Anyone who watched Sarah Palin's bizarre resignation announcement heading in to the July 4th weekend knew something was up.
We were supposed to believe that she was leaving because she didn't want to be a lame duck and sit around collecting paychecks for nothing...and also...she had a higher calling...and also...she wanted to protect Alaska...and also... enough already!!! We all know too many excuses are worse than none at all.
Rumors flew about pending legal problems, new scandals, a marriage in turmoil, maybe even new extra-marital affairs. In spite of her winkin' and talkin' and aggressive cheerleading, folks started to reach a consensus best articulated by Gregg Erickson, an independent economic consultant in Juneau,
"Everything she’s doing seems to be saying that there’ll be a problem in the future owing to her inattention, but she won’t be here to deal with it."
Sounds like Mr. Erickson's clients have themselves one smart economic consultant.
After the stock market closed yesterday and Sarah was way far away in a totally different country, it was announced the dividend from the Alaska Permanent Fund will be less than half what it was last year.
The reduced payout comes after a tough year for the Alaska Permanent Fund, which lost $6.6 billion, or 18 percent of its value in fiscal 2009, according to its annual financial report.
Hoo boy. That's going to leave a mark. When the Permanent Fund issued it's first round of dividend checks in 1982, they were $1,000 each. This year's will be about $69 bucks more than that. To show you how bad this is, let's compare the projected $1,069 checks to that first one in constant 1982 dollars. For this year's check to just keep pace with the original purchasing power of the first checks, it would have to be worth $2,232 bucks. They won't even see half of that.
But how does an 18 percent drop in value turn into more than 50 percent drop in dividends? Well, turns out the years under her administration weren't so bright as she seems to remember. In spite of that, they also ginned up last year's dividend of $2,069 by throwing in an additional one-time energy rebate of $1200 per person. I guess a record dividend of $2,069 due to oil at $100+ a barrel wasn't good enough for Sarah.
Also.... all that money is just sitting there beggin' to burn a hole in people's pocketbooks. Also.... this is the fund that made it through the stock market crash of 1987 and ended the year scoring in the top 10% of all public funds.
Oh..and also... the fund value went from $40 billion in 2007 to $26 billion in 2009. You have a problem with that? Get over it! Everything will rebound strongly because Sarah leaves behind an administration
with its positive agenda,
its accomplishments,
and its successful road to
an incredible future...
A road to where? Am I the only one who finds that choice of words ironic?
When you think about it, her leaving the country to be as far away from this news as possible is probably one of the smartest things she ever did. "You want to question the former CEO of Alaska's responsibility in all this? In what respect, Charlie? You can't even see Hong Kong from the lip of that crater!"
---------
h/t glower for candid photo