The fracking-led oil and natural gas boom that’s received widespread attention in the mainstream press has moved to a new medium: reality TV.
"Bayou Billionaires," a new reality show on Country Music Television, follows the lives of the Dowdens, a Louisiana family that’s struck it rich off natural gas.
"I bought me a new pickup" says Gerald Dowden in the trailer posted on CMT’s website. "And I bought a dually," says his wife Kitten, referring to a pickup with four tires on the rear axle. "I got the special edition Polaris," says Gerald, clearly excited about his all-terrain vehicle. "She put the pool in."
"We got a new hot tub," says Kitten. "Jet skis," says Gerald.
"I have 50 hounds" and one horse, he adds. "But my wife has nine. We’re spending it, that’s what it’s for."
Ohio set to see oil boom thanks to fracking
Billionaires may be stretching it, but the Dowdens sure have come into some serious cash.
Thanks to new drilling technology, a small Texas firm called Exco () was able to put four new natural gas wells on the Dowden’s 80 acres of land outside Shreveport, La. in the last three years.
Each month, the wells generate a royalty check for the Dowdens that can be as high as $40,000. The wells are expected to produce for 16 to 20 years. And their royalty checks could grow considerably.
Exco, has plans to add up to 16 wells on the Dowden’s land over the next few years, Gerald says in an interview with CNNMoney.
Their royalties are also pegged to the price of natural gas, which is currently at a decade-long low. But if natural gas returns to the the highs it hit in 2008 and the other wells are drilled, the Dowdens could potentially see a check for nearly a million dollars a month.
"We’re going to make a lot of money," says Gerald.
Not that the family was poor before. The Dowdens previously had four smaller natural gas wells on their land, which used to generate royalty checks of between $3,000 and $5,000 a month. Plus, they own a small construction business that employs around 20 people.
Striking it rich hasn’t seemed to change their work pattern that much — Kitten is still the bookkeeper at the construction company, and Gerald says he’s yet to officially retire.
But in addition to their new toys the couple has carved out time for three cruises over the past year, one to the Persian Gulf.
Opponents of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking for short, fear the process of injecting pressurized water and chemicals into the ground to ease the extraction process is contaminating the water business cards design. Others with gas wells on their property have regretted the decision, saying the compressors are loud and the wells produce nauseating fumes.
But the Dowdens say they aren’t worried. And they say noise or fumes aren’t a problem either.
"They’re a community-oriented company," said Gerald. "They’re really safe."
The reality show, which was filmed over an eight-week period last year, profiles the adventures of not just Gerald and Kitten but their extended family.
Gerald says neither their new wealth nor having a television crew on their land has strained relations with their neighbors, who are out of eyesight anyway.
"They’re excited, they all want to be in it," says Kitten.
Despite claims by the show’s producer and the Dowden family that the program doesn’t aim to celebrate or exploit redneck stereotypes, clips on CMT’s website leave some room for doubt.
"I love my new teeth," says the couple’s daughter Chantal in the episode trailer, which is also filled with lots of ATV riding and yee-haws partially set to a steel guitar soundtrack.
Obama’s energy plan: The winners, and winners
"She really needed ‘em," responds Chantel’s boyfriend in the trailer, which gives his name as Carl, Albert or Jimmy, "depending on what part of the country," he’s in, and where Gerald affectionately calls him the "burnout biker."
Still, show producer Brian Flanagan says the aim was to simply profile a tight- knit family that’s come into some money.
"I wasn’t trying to make a redneck show, I was trying to make a sweet show," says Flanagan, who got the idea from an employee who has family in the area and saw first hand how normal people were getting rich off the energy boom.
Flanagan, whose company is behind other reality shows including the Discovery channel’s "Moonshires" and TLC’s "Long Island Medium," says the Dowdens fit the part perfectly.
"They love their property, they love each other, and they are having a blast together thanks to their newfound fortune," he says.
He notes the show is devoid of some of the more unsavory aspects on reality television.
"I don’t need anyone flipping a table over on this show," he says. "It’s a show for the whole family, not a train wreck."
Bayou Billionaires’ third episode airs Saturday at 9 PM on Viacom’s (, Fortune 500) CMT.
