’t really paying attention.
  • Because federalism allows states to do their own thing.
  • Because against-the-grain entrepreneurs like George Mitchell and Harold Hamm couldn’t be made to bow to the consensus of experts.
  • Because our deep capital markets were willing to bet against those experts.
  • Because of freedom, optimism, flexibility, and resilience.

The article concludes:

We are larger than our leaders. We are better than our politics. We are wiser than our culture. We are smarter than our ideas. Enjoy the holiday.

If you can’t get access to the Wall Street Journal article that celebrates this American triumph, click on the top Google article here.

The Death Of The American Family Dinner Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Across the United States, roughly 88 percent of Americans still say they frequently eat dinner with other members of their household, according to a new study by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

The survey found that the average family eats dinner together more than 5 times a week, and nearly 60 percent of households with children younger than 18 sit down to supper six or seven nights a week.

Some of the benefits of eating regularly together include:

  • Teenagers who frequently ate with their families tended to use drugs less often.
  • Students who ate less often with their loved ones were more likely to be truant at school.
  • Children who eat group meals at home demonstrate fewer signs of depression.

The Unbelievable Rise Of Single Motherhood In America Over The Last 50 years

  • More women are having their children later in life.
  • And they’re doing so in less traditional ways: before marriage, without marriage, or with unmarried partners.
  • Half of all children will live with a single mom at some point before the age of 18.
  • Children with two parents fare better in many ways — in school, in their own relationships — than children with only one at home.
  • A black child today is much more likely to be born to a single mom than a white child, or the child of a mom with a college degree.
  • More than 70 percent of all black children today are born to an unmarried mom, a three-fold increase in that rate since the 1960s

Private Colleges Are A Waste Of Time For White Middle Class Kids

A Gallup survey asked graduates how they were doing across five different metrics, including financially, physically and socially. The summary finding: for kids with well educated parents, what matters is getting a college degree, not where it came from. Some of the other findings:

  • Eleven percent of graduates of public universities and private universities said they were “thriving” across all five metrics.
  • Twelve percent of graduates of U.S. News & World Report’s top 100 schools were thriving, essentially the same as the rest.
  • The biggest predictor of whether a graduate wasn’t thriving was whether he or she had student loans. Fourteen percent of those without any debt said they were thriving, compared to 2 percent of those with more than $40,000 of debt.
  • The happiest students, in general, were the ones who developed a relationship with a mentor, participated in extracurricular activities or took on a major academic project — all things you can do at any school.
  • Students with more potential made more money as adults, and the students with less made less — no matter where they went to school.
  • Conclusion: how much you make depends on you, not where you get in.
  • Christo Heiberg

    Dear David,

    I appreciate so much of what you write and preach! But I am afraid i was disturbed by this post. The fracking spectre is hanging like an ominous dark cloud over the South African Karoo, and its haunting beauty. This method of extracting natural gas from under the earth is threatening one third of the land God gave to my people; brown, white and black. They will never get it back. It will be spoiled forever. Its landscape will be marred, its people will be left forsaken and devastated with polluted ground water. The Karoo contains the fifth largest deposit of natural gas in the world. Just imagine what’s going to happen once Shell and others have moved their big trucks and equipment in? l feel for these poor folks, for they are powerless before big oil companies and the worlds insatiable lust for energy. Or perhaps I am totally misinformed! I would beg anyone to inform me better… for this thing makes me depressed! I would love to know that fracking is 100% safe, for I have loved the Karoo and its wonderful people so much ever since I was a child!

    A new award-winning documentary on this frightening thing – made by a 24 year old Afrikaner girl Jolynn Minnaar- is about to be released, called Un-Earthed. Please watch it once it is available. In the meanwhile, watch this recent interview with her…
    Jolynn Minnaar – Documentary Filmmaker;

    Or watch this rather sad music video made by South African artist David Kramer…
    David Kramer – Fracking is not an Option on Vimeo

    A blessed and fracking-free Christmas to you David and to all your readers,
    Christo Heiberg

  • Joseph Klein

    David,

    I am afraid that, as one who loves God’s creation and sees himself as its steward, I cannot support a practice that poisons the water and air for the wealth of a few wealthy men and the maintenance of America’s addiction to non-renewable resources.

    Joe

    • Daniel Pennington

      Hello Joseph, you should know that there are plenty of your brothers and sisters in the Lord who work in this industry. Destroying the environment is the last thing on our minds.

      Thanks and Merry Christmas

      Daniel

      • Joseph Klein

        Yes, it is true. My hope is that followers of Jesus finally “come out,” in the words of Daniel, from systems that ultimately destroy what God has created– certain energy industries, arms manufactures, the military, etc. It is a sad fact of history that many Christians participated in and defended the slave trade until it was outlawed (while fought against it). Let’s lead, not follow, on this one!

  • Steven Birn

    Fracking is a great example of free enterprise at work. Without government involvement, either in promoting or in restraining fracking, industry has figured out a way to meet the demands of customers in a cost efficient and creative manner. The United States is now the #1 producer of oil in the world and our economy is reaping the benefits this. All done mind you without the state. The green energy crowd could learn a lesson from fracking.

    For those concerned about environmental problems, there haven’t been any here in the US. Fracking is big in North Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas and it hasn’t created any environmental problems whatsoever. While I expect the American left to attack franking in a coordinated manner in the near future, the fact remains that there hasn’t been a destruction of the environment thanks to fracking. If there was, you can bet the media would have already been all over the story.