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Fargo ND.   T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire oilman, has been hitting the airwaves, pitching a plan to use wind to replace all the natural gas that’s used to produce electricity, then using that saved natural gas to fuel cars.

In addition to weaning the nation from foreign oil, Pickens’ plan is not entirely altruistic. He’s investing hundreds of millions of dollars on a giant wind farm in the Texas panhandle, and his hedge fund, BP Capital, is said to own stakes in several companies that equip cars to run on natural gas. If his energy efforts pan out, he could get even richer in the process.

Then there’s Al Gore. The former U.S. vice president and Nobel Prize winner said last week that electricity generation should be completely fossil-fuel free in 10 years.

The question is, are these plans realistic or just dreams?
The nation currently relies on coal – the dirtiest of all fossil fuels – for 50% of its electricity production. Natural gas makes up about 21%, and nuclear power comprises about 20%. Hydro and oil each contribute a bit as well, while traditional renewables – wind, solar, biomass and geothermal – ring in at only 3% combined, according to the EIA.

Unpredictable wind

One of the big challenges with using wind to replace natural gas is that, unlike the steady flame from natural gas, the wind doesn’t blow all the time.

To make sure enough power is available when the wind isn’t blowing, backup generators would be needed.

That could mean maintaining those natural gas plants in case of emergency, or implementing even more novel ideas like systems in Europe that use excess wind electricity to pump water uphill when the wind is blowing, then release it through hydro dams when the wind stops.

Energy’s easiest fix: Use less

Want to help the country save a quick million barrels of oil a day? Drive 5% less. Slow down. Inflate your tires.
Those three steps would reduce U.S. oil consumption by 1.3 million barrels a day immediately, according to the Alliance to Save Energy, a conservation group running an efficiency campaign backed not only by environmental groups but also the auto and oil industries.

The United States consumes 20 million barrels of oil a day, nearly 10 million of which goes to making gasoline. The world gobbles up 85 million barrels of oil in all.
One of the Big Winners in Pickens Plan will Be The Great State of North Dakota.

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Pineapple Express

Top Ten Nanny Cities.

Fargo ND. Definition of a Nanny State is a derogatory term that refers to state protectionism, economic interventionism, or regulatory policies, and the perception that these policies are becoming institutionalized as common practice. Policies such as mandatory helmet laws and bans on smoking in public places, high taxes on junk food, bans on recreational drug use, gun control, a legal drinking age or legal smoking age that is higher than the age of majority, political correctness, censorship, and content regulation are criticized as nanny state actions.[citation needed] Such actions result from the belief that the state (or, more often, one of its local authorities) has a comprehensive duty to protect the citizenry from their own harmful behaviors, and assumes that the state knows best what constitutes harmful behavior.

1.CHICAGO

Chicago wins the booby prize for most meddlesome metropolis by a wide margin. After more than a century of Big Apple envy, the Second City now has the honor of finally beating New York in at least one contest.

2.SEATTLE

Seattle has always had an identity conflict. Gay bathhouses are allowed, street protests are legendary, and marijuana is, by voter initiative, the police department’s lowest enforcement priority. Each summer a two-day event called Hempfest draws some 150,000 people who openly smoke weed in a city park with the blessings of the cops and the local government, which regards the festival as protected speech.

3.NEW YORK

New York competes with Chicago as a trailblazer for bad new ideas, whether it’s the 2003 ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, the 2006 decision to create and maintain an active, involuntary database of the blood sugar levels on every resident diabetic, the 2007 ban on trans fats in restaurant cooking oil, or the 2008 rule that fast food chains must show calorie content on their menus. New Yorkers pay higher cigarette taxes than anyone else in the country, $4.64 per pack in combined city, state, and federal excise taxes as of June. The city has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, requiring official permission for possession of any firearm and reserving handgun carry permits for the well-connected.

4.SAN DIEGO

San Diego combines the progressive paternalism of more liberal California cities with a more strict social conservatism on drugs, sex, and even gambling. (With its recent proliferation of Indian casinos and card clubs, California has more access to gambling than any state except neighboring Nevada.) Worst of all, San Diego recently joined an unfortunate statewide trend by banning alcohol on public beaches under all circumstances.

5.EL PASO

In the bottom five for drugs, sex, and, somewhat surprisingly, tobacco (due to a stringent smoking ban and Texas’ relatively high excise tax on cigarettes).