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U.S. stock futures are falling as uncertainty about a tentative deal to resolve Greece’s debt crisis weighs on investor sentiment ahead of a summit of European leaders.
Dow Jones industrial futures are down 65 points to 12,549. The broader S&P 500 futures are down 7 points to 1,305. The Nasdaq composite is 14 points lower at 2,443.
The leaders gathering in Brussels hope to focus on how to stimulate economic growth when huge government spending cuts threaten to push many countries back into recession short term personal loan.
The latest data showed Spain’s economy shrank in the last three months of 2011.
European markets also declined. In Asia, most indexes fell as investors reacted to Friday’s release of data showing the U.S. economy grew more slowly than expected in the fourth quarter.
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Europe is getting tougher on government debt. After more than two years struggling to rescue financially shaky governments, leaders of the 17 countries that use the euro are ready to agree on a treaty that will force member countries to put deficit limits into their national laws.
At first glance, it seems logical _ after all, the crisis erupted after too many governments spent and borrowed too much for too long.
But a number of economists _ and some politicians _ say the focus on cutting deficits is misplaced and that more fundamental problems are being left unaddressed.
It’s how the euro was set up in the first place, they say _ one currency, but multiple government budgets, economies moving at different speeds and no central treasury or borrowing authority to back them up.
Until those institutional flaws are tackled, the economists say, the euro will remain vulnerable. So far, Greece, Ireland and Portugal have turned to other eurozone governments and the International Monetary Fund for emergency funds to avoid defaulting on their debts.
Nonetheless, Europe’s leading countries are pushing a new Europe-wide treaty that would as the leading edge of their effort to reassure markets. European Union leaders hope to agree on the treaty’s text at a meeting starting Monday, and sign it by March.
The proposed treaty pushes countries to limit “structural” deficits _ shortfalls not caused by ups and downs of the business cycle _ to a tight 0.5 percent of gross domestic product or face a fine. That comes on top of other recent EU legislation intended to tighten observance of the eurozone’s limits: overall deficits of 3 percent of GDP and national debt of 60 percent of GDP.
European leaders are also urging countries to improve growth by reducing regulation and other barriers to business.
Yet economists like Jean Pisani-Ferry, director of the Brueghel think tank in Brussels, says it’s striking that governments are focusing on budget rules, given Europe’s earlier experience with them. An earlier set of rules were largely ignored at the behest of France and Germany in the first years after the euro’s 1999 launch.
And some of the countries that now are in the deepest trouble _ such as Spain and bailed-out Ireland _ stayed well within the debt limit for years.
“This suggests that the simplistic view _ that a thorough enforcement of the rules would have prevented the crisis _ should be treated with caution,” Pisani-Ferry wrote in a recent article for Brueghel.
Some European politicians are also voicing doubts about focusing primarily on deficits. They include new Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, who has warned that growth is the real answer to shrinking debt in the long term. International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde has urged a broader approach. She calls for a willingness to share the burden of supporting banks and other financial risks so troubles in one country don’t become a crisis for the entire currency bloc.
Here are four reasons for concern cited by economists _ but not yet on the summit agendas of the eurozone’s leaders.
NO COMMON BORROWING: Without a central, pan-European treasury, there’s no steady central source of support for eurozone countries that run into economic or financial trouble. Many economists say issuing jointly guaranteed “eurobonds” would make sure no one country would ever default and governments would always be able to borrow. Governments would give up some of their sovereignty, allowing review of their spending and borrowing plans, to get the money.
Pisani-Ferry argues that this would protect governments from the kind of self-fulfilling bond market panic fueled by fears of default, that pushed Greece, Ireland and Portugal over the edge.
Yet the idea of more collective responsibility remains unpopular in prosperous EU countries such as Germany, Finland and the Netherlands. They can borrow cheaply due to their strong finances and would likely pay more to borrow at the rate that includes the shaky ones.
Eurobonds would also likely require a time-consuming change to the European Union’s basic treaty _ which currently bans members from assuming each other’s debts. There would also have to be a mechanisms in place to stop countries with shoddy finances from borrowing too much.
