America’s suffering shale patch is about the only place in the U.S. where there’s nostalgia for the dark days of the financial crisis. While the global economy started to unravel in 2008, it was also the beginning of the biggest oil boom in U.S. history. Domestic production, which had been steadily declining since the bust of 1986, began to climb in 2009. OPEC cut output to an average of 28.5 million barrels a day that year, putting a floor under prices. And at the heart of the shale revolution, states like North Dakota, Texas and Oklahoma enjoyed lower rates of unemployment than the rest of the U.S. Sure, crude plummeted to $32 a barrel in December 2008, but it didn’t stay there for there for long. Analysts described it as a V-shaped bust, and by May the following year oil was back above $65. Plenty of people counted on […]