This site moderation feature is becoming ridiculous.

Anyone else want to join me in a strike? Think that might make a statement - when advertising revenue falls?

The state owns the oil, the oil producers produce the oil. How much each needs the other determines the respective income derived from the oil as it is sold into a global market. In this democracy anyone can run for office if they want to modify how the state sells its oil, and if elected they can help make decisions.

I don't think that whining from the sidelines is helpful. Moreover, I think that the toughest challenge facing elected officials right now is the persistent decline in North Slope oil production. The complicated and delicate mix of factors that includes producer profitability, declining production, the extreme dependence of government on petroleum revenues, and the binding legal contracts the producers have with the state presents a compelling need for constructive input. Of course everyone is in it for themselves, including the teachers, social workers, journalists, bureaucrats, retirees, unions, oil companies, and whiners. Never has there been a different human condition. The Big Rock Candy Mountain is merely a tune.

Too much paranoia here. I think people are confusing conspiracy with plain incompetence.

The present generation of alaska politicians is definitely a big step down from the statehood generation. From what is good for alaskans to what do I need to get reelected.

Barnard, It was those earlier politicians you laud that decided the producers should own the TransAlaska Pipeline. So here we are.

Latitude, You really should do some research. The oil producers are earning insane profits in Alaska as measured in dollars, ROI, etc. No one knows what to do about it. The producers can turn the faucet down to strangle us because they own the oil leases and the pipeline, and we are so dependent upon oil income that the producers have us over a barrel. State and municipal spending is so high that a state sales tax and a state income tax would not even be within the rounding error of the oil income it takes to keep the lights on. Parnell and all others are dealing with the world as they found it. Federal law won't allow them to do what the Middle East rulers did in the 1970's - take back the oil the producers own through their leases and seize the pipe. The National Guard would obey the governor but Obama would put him in jail for seizing the pipe (fun to think about though).

A final comment to Latitude: Parnell is governor until termed out or he decides to take a seat in Congress. The D's eat their young, try to take our guns, and have no solutions that cannot be found in the writings of Carl Marx and Barack Obama.

Calypso, the Cato quotes were very cogent and entirely constructive.

@wally - I'll try and put a link to the CATO article.

It makes sense to me and certainly is thinking outside of the conservationists' box.

http://www.cato (dot) org/pubs/chapters/marlib21.html

I have never seen a sawmill shut down for lack of trees. I have only seen sawmills shut down when government takes the trees away, locks them up so they can grow old and die, etc. Sawmill owners and private landowners (absent excessive interference from government) seem to be able to have a relationship lasting for generations. As the timber changes the sawmills adapt or change, and economic wealth continues to flow to the region; people are employed. Only when government displaces the private sector does the industry disappear. That is an observation based upon a lifetime of real experience but I wouldn't expect a college professor nor a contemporary college textbook to know all that much about that.

Look out the window some time at the real world. Trees grow old and die, and some or many of them are the "nurseries" from which new trees grow. "Old growth trees" that are so desirable on the timber market come about after hundreds of years of growth. If you cut them all down, and there are no more left, just so your business can make money - government or not, they will be gone. Sawmills for generations??? How about old growth forest that take two to five hundred years to grow.... that's a lot more than a few human generations.
A key note in your comment is the "private sector." When it comes to all the trees, minerals, fish, plants etc. there is no "private sector." The "private sector" are those who wish to benefit and profit from using what is there, what has developed over centuries.
You may not expect much from a retired professor - that's your opinion. But perhaps that old geezer has walked through more clear-cut and old growth forests, fished commercially, read historical reports and records, and talked to a lot of local people. In my forty years in southeast, my personal textbook is the local people I have know, the experiences I have had, and the information I have acquired over time.
By the way, how many decades have you lived through the history of Southeast - from your comments, you must be much older and more experienced that I am.

I think Glacierdog has a good point. And as far as clear cuts go....they make for some great feed for game animals here in Southeast, which makes for great hunting. I don't imagine anybody is lobbying to cut down every last tree. It's not any any logger's best interest to work himself out of a job.

Guru, you haven't seen any of the native corp clearcuts on Admiralty have you? I remember flying into, I think it was Lake Dorothy(?). It used to be a world class cutthroat lake. It had been logged right down to the water. There wasnt even a blueberry bush for as far as you could see. Made it a lot easier to tell if a bear was sneaking up on you, but it certainly wasnt sustainable, aesthetically pleasurable, or environmentally sensitive.

There you have it.

"The oil producers are earning insane profits in Alaska as measured in dollars, ROI, etc. No one knows what to do about it. The producers can turn the faucet down to strangle us because they own the oil leases and the pipeline, and we are so dependent upon oil income that the producers have us over a barrel."

The producers are not going to let the pipeline shut down, because they'll be killing the goose that lays those insanely profitable golden eggs.

So please explain to me how giving them ANOTHER $2 billion will further motivate them to increase production? It won't. It will just drain our reserves.

Now we are in some agreement regarding State expenditures. We need to wean ourselves off of oil money, either by replacing it with something else, or spending less of it. Probably a combination of both.

Regarding your partisan political statement, my prediction is that Parnell will pull a Palin. He's realized that his stock will never be higher and he'll abandon the governorship to reach for the brass ring. He was probably bidding himself out to the three oil execs a couple weeks ago - a full-on livestock auction.

@wally - if you're still interested in reading the CATO article, just copy and paste the whole line, then replace (dot) with a .

I do that because links usually send the post into moderation.

Besides timber, think what America would look like today if the people of past generations had stopped mining coal because of a fear that the coal would be all gone eventually.