UPDATE: Laurie Fagnani, president of the marketing firm MSI Communications, said that the Make Alaska Competitive Coalition is not funded by the Alliance, as alleged by Davis. She also said that her firm has acted ethically and responsibly in the campaign, contrary to statements made by Davis.
She said the coalition is a group of people from across the state and is not controlled by the oil companies. They share a realization that with declining oil production, the state's economy is at risk, she said.
• Neil Davis, a retired professor of geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, has written a detailed two-part analysis of Gov. Sean Parnell's proposed oil tax reduction, adding a valuable perspective to the debate. He is doing his part to advance the cause of creating a more informed discussion in Alaska.
Davis, who has written several works of fiction and nonfiction in addition to his scientific work, calls his series, "A Citizen's Look at Oil Taxation." It first appeared in the Ester Republic.
He begins by saying: "We Alaskans should thank the Alaska Senate for refusing to alter the state’s oil tax legislation pending further review of changes proposed by Governor Parnell and approved by a slight majority of the House.
"This refusal is proper because the legislature has not as yet received sufficient information to justify changing the legislation. Furthermore, both the Alaska public and the Legislature have been bombarded quite recently with much misleading and even false information that needs to be evaluated and, where appropriate, refuted."
Here is the two-part series by Davis : Part 1 and Part 2.
The fact that the state owns the right to the resources means that the state government is an oil company (and a gold company, a coal company, a timber company ...). We just don't seem to realize it when we elect our board of directors and the CEO.
It isn't a vertically integrated oil company, but it would seem to make sense to figure out how to improve the efficiency of the company we have before we expand into other parts of the resource to market 'value chain', because the oil industry operates within a complicated and volatile market. Competing successfully in that market requires a high degree of expertise and a willingness to assume considerable investment risk.
Distributing the income earned from the company's business (i.e. selling our resources) directly to the shareholders (i.e. Alaska citizens) in the form of a cash payment as justme24 suggests would be a great way to help us look at our business differently. (We are currently receiving dividend payments in the form of 'services') The odds are that we would give different instructions to our Board of Directors and our CEO if we would see the result of their effort in the form of a direct cash payment.
This would of course require other parts of the state government (the sovereign aspect) to ask for some of that payment back in a more apparent form of taxation than simply keeping all of the income from the sale of our resources.
Would we be any happier though? Probably not. ... The shareholders of the native corporations don't seem to be much happier with their company than we are with ours. That has to do with the fact that it is truly unearned income and they have no more ability to sell their shares than we would have to sell ours.
It is also important to remember that 'government take' is only part of the equation.
Producing oil in Alaska requires relatively high capital expenditure compared to some other places, as well as high 'permitting risk' and regulatory compliance costs. So the companies might expect a higher return to offset those risks.
As Einstein observed "everything is relative". The main point to keep in mind is that we need to look at this as a business negotiation with sophisticated players. We need to match their skill to stay in the game, but we don't want to drive them away from the table.
Second, I think it's time for a state run, Alaska oil company. We already have the Permanent Fund which is a quasi-state run entity with a sole objective of making money, and has been doing REALLY well. An Alaska Oil Company will not play the games of not developing fields, will not pretend that they will leave some of the largest oil fields in the world until they get more tax breaks, and will certainly not be motivated to make Alaska a third-world country.
The state is already building the "Roads to Resources" - meaning the billions in dollars of infrastructure so oil companies can access the oil, maintains all the roads, too. The state already owns the airports in Anchorage and Fairbanks (which are some of the most successful airports in the country) to provide people and goods to the oil fields. The state is subsidizing 50% of the capital expenses incurred by the oil companies, let's just go all the way, only the people of Alaska will actually OWN the equipment instead of paying for it while the asset still belongs to shareholders elsewhere around the world. Alaskans already own the oil according to the Constitution. In fact, I would say that the state Constitution REQUIRES a state owned oil company, because it would, without a doubt, provide the maximum benefit to Alaska - without a doubt.
