Pause on Federal Grants - MD25-13

[BuzzH]

I read the article. Sure seems like their problems have been growing for quite some time.

The Tengiz oil field project was started in 2012 and has suffered delays since day 1. Now they are hoping to complete a major expansion set to close in June of this year. If anything, they will get pushback from OPEC since Kazakhstan has consistently exceeded its quota set by OPEC. The planned expansion will only increase their production levels. Not sure how that can be tied to the current admin.

They are also tied up in a legal battle over acquisition of Hess that was started in October of 2023 which is also impacting their bottom line. This is just part of a larger O&G consolidation that has been going on for several years forcing the industry to focus on mergers and operational efficiency gains rather than drilling new wells if the article is correct. Not sure how that can be tied to the current admin. If you believe the article, their decline of O&G reserves may be tied to the previous administration if they were banking on continued land-lease sales in the US or the lack of US activity is what forced them overseas.

Here's the key words:

complete a major acquisition.

cut costs

$53-billion deal to acquire oil producer Hess

Chevron has said it is targeting up to $3 billion in cost cuts

And finally, here's how we do it:

lay off 15% to 20% of its global workforce

So that:

Chevron's shares are up 5.6% year-to-date.

 

[BuzzH]

So you are against bringing back well-paying blue collar jobs that have been outsources to other countries.

Apparently the politicians from our 2 party system that pass laws to allow it to happen in the first place surely are, or we wouldn't be having the discussion and having to talk about bringing it back.

Yes?

 

[Forkyfinder]

Bottles??? I think we're going to be needing 40's of colt 45.

And two zig zags?

 

[Alpine01]

The private sector certainly hires them, but it doesn't train them.

LoL - Not in my experience. We have to spend 1-2 years actually training them to do real work and not academic thought exercises. College degrees are essential to form a foundation to build on but the real training happens when they work real projects with very real technical challenges coupled with cost and schedule constraints. Too many new hires simply spin their wheels trying to come up with the perfect solution or get mired in a design/decide by committee approach that never goes anywhere. I have led highly technical engineering teams with 200+ individuals. One good mid-level engineer is worth 10 new hires. But you have to train the new-hires as they will be the ones you rely on in 10-15 yrs. It's painful but necessary.

 

[Alpine01]

Apparently the politicians from our 2 party system that pass laws to allow it to happen in the first place surely are, or we wouldn't be having the discussion and having to talk about bringing it back.

Yes?

On this I agree. But the mentality of folks like @TheJason also feed the perception that blue collar jobs are throwaways. If nothing else, 47 has offered a different perspective and priority. Whether you agree with everything he has done or the methods he has used (personally I don't), he has offered a very different perspective than the current two parties have over the last several elections.

 

[Gellar]

To be fair- turtles are wildlife. They belong to the state, and therefore so does the responsibility of funding their management.

One of the biggest issues with turtles is over harvest for the Asian and pet trade. All interstate crimes. Lacy act violations. Federal crimes.

 

[TheJason]

So you are against bringing back well-paying blue collar jobs that have been outsources to other countries.

Where did I say that? Please be specific.

 

[BuzzH]

On this I agree. But the mentality of folks like @TheJason also feed the perception that blue collar jobs are throwaways. If nothing else, 47 has offered a different perspective and priority. Whether you agree with everything he has done or the methods he has used (personally I don't), he has offered a very different perspective than the current two parties have over the last several elections.

Once again, I think you're blaming the wrong person/people for the "throw away" mentality of blue collar jobs.

 

[BrentD]

They'll likely be ESA listed soon, so the Feds can look forward to that.

There won't be anyone in the office to do the listing. So, no, probably not.

 

[TheJason]

But the mentality of folks like @TheJason also feed the perception that blue collar jobs are throwaways.

Please show me where I said this. Specificity is appreciated.

Or, better yet, maybe don’t put words in my mouth?

 

[Little Canyon Creek]

Really? The private sector doesn't hire engineers, science SMEs, and doctors? Having been in the private sector (engineering), all I can say is that the company I worked for, and several others in the same industry, have been been screaming for more engineers over the last 10+ yrs. Companies were engaged in talent wars trying to lure what few capable engineers there were to come and work for them or going out and outright poaching them from each other. Sorry, I don't buy that lack of USG-funded grants is what has caused a lack of professionals coming out of the higher education system.

