| Hammond
recited a detailed history of his dividend advocacy, starting with his
attempts in the 1960s as mayor of the Bristol Bay Borough to capture some
of the salmon dollars that "hemorrhaged" out of that region. He used the
current Alaska dividend debate as a segue into the international arena.
"Without
a Permanent Fund dividend program," Hammond said, "Alaska will face the
same fate as Nigeria." The World Bank estimates that $296 billion flowed
in and out of that government's treasury during its oil boom, "leaving
them worse off than they were before," Hammond said.
The
Economist magazine appropriately called such mismanaged oil wealth "the
devil's excrement," Hammond said. The pattern has been repeated around
the globe where countries have come into an oil windfall, he said.
"Absent
something like our dividend program and ensuing public interest, those
windfalls simply inflated a grab bag for special interests," he said.
Once
deflated, the average citizen was left holding that empty bag, Hammond
said. "Iraq is but the latest example." |