6.NASHVILLE

Four cities in this survey finished in the top 10 for tobacco and guns but in the bottom 15 for sex and alcohol: Nashville, Memphis, Indianapolis, and Jacksonville. Add some gun restrictions, and you get Charlotte. Free up the alcohol, and you get Louisville and Kansas City. Substitute sex for booze, and you have Atlanta. And each city is within 600 miles of the Grand Ole Opry. It’s a sort of Southeastern Conference of mixed red state liberalism—a mirror image of the coastal San Francisco cluster of blue state nannies.

7.HOUSTON

If zoning restrictions were included in this survey, Houston would vault up the list, because it famously has none. Another modern feature Space City lacks is gambling: There are just two legal gaming establishments within 50 miles of the city

8.CHARLOTTE

The least-friendly city in our survey for gays.

9.PHILADELPHIA

In April, Democratic Mayor Michael Nutter signed five new gun laws that, among other things, banned certain “assault weapons,” limited handgun purchases to one per month, and authorized the forcible removal of licensed guns from “persons posing a risk of imminent personal injury” to anyone (including themselves). “Almost 232 years ago, a group of concerned Americans took matters in their own hands and did what they needed to do by declaring that the time had come for a change,” Nutter said in front of the historic City Hall, somehow equating the declaration of an armed rebellion by citizens against their government with a modern-day government’s decision to disarm its citizens. “We are going to make ourselves independent of the violence that’s been taking place in this city for far too long.” The only problem: As Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham told reporters a few days later, the new laws ran afoul of the Pennsylvania constitution. “If there are wholesale arrests which turn out to be illegal, this city is going to get its pants sued off them,” Abraham said. “I cannot, as a matter of law, arrest people for illegal possession of guns.”

10.LOS ANGELES

If there ever was a good excuse to further criminalize smoking in tobacco-intolerant California, the May 2007 Griffith Park fire was it. According to fire officials, a homeless man fell asleep in a bone-dry patch of brush on a park hillside while smoking a cigarette, setting off an 800-acre inferno that torched about one-fifth of the largest urban park in the United States, coming within singeing distance of homes in the city’s upscale Los Feliz neighborhood.

The city with the most relaxed regulatory policies in the United States is…..You Guessed it Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Nanny State is here to stay.

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To the next generation a Big #%*@ You..

Fargo ND —”America is being transformed from an industrial colossus to a tired, down-at-the-heels, post-industrial society.”

Americans have been so busy worrying about all their problems that very few noticed that the U.S. is going bankrupt. Ironically, it is those very problems that are driving the nation into bankruptcy. A partial list would include crime, drugs, poverty, a failing education system, a crumbling infrastructure, soaring health care costs, lagging productivity, a huge national debt, a large trade deficit, and an anemic rate of economic growth.

Can’t America just muddle through, the way it always has? Not this time. The problems are so overwhelming that there are no easy solutions. Just take a look around.

Work hard, play by the rules and tomorrow will be better than today. That implicit promise has been at the core of the American Experience through good times and bad.

But now, whipsawed by plummeting home values, $4-a-gallon gas, rising food prices and gyrating financial markets, Americans increasingly fear that the national bargain has unraveled, that their once-steady march toward affluence has derailed.

So is the American Dream dead? Well, it’s at least wounded.

Today’s economic malaise caps a prolonged period during which the typical American lost ground.

From the end of the 2001 recession through last year, median household income fell almost every year even as the economy expanded and individual workers became more productive. The most recent official data indicate that in 2006, half of all families made more than $58,407 and half made less. That compares with an inflation-adjusted peak of $59,398 in 2000.
This financial stall marked the first time since World War II that the typical family was worse off at the end of an economic expansion than at the start, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-of-center think tank in Washington, D.C.

Amid the mayhem in the world’s financial markets, it is becoming clear that capitalism’s most dangerous enemies are capitalists. No one can have watched the subprime mortgage debacle without noticing the absurd contrast between the magnitude of the failure and the lavish rewards heaped on those who presided over it. At Merrill Lynch and Citigroup, large losses on subprime securities cost chief executives their jobs and they left with multimillion-dollar pay packages. Stanley O’Neal, the ex-head of Merrill, received an estimated $161 million. The examples go on an on.

Everyday Americans will conclude (and rightly) that this brand of capitalism is rigged in favor of the privileged few. It will be said in their defense that these packages reflected years of service, often highly successful. So? It’s not as if these CEOs weren’t compensated in all those years. If you leave your company a shambles with losses to be absorbed by lower-level employees, some of whom will be fired, and shareholders do you deserve a gold-plated sendoff? Still, the more serious problem transcends the high pay itself and goes to the wider consequences for the economy and the next generation.

