Market Review For Metro-East
Published by Al Adomite on May 7th, 2008
By Al
I had the opportunity to hear Leadership Council of Southwestern Illinois Director Patrick McKeehan speak at a conference mid-day today. He presented the results of the group’s 2006-2007 Market Review, which you can download from their site here. I snapped this shot of Patrick talking with an interested observer after the presentation.
In a nutshell, large companies such as Conoco-Phillips and US Steel are making major investments in our area, creating hundreds (perhaps thousands) of new jobs and spending much money in our region. I was reading this City of Wood River brochure that states that the ConocoPhillips expansion will fund as many as 2,500 “construction jobs paying a union wage” that it “will completely tap the local work force thus attracting additional workers throughout the Midwest.”
That’s great news for everyone: a $4 billion investment that stands to create so many construction jobs that our region won’t have enough labor to fully supply Conoco’s needs. It would seem good for business AND labor, Democrats AND Republicans.
I sat with the Conoco folks at lunch today. They seemed like great people. One of them grew up in Madison, IL, and is hugely invested in our community.
That’s why I’m puzzled at all the grandstanding in press releases like this:
“This has been a tough week for consumers, but it’s been a great week for oil companies,” said Durbin. On Monday, ConocoPhillips reported 2008 earnings for its 1st quarter are up 17%, hauling in more than $4 billion in profits in 3 months.
Isn’t there sufficient proof that Conoco is reinvesting those profits in a responsible manner (and in our home state of Illinois)? In Madison County’s case, that $4 billion in profits might as well be bypassing Conoco’s checkbooks and going right back into the pocketbooks of union jobholders in Madison County. And, the refinery expansion will allow Conoco to take “tar sands” in Canada and turn them into energy uses in America, helping our country increase the supply of oil, so gas prices can become more affordable.
I’m sure it’s easier to take potshots at oil company executives than talk about the lack of oil supply, and how labor and business might work together to solve our energy problems. But today, it didn’t seem hard to connect the dots on how the free market is working to, albeit slowly, lower the price of gas.
Filed under County Issues
June 6th, 2008 at 10:14 am
[...] my previous post on this subject, I pointed out these statements from a City of Wood River brochure: [T]he [...]
August 25th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
[...] me of my May and June posts about the no-brainer ConocoPhillips expansion being heldup by the EPA and [...]