Brandon Davis, CEO, and Imran Khan of Swan Energy, join The Crude Life for the weekly segment Mining Money.
The U.S. Department of Labor recently released their unemployment numbers indicating there was 1.8 jobs added in July. Many take issue with this archaic method and reporting for jobs and the economy, however, Davis’ issue is far more simple than manipulating numbers and algebraic formulas.
“I think the next six months will be very telling in what happens with all this unemployment stopping, hopefully, because it is making it very hard to hire people because they are basically making as much money as they were making before they got laid off just sitting at home.” Davis said. “Or they are getting paid enough that they aren’t worried about getting a job which is just baffling to me.”
Davis continued comparing current actions by the government to the manipulation of the oil and gas prices globally.
“I think the economy would be right back to where it was by the end of they year if they would just stop doing the stimulus and lock downs,” Davis said. “The government should just get out of the way in general and we would be in a much better place. These idiots just need to stay home and we need to go to work.”
Davis continued with his displeasure with the current bailouts, unemployment can kicking and overall government intervention.
“I remember the 1990’s and the 80’s and it wasn’t so amazing then,” Davis said. “There have been some great years in the 2010 to 2014 market, but beyond that and before that its been hard, it’s never been easy.”
Simply put, according to Davis this entire economic debacle, unemployment issues and polarizing the nation has been caused by the government.
“Everything we are dealing with right now is government caused. It is cause by action from our government, not by anything the industry did or didn’t do,” Davis said. “That is the reality we are sitting in today.
Kicking the unemployment can is discussed further and transitioned into the expired $600 a week federal unemployment insurance expiring and the number of layoffs. Host Jason Spiess asked if Swan Energy was still offering a 401K roll over program for workers looking for monthly income in a “well sharing” program.
“I’ve heard this week that Exxon, they are one of the ones who didn’t cut their dividends, but did cut their 401K programs to a lower amount for their employees,” Kahn said. “From our end of things there is always opportunity, especially with a lot of the government systems they have set up for current markets they way things are going on right now to cash out your 401K. We have some great opportunities from that stand point as well as an investment standpoint.”
Kahn also talks about the recent activity in natural gas and how Swan Energy is still actively buying natural gas leases.
The weekly segment also discusses BP’s recent announcement of a 40% reduction due to climate activists.
The Crude Life Podcast can be heard every Monday through Thursday with a Week in Review on Friday.
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