Top 10 Economic Woes left the next generation.

Number One: Government Expenditures and Deficits
Number Two: Social Security
Number Three: Concentration of Wealth
Number Four: Median Family Income
Number Five: The Savings Rate
Number Six: Consumption Binge
Number Seven: No Retirement Funds
Number Eight: High Family Debt
Number Nine: Healthcare
Number Ten: The Current Account Deficit
Are we all complicit in the erosion of economic stability in American life?

Watch the Debt Grow Online

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An email from Ireland to their brethren in the States…a point to ponder despite your political affiliation:

‘We, in Ireland , can’t figure out why people are even bothering to hold an election in the United States . On one side, you have a pants wearing lawyer, married to a lawyer who can’t keep his pants on, who just lost a long and heated primary against a lawyer who goes to the wrong church who is married to yet another lawyer who doesn’t even like the country her husband wants to run.

Now…On the other side, you have a nice old war hero whose name starts with the appropriate Mc terminology married to a good looking younger woman who owns a beer distributorship.

What in Lords name are you lads thinking over there in the colonies?

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ON A SCALE OF ONE TO SCREWED…
Where Are We, Fellas?

Fargo ND — The Phantom has learned today that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Tuesday the fragile economy is facing “numerous difficulties” despite the Fed’s aggressive interest rate reductions and other fortifying steps.

At the same time, Bernanke, testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, sounded another warning that rising prices for energy and food are elevating inflation risks. This problem looms even as officials try to cope with persistent strains in financial markets, rising joblessness and housing problems.

The situation, he said, poses “significant challenges” for Fed policymakers as they try to chart the best course for keeping the economy growing, while making sure inflation doesn’t dangerously flare up. All the economy’s problems _ including slumping home values, which threaten to make people feel less wealthy and less inclined to spend in the months ahead _ represent “significant downside risks” to economic growth.

Over the rest of this year, the economy will grow “appreciably below its trend rate” mostly because of continued weakness in housing markets, high energy prices and tight credit conditions, Bernanke said.

President Bush tried to strike an encouraging note: “The bottom line is this: We’re going through a tough time.” but “I believe we will come through this challenge stronger than ever before.”

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average 92.65 to 10,962.54. It was the blue chips’ lowest close since July 21, 2006.

Bernanke’s testimony comes just two days after the Fed and the Treasury Department came to the rescue of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, offering to throw them a financial lifeline.

The Fed chief was later joined by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Chris Cox, who were summoned to detail the rescue plan.

The two companies hold or guarantee more than $5 trillion in mortgages _ almost half of the nation’s total. The Bush administration is asking Congress to temporarily increase lines of credit to Fannie and Freddie and to let the government buy their stock. The Fed has offered to let the companies draw emergency loans.

The pledges of aid have raised concerns about the government’s role in such financial problems and the risk to taxpayers.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman, called the plan “unprecedented.”

Dodd said the rescue raises serious questions “about the nature of the economic crisis facing our nation, about the ability of these proposals to address this crisis effectively, and about the burden that the American taxpayer potentially is being asked to carry.”

Paulson said that if the government extends any financial backing to the two institutions it will be done “under terms and conditions that protect the U.S. taxpayer.” He didn’t provide details. “This is a backup facility that hopefully … will never be used,” Paulson said. The Treasury chief said he hoped that the pledge itself would help to boost eroding investor confidence in the companies.

Sen. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the panel’s senior Republican, cautioned, “I fear that we’re sitting on a financial powder keg.” Officials may envision never using the powers, Shelby added, but “this is not an empty gesture…. what if they did?”

On the economic front, inflation has remained high and “seems likely to move temporarily higher in the near term,” Bernanke warned.

Indeed, before Bernanke delivered his twice-a-year comprehensive economic assessment to Congress, the Labor Department reported wholesale prices jumped 1.8 percent in June. That left inflation rising over the past year at the fastest pace in more than a quarter-century.

“Given the high degree of uncertainty” about the Fed’s economic outlook, Fed policymakers will need to carefully assess incoming information about inflation and economic growth, he said.

The Fed in June signaled an end to its nearly year long rate-cutting campaign because of growing concerns about inflation. Bernanke kept up his tough anti-inflation talk on Tuesday but stressed many other problems that could short circuit economic growth. He seemed to be keeping his options open in terms of rates. Given all the risky cross currents, economists believe the Fed will leave rates alone when they meet on Aug. 5.

