On the Ethics of Alaska Legislators Spending the People's Permanent Fund

 Considering the question of it being immoral for the Alaska government to spend much of the Alaska Permanent Fund on government instead of the people because the legislators are lazy and stupid and simply rob the people to fund the government instead of being responsible like other states with balanced budgets, I would rejoin with this point; it is the nature of legislators to take the easy way, or the immoral way that is popular. For example consider the public debt of the U.S. government that is 100% of G.N.P. or the Chinese government’s public debt that has reached nearly 300% of G.N.P. Governments globally happily plunder for temporary gain.

One should not expect legislators to be intelligent, creative and public spirited. Instead they will vacuum the easiest revenue sources and cut the easiest as well. I asked Gemini about the Alaska sovereign wealth fund known as the P.F.D.

Gemini– Governor Jay Hammond intended the Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) to serve as a check on government spending and ensure Alaskans shared directly in the state’s natural resource wealth. He envisioned “Alaska Inc.,” where citizens were shareholders who received annual dividends to prevent politicians from wasting oil revenue on unsustainable government growth. [1, 2]

Key aspects of Hammond’s intent included:

• Ownership & Protection: Hammond wanted to empower citizens and prevent the Legislature from treating oil wealth as a “bonus pool”. By giving Alaskans a direct stake in the fund, he believed residents would act as a “militant ring” of defenders against politicians attempting to raid it.
• “Money Wells” for Infinity: He aimed to transform finite “oil wells” into wealth that would generate revenue for generations, distributing one-half of the investment earnings to residents and using the other half for government services.
• “Alaska Inc.”: Initially, he proposed a formula based on residency duration (a flat \(\$50\) multiplied by years of residency).
• “Claw Back” Mechanism: He strongly supported pairing the dividend with a state income tax to “claw back” some of the PFD money to support public services, forcing citizens to stay engaged in fiscal policy. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]

Ultimately, Hammond believed the dividend was “proof that we almost did it [27]perfectly,” intending for it to be a direct transfer of wealth to citizens rather than a general fund for government spending.

The traditional, statutory formula established by the Alaska Legislature in 1982 operates as follows: [1]

• The 5-Year Average: The formula takes the net income of the Permanent Fund’s investment earnings averaged over the five most recent fiscal years.
• The 50% Split: That 5-year average is multiplied by 21% (which mathematically isolates half of the fund’s statutory net income).
• The Per-Capita Dividend: After subtracting basic administrative expenses and prior-year obligations, the remaining balance is divided equally by the number of qualified Alaskan applicants. [1, 2]

This is the exact formula that would yield a $3,800+ dividend if followed today. [1, 2]

However, since 2016, the Legislature has departed from this law by capping the payout amount during annual budget sessions. This practice was legally upheld by the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled that the PFD formula is not constitutionally protected and is subject to the annual legislative budget process. [1, 2]

The Alaska state government has grown significantly in complexity and financial scale since Jay Hammond’s tenure as governor (1975–1982). While the number of state employees has remained relatively stable (roughly 15,000–16,000), the state’s financial structure, total spending, and reliance on investment income have changed drastically. [1, 2]

Key Growth Metrics and Shifts Since the 1980s:

• Financial Growth & Spending: State spending grew rapidly after 1979 as oil revenues flowed in, characterized as a “spending spree of unparalleled proportions”. By 2018, Alaska’s per capita spending was more than double the national average.
• The Permanent Fund Corporation: The most significant structural growth was the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation in 1980. The fund, which began with an initial investment of $734,000 in 1977, has grown to over $86.3 billion.
• Budgetary Shifts: In 1980, the state budget was largely fueled by oil production. By 2026, the state faces a structural imbalance, with the Permanent Fund earnings (the “POMV draw”) covering significant portions of the budget, with a projected deficit of over $1.5 billion.
• Per Capita Spending: Despite population increases and periodic cuts, Alaska has consistently maintained a high level of per capita spending—between two and three times the average of other states.
• Federal Funding Dependence: While the state grew, it also became increasingly reliant on federal transfers, which totalled $5.69 billion in FY 2023. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

