“How Bad Can Texas Get?” Goldman Answers

Be prepared for the next great transfer of wealth. Buy physical silver and storable food.

zerohedge.com / by Tyler Durden / 01/24/2016 16:23 -0500

On Friday, we noted that at least some local businesses in Texas are sympathetic to the pitiable plight of the state’s beleaguered oil patch workers.

Houston-based Gramercy Cleaners on Richmond avenue, we observed, is demonstrating their compassion for the imploding energy sector by offering service discounts.

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Much like Calgary and many other oil boom towns north of the border, many a Texas city is feeling the squeeze of rock bottom crude prices. As we documented in “The Next Chicago? Houston Faces Pension Crisis In Latest Example Of Local Government Fiscal Folly,” Houston is staring down a $3.2 billion funding gap and reduced revenue from oil and gas ops isn’t doing anything to help.

“Home sellers are slashing prices and offering incentives to keep buyers from walking away from contracts as an 18-month oil slump buffets this city’s once-booming housing market,” WSJ wrote last week, underscoring the impact “lower for longer” is having on the city. “Home-construction permits in the area plunged 26% from a year earlier in the third quarter, while December sales of existing single-family houses fell nearly 10% from the same month of 2014.”

In short, a year of crude carnage has wreaked havoc upon what, until last year anyway, was the engine driving the “robust” US labor market.

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Thanks to BrotherJohnF