Engineering, in my experience with family members and college classmates, operates differently than a lot of scientific fields in that there is a robust internship system and a limited emphasis on a graduate degree. So engineering wouldn't be as impacted by these policy changes.

This is very different than other fields operate. Pharmaceutical companies do not have nearly as large an emphasis on internships. And when they do offer internships, they are typically for graduate students, not undergraduates. What undergraduates in scientific fields do is work in an academic lab as their form of an internship before going to graduate school.

Which gets to the second major difference, in that pharmaceutical companies expect significantly more education than engineering firms. I was at a top 10 chemistry graduate department, and a recruiter for a pharmaceutical company told our boss that unless they were Harvard graduate students, that the company wasn't interested in hiring them until they had a postdoc research experience. That was incredibly stupid, but it is likely due to how expensive R&D is for pharmaceutical companies. For instance, the pharmaceutical field has been in a localized recession for the past few years due to high interest rates making investment in R&D unappealing for investors. If that is the kind of economics you have to live with, you don't want to be spending money training undergraduate students. There is also a benefit for these companies in having a workforce with varied training backgrounds due to the different skill sets they have, even if they are all technically organic chemists or chemical biologists. In short, it makes a lot of sense for pharmaceutical companies and for society to socialize the losses incurred during what would be a training period, in that we get a large payoff due to treatments that get generated.

We have to spend 1-2 years actually training them to do real work and not academic thought exercises. College degrees are essential to form a foundation to build on but the real training happens when they work real projects with very real technical challenges coupled with cost and schedule constraints.

This is likely another difference in how engineering and other fields operate. The NIH doesn't fund "academic thought exercises". The projects graduate students are working on are challenging and oftentimes highly technical. Graduate students spend long hours in the lab working on projects with timelines. They aren't sitting around working on worksheets or studying for exams. The classwork ends either in the first year, or the fall of the second year of a typical 5 year PhD degree. The rest of that time you are working what is essentially a job, one that former colleagues tell me is harder than their day to day in industry. And even when taking classes, these graduate students are expected to be working in the lab and generating results.

 

[Gellar]

Ruroh! Another conservation project on hold.

Illinois delays project to keep invasive carp out of Great Lakes, cites uncertainty over federal funding

A plan to build a barrier to keep invasive carp out of the Great Lakes has hit a roadblock due to concerns about federal funding available under the Trump administration.

www.wpr.org

 

[SAJ-99]

If nothing else, 47 has offered a different perspective and priority.

He was also 45. How many jobs were brought back in that stretch? You are an engineer so I'm sure you can look it up.

I think you missed his sarcasm. No one is against US blue-collar jobs in manufacturing or anywhere else. But I don't think we can just live in a pretend world where we can make everything we need ourselves and the costs won't be prohibitive. Negotiations to get that point can't be started by punching allies in the face. The damage will be long-lasting.

 

[Alpine01]

Where did I say that? Please be specific.

I interpreted your response as aligning with that of Canyon Creek that loss of NIH, USDA, NSF, EPA, etc. was a form of self sabotage and given that your graduate work was funded through grants from NIH and USDA, this was bad. But at least [the US or 47] was bringing back steel manufacturing.

If this last was said as a show of support, then I apologize. I read it as a sarcastic adder to the point. Can you clarify?

 

[jryoung]

Wonder how high DOGE is gonna get the H1B cap lifted to.

 

[FI460]

Wonder how high DOGE is gonna get the H1B cap lifted to.

Off shoring jobs = Bad
On shoring labor competition = Good

 

[TheJason]

I interpreted your response as aligning with that of Canyon Creek that loss of NIH, USDA, NSF, EPA, etc. was a form of self sabotage and given that your graduate work was funded through grants from NIH and USDA, this was bad. But at least [the US or 47] was bringing back steel manufacturing.

If this last was said as a show of support, then I apologize. I read it as a sarcastic adder to the point. Can you clarify?

Thank you for the apology. I appreciate it.

