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Alaska: The Only US State Where Everyone Gets Free Money
merbs writes: Alaska’s Permanent Fund was established in 1976, in the midst of a black gold rush; the massive Trans-Alaska pipeline was in the process of being built, and the state had reaped $900 million in revenue from the sale of drilling leases in Prudhoe Bay, the largest oil field in North America, in a matter of years. In a matter of a few more, it’d spent it. Alaskans soon recognized that their enormous oil reserves were nonetheless limited, so, with a kind of longterm forward-thinking rarely seen in politics today, they voted to add an amendment to the state constitution to establish a fund that would protect a portion of all incoming oil wealth for future generations. In 2014, the net income of the fund was $6.8 billion dollars and the dividend doled out $1,884 to 640,000 citizens, despite a decline in oil revenues that year.
They are royalties for resources held in the ground which are government property, not free money. Who else has a better claim to it, than the owners of the land, i.e., the people.
We paid for it when purchased under President Johnson, at the behest of Seward.
Cute. The 640,000 citizens received in total $1.2 billion dollars.
If this had happened in Texas (another state that produces a lot of oil, though in general doesn't have all the natural resources Alaska has), those $1.2 billion would amount to... less than $45 for each of it's 27 million inhabitants.
Now it doesn't look as cool, does it?
In communism you have money, but nothing to buy with it on the shelves. In capitalism the shelves are always choke full but you don't have money.
Where the hell do you live that welfare/disability pays enough to buy endless beer and meth? I know a couple of people on disability and they have a fuck of a time just eating satisfactorily, little well being able to buy more then a 6 pack of beer once a month.
There's also one fuck of a lot of homeless people around and they sure don't look like they're having a great life, especially when the weather turns to shit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Socialism means that the factories (means of production) belong to the state. This is not the case in Denmark, so your use of the word socialism is ignorant and incorrect.
I'm an American, and I find that the Trotskyites here call anything they don't like - "socialism". It's...... complex, some how.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Alberta just put the royalties into general revenue and spent it. Now that the price of oil has collapsed they are facing a huge budget deficit and have nothing to show for it. (Well, some infrastructure may have been built that wouldn't have.)
Norway placed high royalties on their oil and invested it. I think their fund is the largest sovereign fund in the world. There is a budgetary rule that only 4% of the value of the fund could be taken out in a year to be used in their budget. So far the fund has always grown by more than 4% each year so it looks good for them.
I'm an American, and I find that the Trotskyites here call anything they don't like - "socialism". It's...... complex, some how.
When Americans say socialism, they usually mean taxes. Typically they disregard how society indirectly provides benefits like a skilled labor pool, infrastructure and other foundations for modern civilization that enabled their company to make millions in profit. They only narrowly look at the government services they've directly consumed and want their tax bill to match. In fact they might actually argue their tax rate should be lower because a millionaire is still just one man and doesn't consume services in proportion to his income, so they'd rather have a small government and pay themselves. "Socialists" are everybody who want more taxes, progressive taxes, inheritance tax, wealth tax, taxes for welfare, taxes for universal services, taxes for public services or really any form of tax that would redistribute wealth from the rich for the common good. Basically any accumulation of wealth is their own and society has no right to any of it, though those who say that typically want protection of private property and contracts, police, courts and all the other bits that happen to be necessary to keep a large personal fortune. I'm sure it's a coincidence.
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