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How We Can All Make Money Like the Billionaires - Thom Hartmann
Thom Hartmann has a good idea that I like:
When the Royal Dutch Shell Kulluk rig got stuck on the rocky shores of Alaska on New Years Eve, the people of that state paid close attention. Not just because they worried about the potential for another environmental disaster in their backyard, but because they pay close to attention to their states oil industry in general since they each make a lot of money off of it.
Alaska is unique in that it has something called the Alaska Permanent Fund. Believing that all residents of the state should profit off the resources that are naturally below their feet, Alaska takes the money that big oil corporations pay them in oil leases and royalties, invests that money, and then distributes the returns on those investments to each and every resident of the state.
It works out to between $1,000 and $2,000 dollars for every man, woman, and child in Alaska every single year. So if youre a husband and wife with two kids, you could earn as much as $8,000 at the end of the year and thats not pocket change for a working family trying to make it by during the Great Republican Recession.
Thanks to this supplemental income to each resident of Alaska, the state enjoys the third highest median income in the nation, and is also the second most equal state in the nation.
Its a system that works, and its been embraced by both Democrats and Republicans even Sarah Palin.
So why not apply it to the rest of the country?
Alaska is unique in that it has something called the Alaska Permanent Fund. Believing that all residents of the state should profit off the resources that are naturally below their feet, Alaska takes the money that big oil corporations pay them in oil leases and royalties, invests that money, and then distributes the returns on those investments to each and every resident of the state.
It works out to between $1,000 and $2,000 dollars for every man, woman, and child in Alaska every single year. So if youre a husband and wife with two kids, you could earn as much as $8,000 at the end of the year and thats not pocket change for a working family trying to make it by during the Great Republican Recession.
Thanks to this supplemental income to each resident of Alaska, the state enjoys the third highest median income in the nation, and is also the second most equal state in the nation.
Its a system that works, and its been embraced by both Democrats and Republicans even Sarah Palin.
So why not apply it to the rest of the country?
Read the rest at: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/47548/how-we-can-all-make-money-like-the-billionaires
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How We Can All Make Money Like the Billionaires - Thom Hartmann (Original Post)
Glaisne
Jan 2013
OP
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)1. That would be socialism, that's why not
It would be like if the roads were free and anyone could use them at any time and go anywhere.... er, uh, hmmmm, maybe socialism is a good thing?
Amonester
(11,541 posts)3. Yep. Only the 'word' socialism is...
a bad thing, not the roads it provides, nor everything else, but just the written or spoken 'word' socialism.
cbrer
(1,831 posts)2. Sorry, gotta subsidize the oil companies first...
Earth_First
(14,910 posts)4. Blood money...
Hush money.
That's what this cash equates to.
I'm not interested in seeing any cash in order to look the other way after environmental disaster after another.
I'd prefer to be able to use the Finger Lakes in Western, New York; not be paid to not complain about how they 'used to look'