I do think the loss of grant funding is completely short sighted. However, two things can be true at once. STEM jobs are important. Blue collar jobs are important. Not everyone is going to be a cancer researcher, and my contributions to society are a far cry from any research lab. Not completely blue collar, but darned close.

I absolutely think we should fund science research and do what we can to develop job candidates for the STEM fields. Relying on H1B visas is as dumb as outsourcing all our manufacturing jobs to foreign countries.

Which brings me back to steel manufacturing. IF we can viably bring it back to the US I am all for it. One lesson the pandemic should have taught us is the risk of relying on foreign manufacturing for as much as we do.

All that said, I am completely unconvinced 25% tariffs are going to bring steel manufacturing back to the US. My comment was coated in sarcasm to reflect my confidence level in this “plan”.

I am not an economist and won’t pretend to be one. I do understand government though, and I fail to see how the current wrecking ball approach is helpful to investor confidence and the overall health of our economy.

I’d love to see domestic production increase. I’d also love to see us train and develop cutting edge scientists.

 

[jryoung]

Off shoring jobs = Bad
On shoring labor competition = Good

It's not competition if you dont invest and develop workers.....it's just importing labor.

 

[Alpine01]

Engineering, in my experience with family members and college classmates, operates differently than a lot of scientific fields in that there is a robust internship system and a limited emphasis on a graduate degree. So engineering wouldn't be as impacted by these policy changes.

This is very different than other fields operate. Pharmaceutical companies do not have nearly as large an emphasis on internships. And when they do offer internships, they are typically for graduate students, not undergraduates. What undergraduates in scientific fields do is work in an academic lab as their form of an internship before going to graduate school.

Which gets to the second major difference, in that pharmaceutical companies expect significantly more education than engineering firms. I was at a top 10 chemistry graduate department, and a recruiter for a pharmaceutical company told our boss that unless they were Harvard graduate students, that the company wasn't interested in hiring them until they had a postdoc research experience. That was incredibly stupid, but it is likely due to how expensive R&D is for pharmaceutical companies. For instance, the pharmaceutical field has been in a localized recession for the past few years due to high interest rates making investment in R&D unappealing for investors. If that is the kind of economics you have to live with, you don't want to be spending money training undergraduate students. There is also a benefit for these companies in having a workforce with varied training backgrounds due to the different skill sets they have, even if they are all technically organic chemists or chemical biologists. In short, it makes a lot of sense for pharmaceutical companies and for society to socialize the losses incurred during what would be a training period, in that we get a large payoff due to treatments that get generated.



This is likely another difference in how engineering and other fields operate. The NIH doesn't fund "academic thought exercises". The projects graduate students are working on are challenging and oftentimes highly technical. Graduate students spend long hours in the lab working on projects with timelines. They aren't sitting around working on worksheets or studying for exams. The classwork ends either in the first year, or the fall of the second year of a typical 5 year PhD degree. The rest of that time you are working what is essentially a job, one that former colleagues tell me is harder than their day to day in industry. And even when taking classes, these graduate students are expected to be working in the lab and generating results.

I can't speak to the pharma industry or chemical science and engineering as an industry. That said, my comments Re: engineering apply to undergraduate and post-grad new hires. I've had smart PhD's in my group that were some of the worst when it came to working a real project. I count myself as one of them when I started working at a National Lab. They approached it as an academic research project where deadlines didn't mean anything. But 35+ years of reality changed that perspective in my case. In general, advanced degrees are preferred in my realm of engineering and personally I would take someone with an advanced degree over an undergrad whenever possible. Usually a stronger foundation to build on. But reduced number of grants isn't the current cause (nor likely the future cause) of diminished number of engineers and doctors coming out of the higher education system as you stated. Perhaps that applies to chemists and biologists. I don't have the experience to say relative to those fields.

I went the route of post-grad and yes, I spent a tremendous amount of time in the lab working fusion energy research. As a physicist. In concert with other academic research centers and industry. Great stuff! It's still 20+ years away just like it was 40 years ago.

 

[SAJ-99]

But at least [the US or 47] was bringing back steel manufacturing.

Nonsense.

AISI Applauds House Passage of Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill - American Iron and Steel Institute

AISI serves as the voice of the American steel industry in the public policy arena and advances the case for steel in the marketplace as the preferred material of choice.

www.steel.org