Righting wobbly financial markets is key to getting the economy back on track, he said.

“In general, healthy economic growth depends on well-functioning financial markets,” Bernanke said. “Consequently, helping the financial markets to return to more normal functioning will continue to be a top priority,” he said.

Strengthening regulatory oversight of Fannie and Freddie, Bernanke said, is “job one.” Congress is moving ahead on a broad housing rescue package that includes provisions to tighten regulation over the two companies. Bernanke said legislative efforts to help stabilize the housing market _ the biggest threat to the economy _ are of vital importance.

Bernanke, in the first day of back-to-back appearances on Capitol Hill, said investors are nervous in general because of the cloudy outlook for the economy and credit conditions, feeding a vicious cycle that can be hard to break.

“Many financial markets and institutions remain under considerable stress, in part because the outlook for the economy and thus for credit quality, remains uncertain.”

The Fannie and Freddie troubles came on the heels of the failure of IndyMac, a big bank. “Its failure … was inevitable,” Bernanke said because the bank was weighed down by low-quality mortgages. “All banks are being challenged by credit conditions now,” he said, adding that the Fed is keeping close tabs on the nation’s banking sector.

Earlier this year, a run on investment bank Bear Stearns pushed the company to the edge of bankruptcy and into a takeover by JPMorgan Chase, backed financially by the Fed. That prompted critics to call it a government bailout, putting taxpayers money at risk.

Bernanke defended the Fed’s decisions in the cases of Bear Stearns as well as Fannie and Freddie, and rebuffed claims that the government is helping Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. If problems aren’t contained, they can ripple throughout the economy, hurting everyone, he said. “Financial stability is critical to economic stability.”

The Fed, in new projections, now believes inflation will be higher this year than previously thought, with prices rising as high as 4.2 percent under one inflation measure.

Growth for the year will be sluggish _ at best 1.6 percent growth _ but not as bad as previously forecast, helped by the government’s $168 billion stimulus, including rebates. The unemployment rate, which could rise as high as 5.7 percent this year, is the same as earlier projections.

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Fargo Classifieds Online.

www.fargophantom.com/sellfargo
Get Money Now Free classifieds. Place your classified ads here – Huge traffic, active buyers and tens of thousands of fresh daily visitors ensure your items sell fast.
Lets Sell That Stuff.

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***UPDATE*** 1:29pm: Bush has lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling.

Today’s financial headlines tell a story of a nation in bailout mode. Beyond the oil and mortgage crisis that the government is attempting to act on, The New York Times says analysts are predicting 150 banks might falter in the coming months. Read the excerpts below.

*Bush to lift executive ban on offshore drilling:

In another push to deal with soaring gas prices, President Bush on Monday will lift an executive ban on offshore drilling that his stood since his father was president. But the move, by itself, will do nothing unless Congress acts as well.

The president plans to officially lift the ban and then explain his actions in a Rose Garden statement, White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

*Fed’s Plans To Bail Out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

Scrambling to bolster eroding investor confidence, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department announced unprecedented steps to brace slumping mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The companies’ shares, which have plunged as losses from their mortgage holdings threatened their financial survival, opened higher Monday. Fannie Mae rose 27 cents to $10.53, while Freddie Mac climbed 34 cents to $8.08.

*NY Times Reports Analysts Say More Banks Will Fail:

As home prices continue to decline and loan defaults mount, federal regulators are bracing for dozens of American banks to fail over the next year.

But after a large mortgage lender in California collapsed late Friday, Wall Street analysts began posing two crucial questions: Just how many banks might falter? And, more urgently, which one could be next?

*The Casper Updates

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Girl can’t keep her balance because of her big boobs

Fargo, North Dakota Hot woman found in Local Pub in Downtown Bar.

Pics of Hot Blonde Singles Here

32 sizzling hot versions of hot Fargo Woman

Fargo ND. Is A Weak US Dollar Tied To High Oil Prices?
I read on a message board that the price of gas in the U.S. could be tied to the declining value of the American dollar on worldwide markets. Is this true?”

ANSWER: The price of gas going up can in part be linked with the declining dollar. Because the oil markets are denominated in US dollars, when the dollar declines relative to other currencies oil becomes cheaper for the currency in question. If a “good” that is in demand has a declining price, be it an absolute declining price or a declining price due to the currency the good is denominated in, demand for that product may escalate which will in turn drive up prices. I would suggest that the rise in oil prices is due to three factors. The first is a real increase in the worldwide demand for oil. The second is the falling dollar, with the reasons outlined above. The third is due to speculation where you have investors simply bidding up the price of oil as they are chasing the “hot” investment. Eventually, as the demand of oil slows, or the dollar rebounds the speculative demand for oil will subside and the price may come back down as quickly as it rose. Although a weak dollar internationally means we can all look forward to one INFLATION.