Opponents say that’s unrealistic. “If you have mutual debt responsibility, and freedom of each country to borrow, then each country can drive the eurozone into bankruptcy,” said Kai Konrad, managing director of the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance in Munich.
BANK BAILOUTS: Europe currently has no safety mechanism that would stop a country from sinking under the weight of having to bail out banks based in that country.
At the moment, each country bears the brunt of rescuing its own banks. This can create serious problems in a crisis.
For example Ireland’s loosely regulated banks borrowed heavily and loaned out money freely for speculative real estate projects. When the real estate market collapsed and the loans were not paid back, the Irish government had to step in to guarantee the bank’s bonds _ and quickly went broke. Ireland had a very low debt level of only 25 percent of annual economic output in 2007. As bank losses moved to the government’s balance sheet, by 2011 debt hit 106 percent of annual GDP. The country remains on EU-IMF life support.
Simon Tilford of the Centre for European Reform in London draws an analogy with U.S. insurer AIG, which was bailed out by the U.S. federal government in 2008. AIG was incorporated in the U.S. state of Delaware, yet Delaware did not go bankrupt handling the rescue. The central government stepped in.
TRADE IMBALANCES: Economists point out that gaps in how well countries compete and trade with one another have steadily widened since the euro was created.
Greece’s current account deficit _ the broadest measure of trade _ is even worse than its budget deficit. It buys and borrows far more than it sells and earns abroad.
Normally trade imbalances are evened out by fluctuating exchange rates _ but that can’t happen within the euro. Countries can improve their competitiveness by doing what Germany did in the 2000s _ cut labor costs to business by cutting general unemployment benefits. They can cut red tape and taxes. But that takes years.
Meanwhile, the region is also hampered by an inflexible pan-euro interest rate. Low interest rates _ set by the European Central Bank to see Germany and France through stagnation in the early 2000s _ were too low to control wage inflation and reckless borrowing in places like Greece and Ireland. Wage costs and debt levels rose. Competitiveness and exports declined, weakening the economy and undermining government finances.
CENTRAL BANK POWERS: Yet another structural issue is the limited power of the European Central Bank to support governments.
The bank resisted calls to buy larger amounts of government bonds. That resistance observes the spirit of the EU basic treaty, which forbids the central bank from financing governments.
But it’s a constraint that central banks such as the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of England don’t have. They can buy up their country’s debt, a move that can push down government borrowing costs and reassure markets the state will always pay its debts.
The ECB remains “a limited-purpose central bank,” says Tilford.
He notes that Britain has more debt than Spain, 81 percent of GDP versus 67 percent, yet borrows at just over 2 percent annual interest for its 10-year bonds, while Spanish debt for the same period has a 5 percent-plus interest rate. One difference: markets know the Bank of England has the ability to support the government in a crisis by buying bonds and driving down interest rates.
Many of these issue were raised before the currency was launched in 1999, then got less attention.
Tilford says that “the tendency has been to say the currency union needs all these things but in practice it’s not necessarily the case” so long as countries obey budget rules and manage their finances well.
“It’s become harder to maintain that kind of argumentation now, given how bad things have got.”
Claims for jobless benefits last week dropped to the lowest level in almost four years, pointing to an improvement in the U.S. job market that may help bolster spending in the new year.
Applications (INJCJC) for unemployment insurance payments plunged by 50,000 to 352,000 in the week ended Jan. 14, less than forecast and the fewest since April 2008, according to data from the Labor Department issued today in Washington. Other reports showed consumer prices were little changed in December for a second month and builders started work on the most single-family houses in more than a year.
Jobless claims, which tend to be volatile week to week around holidays, have trended down over the past month, a sign employment may pick up after payrolls grew by 200,000 in December. Gains in incomes, combined with less inflation, will probably underpin household spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the world
Iran said Saturday it has evidence that the United States was behind the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist this week in Tehran, state media reported.
Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was killed in a brazen daylight assassination Wednesday when two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to his car in the Iranian capital. The killing bore a strong resemblance to earlier killings of scientists working on the Iranian nuclear program, and has prompted calls in Iran for retaliation against those deemed responsible.
