Oil boom batters Alberta graduation rate

Yikes! Better hope the boom doesn't end anytime soon or there will be a lot of unskilled people in the unemployment lines...

Don't worry. It's a Golden Age that will last forever.

You have to have graduated to work in the oilsands,even the truck drivers.

Actually, drugs and alcohol was the main cause of high school drop outs in my grad class. Those of us that started working at age 16 in the oil patch and logging industry used school as an excuse to skip out on work.

Don't worry. It's a Golden Age that will last forever.



almost 40 years in my family...just a couple more than the Libs can pull the plug on it.

I'm a dropout...I dropped out of the U of C Faculty of Management in the 80's

Don't worry. It's a Golden Age that will last forever.


That's really funny (and a little sad), because it reflects the current line of thinking here in Alberta.

We had bumper stickers here in the 80s saying "Please God, give us another boom and I promise not to piss it away!", yet here we are 20 years later and still pissing it away, spending it on anything and everything.

If we were smart, we'd be like Norway and invest our savings (however small they might be each year) in industries as well as the oilpatch. It would help reduce inflation and all this insane growth that is making life for many difficult. Instead, 90% of our rainy day savings (Heritage Trust Fund) is invested in oil projects. So when the day does come when the boom ends, our savings will be worth a fraction of what they are now. Who will want oil stocks and futures when everyone's converted to hydrogen/solar/whatever?

Klein liked to take the ~1.4B a year in interest and use it as capital - right up to the end.

But Eddie takes it, and leaves it alone, even adding to it. That, plus increases in the sectors it's invested it have increased it from ~12B a couple years ago to $17B today.

Not as good a performance as Norway's, but decent nonetheless.

Heritage-Mar2008.jpg

Alberta recently created a Crown Corp to handle investment of the Heritage fund too, something King Ralph never did. Can't wait to dig into the nepotism in that Crown corp.