By:Mean Mr.Mustard

Oops Thats a Felony.

Fargo, ND. Max Sanders, a University of Minnesota student who tried to sell his vote on eBay for a minimum of $10, got no offers, but he did get charged with a felony.

This from the state that elected Jesse Ventura. We should all be charged with felonies!

The rules were simple enough, Max Sanders wrote on the online auction posting.

The 19-year-old University of Minnesota student was undecided in the presidential election. So for a minimum of $10, he’d vote for whomever you liked, or, if you so chose, for no one at all.

He’d even go so far as to photograph himself in the voting booth with his ballot. On May 28, he put his vote up for bid.

“Good luck!” Sanders wrote for good measure under the eBay handle zepdrummer612. “You’re [sic] country depends on You!”

Now Sanders, who told investigators that the posting was merely a joke, faces a felony charge.

“We take it very seriously. Fundamentally, we believe it is wrong to sell your vote,” said John Aiken, director of communications for the Minnesota secretary of state’s office. “There are people that have died for this country for our right to vote, and to take something that lightly, to say, ‘I can be bought.’

“It’s a real shame,” he said. “I can imagine the conversations being held in American Legion Clubs and VFWs about whether this is a joke or not.”

Sanders, a liberal arts major from Edina, was charged Thursday with one count of bribery, treating and soliciting, a felony under an 1893 Minnesota law that makes it a crime to offer to buy or sell a vote. The scarcely used law had its heyday in the 1920s, when many people sold their votes in exchange for liquor, said assistant Hennepin County Attorney Pat Diamond. As far as he knows, the case is one of a kind in modern times, he said.

The investigation began when the California Secretary of State’s office discovered the posting and tipped off Minnesota’s office. That office in turn notified the Hennepin County attorney, who contacted eBay to ascertain Sanders’ identity.

According to a criminal complaint, an investigator contacted Sanders, who confirmed that he made the posting, adding, “That was a joke. It’s no longer listed.”

Sanders agreed to meet with investigators but later rescinded.

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Democrats Unite in Fargo.

Fargo,ND. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, speaking before veterans, their family members and others in Fargo this afternoon, said the country must do better by those who serve in the military.

Speaking for about 20 minutes at the Children’s Museum at Yunker Farm under a bright sky and with his dress shirt sleeves rolled up, Obama noted that the Fourth of July is not only about barbecues, parades and fireworks, but the United States should be sending its young men and women “to war [only] when we must and giving them the equipment they need.”

He also contended the medical and financial help for veterans when they return home needs to improve. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” he said.

Whether going to war is the right decision or not, Obama added, “Caring for our veterans is something that we can still get right.”

He pledged, if elected, to reduce the red tape that veterans face when seeking medical treatment or help with education and housing benefits.

He said he wants to expand funding to help veterans buy homes, and medical treatment for mental health care and brain injuries needs “to dramatically improve.”

As for financial aid for education, Obama said, the government needs to look to how the GI Bill helped World War II veterans and pay the full bill for college.

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Who We Are

Fargo Phantom is a collaboration of local professionals, financial advisors, entrepreneurs, educators, physicians, farmers and what many may refer to as a “crackpot.”

All writers have selected a “Phantom Name” due to the controversial content and editorial mission of the publication. The decision was made to help protect their professional standings in the community.

This underground newspaper is dedicated to seeking truth and justice and revitalizing the role of the free press as a guardian of liberty. We remain faithful to the traditional and central role of a free press in a free society – as a light exposing wrongdoing, corruption and abuse of power. This is why we are not accepting advertising for this venture. This is why we have assembled a arsenal of writers from all walks of life and income status.

Fargo Phantom is also designed to stimulate a free-and-open debate about political ideas facing the Red River Valley. Through educating and advocacy, we will continue to promote democracy. One constant motivation is the old-fashioned notion that the principal role of the free press in a free society is to serve as a watchdog on government – to expose corruption, fraud, waste and abuse wherever and whenever it is found

The Daily Fargo Phantom is now online (Fargo, North Dakota)

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What economic slowdown? Some spots still boom

Fargo North Dakota – Don’t look for an economic downturn in North Dakota: In fact, the state is holding job fairs in other states to try to fill 13,000 open jobs.