The Legacy of Growth
Jay Hammond anticipated the challenges of this growth, advocating for the Permanent Fund to be a savings account to cushion against the boom-and-bust cycle. However, increased state spending and fiscal challenges, such as those in 2014, led to reduced PFD payments and reduced dependence on oil revenue, with more focus on managing the investment income from the Fund

Forests are Far Richer Environments than Cities

 Forests are a far richer, more complex environment than human-made artificial habitats that eliminate most complexity. Consciousness advanced quite far in forests as well as grasslands. Ninety-nine percent of human history occurred in rural settings. A modern home has not 1% of the complexity of a forest and is not challenging for a brain or body. Even walking on safe level floors and sidewalks eliminates 95 percent of the mental attention to detail required on a complex forested slope. There are neither a lot of birds or insect vectors flying about that one need remain subtly vigilant about. The only danger in modern cities is other humans as predators.

In the modern urban environment humanity constructed unchallenging safe houses that sanitized the natural ecosystem they eschew because of its many challenges. Humanity has moved into safe cribs that do not stimulate a brain interactively; physically. Cities are environmental dead zones.

Musk's Starlink Satellites Might Soil the Stratosphere

Elon  Musk's plan to place 42,000 Starlink satellites above the Earth present a danger when making reentry for destruction by releasing aluminum oxide that will reach the stratosphere. So it makes sense that DOGE would want to trim the Environmental Protection agency and prevent legislation from arising to compel those that launch satellites that orbit the Earth to pay a tax for the safe disposal of satellites rather than burning them up in the atmosphere. The amount of aluminum oxide released into the upper atmosphere greatly surpasses anything approaching normal. The consequences may be profound down the road.

https://www.businesstoday.in/visualstories/news/starlink-killing-atmosphere-the-environmental-threat-to-earth-elon-musk-isnt-talking-about-214537-06-03-2025

I once bought a used sailboat on the Severn River and sailed it to the Chesapeake without a motor or  depth charts. Unfortunately with some ways and no wind the vessel eventually rand aground in shallow water with the full keel and the waves took it to a concrete berm where it had holes broken through the fiberglass. I was informed that on the Chesapeake Bay it is illegal to let a boat become derelict-- a felony crime actually. So I therefore had to pay a business $2000 dollars to haul the boat away and break it up safely for disposal. The rich have no kind of similar responsibility to safely dispose of their space trash that threatens the safety or well being of human life on Earth and that is wrong.

Jesse Watters said recently that all boomers are rich and the generation spoiled. Such statements is why people hate journalists.. President Johnson began he war on poverty in the 1960s because so many Americans were poor. Some boomers died in Vietnam and other wars. not everyone was a pampered journalist in the 3rd millennium. Many Boomers are still poor and many never made it to old age. When I got off that sailboat on the Eastern shore I bought some chicken for dinner and ignored the subtle head shake of the sales lady at the service station convenience store. I went to a hotel room across the street and ate a drumstick and got a sharp shard of chicken bone stuck in my throat sideways where it remained until it dissolved much later because I couldn't afford to remove it. Watters would have 911 there if such a circumstance befell him with full medical coverage. He has no idea about the inconvenience of poverty.

Building on automatic trash cleaning machine to gobble up dead satellites in space, compact them and shoot them into the sun should not be beyond the technical capacity of those disposable, non-recycling kind of people that dominate in government. Maybe people would even pay something for the service or face federal charges for placing aluminum oxide sources into the stratosphere above the United States.

Necessity of Ecological Economics

Ecological economics has qualitative rather than quantitative growth. Actually I believe dead reckoning competence by political economists is necessary and possible. If leaders really don’t have the right world view no blind implementation of theory will meet the empirical challenges the human race has.