The IRNA state news agency said Saturday that Iran’s Foreign Ministry has sent a diplomatic letter to the U.S. saying that it has “evidence and reliable information” that the CIA provided “guidance, support and planning” to assassins “directly involved” in Roshan’s killing.
The U.S. has denied any role in the assassination.
Iran delivered the letter to the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which looks after U.S. interests in the country. Iran and the U.S. have had no diplomatic relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
IRNA also reported that Iran delivered a letter to Britain accusing London of having an “obvious role” in the killing. It said that a series of assassinations began after British intelligence chief John Sawers hinted in 2010 at intelligence operations against the Islamic Republic.
British media have quoted Sawers as saying that intelligence-led operations were needed to make it more difficult for countries like Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
Britain’s Foreign Office has condemned the killing of civilians. Israeli officials, in contrast, have hinted at covert campaigns against Iran without directly admitting involvement payday loans for bad credit.
The killing has sparked outrage in Iran, and state TV broadcast footage Saturday of hundreds of students marching in Tehran to condemn Roshan’s death and calling for the continuation of the country’s disputed nuclear program.
The U.S. and its allies fear Iran’s program aims to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charges, and says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
In the clearest sign yet that Iran is preparing to strike back for Roshan’s killing, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, the spokesman for Iran’s Joint Armed Forces Staff, was quoted by the semiofficial ISNA news agency Saturday as saying that Tehran was “reviewing the punishment” of “behind-the-scene elements” involved in the assassination.
“Iran’s response will be a tormenting one for supporters of state terrorism,” he said, without elaborating. “The enemies of the Iranian nation, especially the United States, Britain and the Zionist regime, or Israel, have to be held responsible for their activities.”
Jazayeri also accused the International Atomic Energy Agency of being partially to blame, saying that the U.N. nuclear watchdog made public a list of Iranian nuclear scientists and officials that “has provided the possibility of their identification and targeting by spy networks.”
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Federal Reserve Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin said the central bank should fine mortgage servicing companies that broke the law and are partly to blame for the current
Stocks indexes were little changed Wednesday following a big gain the day before. Gains by retailers offset a decline in banking and financial stocks. Most other sectors were flat.
The Dow Jones industrial average inched up 3 points to 12,400 as of 12:30 p.m. Trading was relatively subdued following a surge of nearly 180 points the day before, which brought the Dow to its highest level since July. The Dow started the day lower, losing as many as 60 points in mid-morning trading, then went back to breakeven shortly after noon.
The Standard & Poors 500 index was down less than a point at 1,276, while the Nasdaq fell 2 points to 2,646.
Phone equipment maker Acme Packet Inc. plunged almost 20 percent after saying its quarterly profit and revenue would be well below analyst expectations.
Yahoo Inc. fell 2 percent after it named Scott Thompson, president of eBay Inc.’s PayPal division, as its new CEO. Yahoo has been without a permanent CEO since firing Carol Bartz in September. The company’s board lost patience with her attempts to turn around the struggling Internet company during her 2 1/2 years on the job.
European markets fell after the euro weakened to $1.29 versus the dollar from $1.30 the day before. Another increase in Italy’s long-term borrowing rates renewed worries about Europe’s flailing efforts to restore investors’ confidence in the region’s governments.
Germany’s DAX fell 0.8 percent, while the CAC-40 in France fell 1.5 percent. The FTSE 100 index of leading British stocks was down 0 on line pay day loans.6 percent.
Retailers were among the few industries to rise after a trade group for malls said sales rose 5.3 percent in the last week of December because of strong after-Christmas shopping. Lowe’s Cos. rose 1.5 percent and Ross Stores Inc. rose 2.3 percent. However, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. fell 1.3 percent, making it the biggest decliner among the Dow’s 30 stocks. Analysts have been concerned that some retailers boosted holiday sales with deep discounts that will hurt profits.
Ford Motor Co. rose 2.4 percent after the auto maker said last year’s sales jumped 11 percent because of strong demand for trucks and SUVs. December sales rose 10 percent. Chrysler, owned by Italy’s Fiat, said sales rose 26 percent for the year and 37 percent in January. General Motors Co. said U.S. sales rose 13 percent last year. Analysts have been expecting December to be a strong sales month for the U.S. auto business as confidence in the economy unlocks pent-up demand.
