Alaska State (Welfare) Park

To sum up my argument here:

The north slope oil and gas development days are numbered. Between government prohibitions, environmental lawsuits, aging infrastructure, outrageous tax structure, etc, there is little doubt that it will eventually be mothballed. It will probably occur in stages once the operating threshold for the pipeline is reached, which at the current rate of decline is less than ten years away. There goes many thousands of jobs, and all the related jobs and businesses. And of course, there goes the plum of the arctic revenue stream-pff! Gone.

Gas development in Southcentral is basically dead as well. Aging fields mean less gas is being produced since new exploration and development is practically forbidden. Agrium closed-which produced fertilizers among other products, and now comes word that Conoco Phillips is closing the LNG plant as well. They've been shipping LNG to Japan for decades, but now the Japanese can purchase gas cheaper elsewhere. They are going to shut in the wells this spring-and there is no guarantee that they can be brought back on line next winter-when our demand goes back up. We really cold be facing a severe natural gas shortage as early as next winter.

Mining will follow the same path, mostly as the result of enviromental groups and activists. For decades, Alaska was powered by coal from Beluga, Sutton, and Usibelli. With the influx of people in the last two decades, has come a strong NIMBY segment. They don't want any mining at any time at any place, period end. Coal mining companies are next to Satan, since they are evil polluters, period. Funny thing is, I grew up at Usibelli. Great memories, played outdoors for years in the coal dust and I'm not dead yet ;) When I try to point out that Usibelli started a program for land reclamation well before it was required-and not only that, worked with UAF scientists and researchers to determine the best way to return the lands to native ground cover-I am vilified. Pff! No oil. No natural gas. No coal. They forget how cold it gets up here.

So all those jobs, and the money those industries produce for the state, will go away. So we've had umpteen years of various state administrations expanding the size of state government. If you don't believe me, just take a look inside any local phone book, under "State of Alaska" Look at the hundreds of phone numbers, with dozens of departments, agencies and so forth. Many thousands of Alaskans working for the state-whose operating budget is never adequately addressed. Eventually, the Permanent Dividend will be tapped to pay for this bloated government, likely about the time the unfunded liabilities come due. Those would be, the generous retirement contracts the state handed out like candy in previous years. As I recall, the state governmennt is actually the largest "employer" in the state-all afforded by the taxes and royalties from resource extraction. At some point down the road, the state will have to shrink, which is going to have some interesting effects.....

But before it reaches that point, people will be leaving in droves-those that can. With no jobs, the housing market, construction, and so forth will crash. Tourism and fishing cannot replace the lost income stream, not by a long shot. This is going to place a huge strain on welfare agencies, further stripping the state budget. People will be homeless, need food and shelter, unemployment, help with heating, you name it. We're already experiencing serious problems coping with the homeless and indignent already.....adding thousands of more families to the burden is going to mean that the state will be going to the feds for help.

The fed, of course, is beyond broke.

If you think the scenaio I have shared over these last posts is crazy...I hope you're right. I hope that saner, more competent minds will win the day in both Juneau, and DC. But considering the insanity shown every day in the media, I won't hold my breath. What our elected representatives are doing borders on criminal, in my opinion. Especially the Pollyanna's in Juneau.