There are many people who will wish that I didn’t write this blog post article, for a number of reasons. But I will explain why I am doing this.

For the most part, I do not like North Dakotans, primarily because of how they treated out-of-state workers during the oil boom from 2007-2015, quadrupling rents, gouging, taking advantage, being hostile, unfriendly, uncooperative, and undermining to out-of-state workers.

But two “wrongs” do not make a “right”. Just because North Dakotans acted totally non-Christian towards others, does not mean that I should behave the same way. If I myself have any values, morals, ethics, principles, understanding of right and wrong, a sense of justice and injustice, then I should act accordingly.

I am writing this blog post article to help western North Dakotans, to warn them ahead of time, so that they have a chance to adjust and prepare, because I don’t think that they know what is going to happen.

The “Great Depression” occurred from 1929 through the late 1930s. The two main causes of the Great Depression were the U.S. Stock Market crash in October of 1929, and a severe drought that devastated farming in the early 1930s.

Shortly after the stock market crash, where stock market investors lost most of their investment money, there became a mistrust of financial institutions, so most people sought to withdraw their money from Banks. Because Banks loan out more than half of their deposits, there was not enough money in the Banks to pay all of the depositors when they showed up to withdraw their money. Many Banks failed, became “insolvent”, and many people lost all of the money that they had in their savings and checking accounts. There was no FDIC insurance back then.

The stock market crash, the failure of many large and small Banks, people losing all of their money in investments, losing all of their money in savings and checking accounts, was followed by high unemployment, property foreclosures, evictions, repossession of equipment and vehicles, a huge drop in crop prices paid to farmers, farm foreclosures, then there came a severe drought that ruined many farms in the Great Plains.

You can read about the Great Depression here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

Why western North Dakotans will soon face a disaster as large as the Great Depression, where many things went wrong all at once, is as follows:

1. The North Dakota oil boom of 2007-2015 ended when the price of oil fell from over $100 per barrel, to below $40 per barrel.  With an oil company’s costs to drill and maintain an oil well, they could not produce oil at a profit when the price of oil was below $40 per barrel.
2. The price of oil dropped in 2015 because of a World over-supply of oil, over-production and price-dropping by Russia and OPEC countries.
3. The number of operating oil well drill rigs in North Dakota dropped from nearly 300 in 2014 to less than 10 currently.  Each operating drill rig in North Dakota creates 100 associated jobs, so nearly 30,000 jobs were lost.
4. The out-of-state oil field workers leaving western North Dakota caused a contraction in the local economies.
5. In January of 2020 began the effects of the coronavirus, World-wide travel bans, U.S. travel restrictions, non-essential business closures, banning of events, prohibition of public gatherings, resulting in more contraction of economies and layoffs.
6. The coronavirus travel bans and shut-downs causing even more of an oversupply and less demand for oil.

The Biden Presidency January 20, 2021

1. Immediate cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline that passes through Montana and South Dakota adjacent to North Dakota that would have created thousands of high paying jobs for North Dakotans.
2. Imminent ban on hydraulic fracturing, which is the only method to extract North Dakota oil profitably.  Which means no new oil wells in North Dakota, no more oil revenue for land owners, no more oil tax revenue for the State of North Dakota, no more oil field jobs for North Dakotans, no out-of-state workers coming to North Dakota. 
3. The Biden Presidency causing a shock to the stock market, investing, small businesses, business expansion, new construction, and new hiring.

The above lists are meant to show all of the bad things that are happening at the same time to affect western North Dakota.  One of the things that financial analysts and economists wrote about the Great Depression, is that the pessimism, fear of spending, fear of borrowing money, and hoarding of money made the Great Depression even worse and caused it to last longer.

This blog post article warning western North Dakotans about a coming Great Depression may be unwanted by many people because it could cause the kind of pessimism and fear that some scholars claim made the Great Depression even worse.  In general, Politicians, Mayors, Chambers of Commerce, Real Estate Agents, and Business Owners do not like this kind of talk.  However, in my opinion, these aforementioned groups like for people to be as unknowing sheep waiting to be fleeced.

I believe that it is necessary for the well-being of people, to be notified as far in advance as possible of a coming disaster, so that they will have the chance to prepare and think about what it is that they will do.

I don’t know if it will do any good or not, but in my next blog post article, I will try to discuss some strategies and recommendations that people might use to better survive the Great Depression that is coming to western North Dakota.