Fallen photography pioneer Eastman Kodak Co. lost 2 cents to 64 cents after the company said its stock could be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange if it doesn’t rise above $1 in the next six months.
U.S. stocks opened the year with a bang on Tuesday. The Dow and S&P 500 each rose 1.5 percent after a measure of U.S. manufacturing expanded at the fastest rate in six months.
Leaving behind a year of bruising legislative battles, President Barack Obama enters his fourth year in office having calculated that he no longer needs Congress to promote his agenda and may even benefit in his re-election campaign if lawmakers accomplish little in 2012.
Absent any major policy pushes, much of the year will focus on winning a second term. The president will keep up a robust domestic travel schedule and aggressive campaign fundraising and use executive action to try to boost the economy.
Partisan, down-to-the-wire fights over allowing the nation to take on more debt and sharply reducing government spending defined 2011. In the new year, there are almost no must-do pieces of legislation facing the president and Congress.
The one exception is the looming debate on a full-year extension of a cut in the Social Security payroll tax rate from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. Democrats and Republicans are divided over how to put in place that extension.
The White House believes GOP lawmakers boxed themselves in during the pre-Christmas debate on the tax break and will be hard-pressed to back off their own assertions that it should continue through the end of 2012.
Once that debate is over, the White House says, Obama’s political fate will no longer be tied to Washington.
“Now that he’s sort of free from having to put out these fires, the president will have a larger playing field. If that includes Congress, all the better,” said Josh Earnest, White House deputy press secretary. But, he added, “that’s no longer a requirement.”
Aides say the president will not turn his back on Congress completely in the new year. He is expected to once again push lawmakers to pass elements of his jobs bill that were blocked by Republicans last fall.
If those efforts fail, the White House says, Obama’s re-election year will focus almost exclusively on executive action.
Earnest said Obama will come out with at least two or three directives per week, continuing the “We Can’t Wait” campaign the administration began this fall, and try to define Republicans in Congress as gridlocked and dysfunctional.
Obama’s election year retreat from legislative fights means this term will end without significant progress on two of his 2008 campaign promises, an immigration overhaul and closing the military prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Presidential directives probably won’t make a big dent in the nation’s 8.6 percent unemployment rate or lead to significant improvements in the economy. That’s the chief concern for many voters and the issue on which Republican candidates are most likely to criticize Obama.
In focusing on executive actions rather than ambitious legislation, the president risks appearing to be putting election-year strategy ahead of economic action at a time when millions of Americans are still out of work.
“Americans expect their elected leaders to work together to boost job creation, even in an election year,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
Still, Obama and his advisers are beginning 2012 with a renewed sense of confidence, buoyed by a series of polls that show the president’s approval rating climbing as Congress becomes increasingly unpopular.
They believe his victory over Republicans in the payroll tax debate has boosted his credentials as a fighter for the middle class, a theme he will look to seize on in his Jan. 24 State of the Union address.
Obama’s campaign-driven, domestic-travel schedule starts in Cleveland on Wednesday, the day after GOP presidential hopefuls square off in the Iowa caucuses. He will also keep up an aggressive re-election fundraising schedule, with events already lined up in Chicago on Jan. 11.
Campaign officials say Obama will fully engage in the re-election campaign once the Republicans pick their nominee. He will focus almost exclusively on campaigning after the late summer Democratic National Convention, barring unexpected developments at home or abroad.
Among the issues that could disrupt Obama’s re-election plans: further economic turmoil in Europe, instability in North Korea following its leadership transition and threats from Iran.
The president’s signature legislative accomplishment will also come under greater scrutiny in the new year, when a critical part of his health care overhaul is debated before the Supreme Court.
Obama’s foreign travel next year will be limited mainly to the summits and international gatherings every U.S. president traditionally attends. He’s expected to travel to South Korea in March for a nuclear security summit and to Colombia in April for the Summit of the Americas. He’s also likely to visit Mexico in June for the G-20 economic summit.
Two other major international gatherings _ the NATO summit and the G-8 economic meeting _ will be held in Chicago, on home turf.
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