I implore someone here to explain why an Alaskan Oil Company would be bad for Alaska. Not by throwing out empty rhetoric (i.e. blah blah blah North Korea, blah blah blah socialism), but by actually explaining why a state owned oil company would be bad for Alaska and the people of Alaska.
These foreign oil companies are evil. They want us to cut education for our kids, yah know...the thing that will make our kids competitive in a world economy, so they can get vast sums more money to add to their already vast sums of money. They want us to stop building and maintaining the roads that they don't use so they can do a little more drilling in another foreign country. They want the kids of working families to not be able to see a doctor when they get sick (and yes, it will be the kids of working families who will suffer cuts first, the poorest of the poor will still meet income thresholds) because some F'ing shareholder wants a third McMansion (not built in Alaska by an Alaska contractor). You are insane if you think that coddling these foreign oil companies is reaping the maximum benefit for Alaskans. We NEED a state owned oil company. Period.
One of my favorites.
Alaska is the 2nd most socialist state in the union. It's built into our constitution. All mineral wealth is owned in common by all citzens.
Mostly because of they way politics works, I do not believe that through our State and Local governments is the best way to distribute this wealth.
All public wealth from mineral development permanant fund included, should be distributed directly to the citizens.
We then should pay taxes to support our various governments. Most alaskans have no idea what government costs us. That isn't good for us.
The state, selling this oil to Alaskans, is simply a back door approach to taxing it's residents. IT's also counter productive to Alaska's growth.
Our webmaster has been working to get our website operational this week. If you are unable to access it, try next week. In the meantime, we have a PO Box address:
Alaskans United
1231 W. Northern Lights Blvd.
Anchorage, AK 99503
I am a member of "Alaskans United to Stop Our Oil Wealth Giveaway." We organized this summer and are beginning to have an active presence in Anchorage. Today, we had a booth at the REAP Fair in Anchorage. Our mission is to promote a citizens' movement to maintain ACES as the method the State of Alaska uses to determine the price of our oil resources.
To join, go to our website: www.stopouroilwealthgiveaway.org.
The wealthy are no longer satisfied with lobbying, they now want to put their partners into government at the helm. Governor Parnell is an example of this kind of corruption in the USA. If there were no food stamps, extension of unemployment benefits, and medicaid riots would begin all over the USA. Who is kidding who. Karl Marx never sounded so good.
First time I have read the term astroturfing, but I really like it to explain the advertising campaign of highly funded enterprise hiding behind the guise of a grassroots organization. This is part of the reason that our political system is in such dishevel. Politicians get bought under the auspices of being a representative of the people.
I digress. Appreciated introduction to a valuable link.
Nope, there's also been the likes of Tony Knowles and Bill Sheffield (and more) who stand as stellar examples that greenbacks and political grease are held in high regard by both Donkeys and Elephants alike.
Corporations willing to bend the rules, or break them entirely, rarely bribe the minority party; there's little benefit in it, unless the persons doing the bribing/extorting are seeking a specific endorsement from a specific individual, either due to that person's socio-political clout or regional representation, or to swing a vote that teeters by a single vote or two. Effective political gerry-mandering primarily and inherently involves bribing or trading favors with those in the majority, as they hold the power to say 'yes' or 'no.'
Still, at both the state and national levels, the oilies have been far more generous to the R's committees than to the D's. Not entirely due to the lofty ethics of the Ds, but rather because the Ds are also very much aware that a calculable percentage of their constituency would disapprove of such incestuous relationships in fairly serious ways, and today's elections are often decided by one or two percentage points, if that. The loss of a fraction of one's support to a third party with no chance of winning, but every chance of tilting the cart, sometimes motivates equally unethiocal persons to do the right things for the wrong reasons.
Welcome to the sleazy world of Big Money Politics and Partisanism as a Cult-Religion, where much of what might'ev been our hopes for more pure representation died quietly, in smoke-filled rooms, behind closed and locked doors (such as those at the Baranof Hotel) a long time ago.
What was that slogan the Founders were alleged to have reitterated so loudly? Oh, yeah, I remember, "No taxation without representation."
How about that?