| North Dakota is enjoying a flood of biblical proportions. Shale-drilling technology has liberated huge quantities of oil from the Bakken shale in the western part of the state. Production has surged from about 100,000 barrels per day in 2007 to nearly 1 million barrels per day this year—a tenfold increase.
But North Dakota, America’s latest petro-state, is handling its newfound wealth with the kind of modesty you might expect in a land where people live in giant open spaces and at the mercy of nature. Decades of boom and bust in agriculture have forged a culture of thrift, an abhorrence of debt, and a healthy mistrust of high finance. Alone among the 50 states, North Dakota has a state-owned bank. It never had much of a housing and credit boom, so it never had much of a housing bust...............................................Full Article: Source |