| Subject: | Re: [socialcredit] Alaska dividend | | Date: | Monday, September 5, 2005 18:03:29 (-0400) | | From: | Keith Wilde <nschwartz @......ca>
|
Interesting. I thought I had seen mention of Hinman's connection to the
Alaska fund before, but I obviously missed the exchange you have reproduced
below, from January.
So Hinman had more influence on Alaska legislators than he did on his own
colleagues in Alberta. Is that because of a deeper degree of conviction on
principle? Was he less inclined than Manning, e.g., to believe that a
perpetual endowment was "too good for sinners", as Wally has suggested
recently?
Incidentally, it was Hinman who led me to the literature I have listed and
annotated as "The Reading List of an Economic Radical", which is current at
the COMER site. I am a bit surprised that no one on this list has commented
on it.
Keith Wilde
----- Original Message -----
From: "William B. Ryan" <w_b_ryan@yahoo.com>
To: <cogexec@cog.kent.edu>; <socialcredit@elistas.com>
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 9:41 AM
Subject: Re: [socialcredit] Alaska dividend
> Subject: [socialcredit] Alaska dividend
> Date: Monday, September 5, 2005 07:22:49 (-0400)
> From: Keith Wilde
>
> "A former Alberta provincial treasurer participated in
> the drafting of the plan, etc."
>
> Who was that?
> -------------------------------------
> ---------------------------------------
>
> That was Ted Hinman:-
>
> "In the early 1960's, the Social Credit Treasurer from
> Alberta, Ted Hinman, travelled to Alaska to assist
> that government in setting up a Heritage Fund."
> http://www.socialcredit.com/subpages_history/heritage_fund.htm
>
> I also refer you to a posting I made to OWNERSHIP and
> this list last January 10 a copy of which is appended
> below.
> -
>
> Alaska's Permanent Fund and Alberta's Heritage Fund
> were established the same year: 1976. It is my
> understanding that not only Hinman but several of the
> same people participated through the years in
> developing both.
>
> It is certainly true that political defeat in Alberta
> of the Social Credit government in 1972 weakened the
> institutional momentum for the concept there.
>
> But there was concerted effort to divert the concept
> in Alaska, too, lead at the end by the Kelsoist's
> stooge, Alaska's Democratic Senator, Mike Gravel.
>
> There was big money behind Senator Gravel's effort
> then; and certainly big money behind the opposition
> that defeated Social Credit in 1972.
>
> Whether there was a direct connection I will only
> speculate at the moment, though it is a matter of
> continuing research.
> -
>
> This is commentary relayed from the Fraser Institute
> indicating some of the differences between the two
> funds:-
>
> "The CTF study holds up Alaska's Permanent Fund as a
> model. Created in 1976, its assets now total US$27
> billion, or roughly Cdn$40 billion. The fund's
> specific mandate is to provide future generations with
> income after the state runs out of oil. By law, at
> least 50 percent of oil and gas revenues must be put
> into the Permanent Fund. By law, income from the fund
> is automatically reinvested back into the fund, and is
> not included in the government's general revenues.
>
> "In a state where citizens already pay neither sales
> tax nor income tax, Alaska's Permanent Fund provides
> an annual dividend to every man, woman, and child. In
> 2000, each Alaskan received a cheque for $1,963.68.
> The fund is protected from inflation by statute; the
> principal must be increased by an amount based on the
> growth in the consumer price index. The fund is
> managed as a separate trust, at arm's length from the
> government of the day. Changing these laws requires
> the approval of the majority of voters in a state-wide
> referendum.
>
> "In contrast, Alberta's Heritage Fund now stands at
> $12.3 billion, even though it was created the same
> year as Alaska's Permanent Fund. Alberta law does not
> require the government to put a designated (or any)
> percentage of resource revenues into the Heritage
> Fund. In fact, only 14 percent of the roughly $82
> billion collected in oil and gas revenues since 1976
> has made its way into the fund. Unlike the situation
> in Alaska, the annual earnings of Alberta's Heritage
> Fund are included in the government's general
> revenues, which the government of the day spends as it
> sees fit. The fund is not protected from inflation,
> and it is managed by the government, not as a separate
> trust. The fund's mandate is vaguely worded, and the
> laws which govern it can be changed without voter
> approval.
>
> "The principal difference between Alaska's fund and
> Alberta's fund lies in the amount of political control
> over them. Alaska's fund is beyond the control and
> influence of the government of the day; Alaska's
> governor and legislators have no access to it.
> Therefore, they face no political consequences for
> saying "no" to spending demands from special interest
> groups. There is no need for them to exercise
> restraint, because political discretion over the fund
> has been fettered by law. Alaskan politicians may
> raise or lower corporate and other taxes at their full
> discretion, and cut or increase spending on different
> programs, but unless Alaskans approve of a change, the
> Permanent Fund and its annual dividends belong to the
> people.