The slump hasn’t hit Chattanooga, Tenn., either. There, pent-up demand is so strong that a large back order exists for major connections to the municipal electrical grid.

Even if builders are hanging up their hammers in a lot of cities, they are still building subdivisions in Mobile, Ala., which is expecting an onslaught of thousands of new workers at a new steel mill.

Amid concern that the US economy is slipping and sliding into a recession, some states and many cities expect to continue to grow. In some cases, the growth is the result of having the right industries or resources at the right time. In other cases, it is the result of savvy and diversified economic development that appears to be shrugging off the recession blues. In virtually all cases, areas of growth appear to have avoided the huge run-up in housing prices and subsequent collapse.

“Recessions are not monolithic. They often hit a region or regions hard and leave the rest of the country OK,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com.

According to a January report by Moody’s Economy.com, 30 states still showed signs of economic expansion, 15 were at risk of sliding into recession, and five had already entered a downturn. The five states already in recession – Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, and Nevada – represent about 25 percent of US gross domestic product (GDP), Mr. Zandi says. The 15 states at risk of recession represent another 25 percent of the GDP.

A softening economy fits into the portrait painted by the Federal Reserve Board’s Beige Book, which takes a more anecdotal approach to business activity. On March 5, the Beige Book, which looks at the Fed’s 12 districts, found economic growth had slowed since the beginning of 2008. “Two-thirds of the Districts cited softening or weakening in the pace of business activity, while the others referred to subdued, slow, or modest growth,” stated the report.

Some of the states that are still growing are in agricultural areas, benefiting from soaring wheat, corn, and soybean prices. This includes Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Indiana.

But North Dakota, a farm state, has also worked hard to diversify its economic base, notes Gov. John Hoeven. “That’s been our No. 1 focus,” says Governor Hoeven in a phone interview.

North Dakota is one of only three states to gain manufacturing jobs, he says. Behind that gain is a push to export – up 34 percent in 2007 over 2006, the fastest rate of growth of any state in the United States. The state has also seen a big rise in energy investments in coal, oil, natural gas, and renewables. On top of that, North Dakota merchants are profiting from Canadian tourists, who are crossing the border to shop with their strong currency.

The state’s unemployment rate is hovering around 3 percent. This has prompted state officials to host job fairs in Minneapolis and Denver.

“We don’t see any sign of recession in our economy,” says Shane Goettle, commissioner of North Dakota’s Department of Commerce.

Some areas that used to be hard-hit by economic downturns are now shrugging them off. That’s the case for Chattanooga, Tenn., which took a nose dive in prior recessions. “We were categorized as Rust Belt,” says Mayor Ron Littlefield. “I don’t think we avoided the 2001 recession, but we recovered rather well.”

This time, Chattanooga has a much more diverse economic mix. “We are more tourism, more white-collar employment, and more high-tech type of industry,” says Mayor Littlefield. In addition, major employers in the city are expanding, not contracting, he says. For example, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee is building a $299 million corporate campus, the largest construction project in the city’s history.

Some cities are attracting foreign investors who want to build in the US, in part because of the weak dollar. Take the giant German steel manufacturer ThyssenKrupp, which decided to build a $3.7 billion steel mill in Mobile, Ala.

“No doubt the cheap dollar helps,” says Stephen Nodine, Mobile’s county commissioner. “But I think the leading factor was a location close to a deep-water port and rail lines.”

In addition, if Congress does not impede a recent Air Force decision to award a major contract to EADS and Northrop Grumman, parts of a new refueling tanker will be built in Mobile.

“With a 3.2 percent unemployment rate, we’ve been running ads saying, ‘Come home to Mobile,’ ” says Mr. Nodine. “Six years ago, we were hurting with jobs lost to NAFTA. Now, we’re in a position to be selective in what we pursue, and our main goal is increasing household income.”

Some communities credit their growth with a more aggressive approach in recruiting businesses. For example, Baton Rouge, La., set a goal of wooing motion-picture studios to make films there. “Not including the actual money for the movie, it has a $75 million impact on the city in the way of hotel rooms, restaurants, equipment companies, and the hiring of people,” says Mayor-President Kip Holden. “We were not a major player, and now we are.”

Inspired by movie success, the city has also delved into film animation. It hosts the biggest animation festival in the US.

As a result of its more aggressive push, Baton Rouge now finds itself moving up in US rankings for best cities for jobs. “Baton Rouge is a boomtown,” says Mayor-President Holden.

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