http://www.nicholls.edu/bastiatsbastions/2009/09/11/the-seasons-change-and-so-do-i/ What is seen and what is unseen. Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:23:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://www.nicholls.edu/bastiatsbastions/2009/09/11/the-seasons-change-and-so-do-i/comment-page-1/#comment-20272 Kristin Schmidt (Econ 211 Wed Night) Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:56:10 +0000 http://www.nicholls.edu/bastiatsbastions/?p=510#comment-20272 As mentioned in the concluding thoughts in regard to gas prices, there are contributing factors in most of the information we come into contact with in the course of a day that are not factored into the opinion we form. For example, in St. Mary Parish last fall our local paper was regularly reporting on the sales tax revenues the parish was bringing in. In particular the paper reported we had not seen a drop in collected revenue and had even seen increases despite the lagging economy in most of the country. The paper failed to acknowledge the large amount of construction and repair work being performed to homes, in particular roofs following Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Ike. Those sales tax revenues were boosted by the purchase of building materials such as plywood and shingles. Those purchases were not indicative of the spending habits of local households and should not infer that in St. Mary Parish the economy was still booming and our residents were still comfortable making luxury purchases. Our area generally is referred to as having the "oilpatch" economy where we are thriving while other areas are suffering, however, by last fall I believe that even in the "oilpatch" residents were feeling the effects of the recession trickle down to us with layoffs at McDermott and other oil companies affecting many families and those budgets. As mentioned in the concluding thoughts in regard to gas prices, there are contributing factors in most of the information we come into contact with in the course of a day that are not factored into the opinion we form. For example, in St. Mary Parish last fall our local paper was regularly reporting on the sales tax revenues the parish was bringing in. In particular the paper reported we had not seen a drop in collected revenue and had even seen increases despite the lagging economy in most of the country. The paper failed to acknowledge the large amount of construction and repair work being performed to homes, in particular roofs following Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Ike. Those sales tax revenues were boosted by the purchase of building materials such as plywood and shingles. Those purchases were not indicative of the spending habits of local households and should not infer that in St. Mary Parish the economy was still booming and our residents were still comfortable making luxury purchases. Our area generally is referred to as having the “oilpatch” economy where we are thriving while other areas are suffering, however, by last fall I believe that even in the “oilpatch” residents were feeling the effects of the recession trickle down to us with layoffs at McDermott and other oil companies affecting many families and those budgets.

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