>
> "Some critics decry the fettering of politicians'
> discretion. But it is precisely this fettering through
> legislation that, in Alberta's case, has required the
> province to run balanced budgets and devote 75 percent
> of any surplus to debt repayment. In turn, this
> legislation has helped to create the "Alberta
> Advantage" of lower taxes and progress towards debt
> freedom. If this legislation were absent, it is
> unlikely that Alberta politicians would have cut
> spending in the 1990s to the extent that they did, or
> would have repaid as much of the provincial debt as
> they did.
>
> "If partial fettering of political discretion was
> effective for these fiscal goals, why not do the same
> to grow the Heritage Fund and reach the goal of income
> tax freedom? There is no reason why Alberta cannot
> create legislative safeguards for its fund, as Alaska
> has done."
> http://oldfraser.lexi.net/publications/forum/2001/07/section_04.html
> ------------------------------------
> ----------------------
> --------------------------------
>
>
> Subject: [socialcredit] Replying to Shann Turnbull
> Date: Monday, January 10, 2005 10:33:20 (-0800)
> From: William B. Ryan
>
> "How is the distribution of a social dividend of
> social credit different from the centralized
> administration of socialism? It would seem that both
> depend on central control as hypothesized by Keith
> Wilde in his posting earlier today."
> ------------------
> -------------------
> [REPLY] I think you may have misinterpreted Keith's
> posting. I thought he was talking about the
> complexities of statistical information gathering,
> not "central control" of the economy or society. He
> was speaking from the perspective of a professional
> rather than theoretical economist, who has not only a
> PhD. attached to his name, as you have (indeed, many
> of us have), but also actual practical experience in
> various government departments. Regardless of what
> Keith may or may not have "hypothesized," the social
> dividend has nothing whatsoever to do with "central
> control." None whatsoever. Where in the world did
> you get that idea?
>
> The dividend is to be distributed directly to final
> consumers, not government departments. How does the
> Alaska Dividend (formulated with the help of Ted
> Hinman, Treasurer in the Social Credit government of
> Alberta during the 1950s), for example, involve
> "central control"? The Alaska Permanent Fund has
> performed well for more than twenty years, paying
> dividends equitably to every man, woman and child
> resident in the state.
> http://www.apfc.org/alaska/dividendprgrm.cfm
> -
>
> "I accept the critiques made of the current form of
> capitalism by Karl Marx, Henry George and Major
> Douglas but not their centralized solutions."
> ------------------
> -------------------
> [REPLY] Without speaking for Marx or George, who I
> abhor--I don't accept their critiques at all, what
> "centralized solution" did Douglas propose? Perhaps
> you will tell us.
> -
>
> "This lesson is also an argument against a
> centralized single tax on land or central banking
> instead of local communities establishing their own
> financial arrangements."
> ------------------
> -------------------
> [REPLY] The Single Tax is indeed nonsense, but
> central banking is what we in fact have. Douglas did
> not advocate central banking but methods to deal with
> its reality. The fact that there is a natural
> monopoly that benefits the public because it is a
> monopoly does not mean it has to be centrally
> controlled and administered, or without checks and
> balances in place to protect the public. The United
> States and Canada have federal, not central,
> governments. I daresay that Australia has one, too.
>
> The same Ted Hinman I mentioned above, while
> Treasurer, was top man at the Alberta Treasury
> Branches, presently the largest Alberta based
> financial institution in the province. The Treasury
> Branch system, after years of wrangling over its
> constitutionality, has become integrated with the
> larger financial system, while at the same time
> remaining locally controlled and administered.
> http://www.atb.com/dev/aboutatb/atb_index.asp
> http://www.duncanandcraig.com/articles/dgrweb.html
>
> Bill
>
> ------original message------
> From: "Shann Turnbull" <sturnbull@mba1963.hbs.edu>
> To: ownership@cog.kent.edu
> Subject: RE: OWNERSHIP: Ireland's new Constitution
> and land ownership.
> Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005
>
> ...How is the distribution of a social dividend of
> social credit different from the centralized
> administration of socialism?
>
> It would seem that both depend on central control as
> hypothesized by Keith Wilde in his posting earlier
> today.
>
> The laws of governance explain why centralization
> cannot work to either efficiently or effectively
> manage the complexity of modern societies.
>
> Briefly this is because of information overload of
> the central controllers, the inability of centralized
> control to provide sufficient variety of controllers
> to manage the variables, the impossibility of
> directly amplifying regulation of variables, etc.
>
> For these reasons, our bodies do not have a
> centralized controller and neither does our brain.
>
> Distributed control, decision making and information
> gathering is the rule of nature that reflect the laws
> of governance.
>
> The complexity of the universe is created and
> governed by a hierarchy of almost self-governing
> components. Evolution proves that this is the most
> efficient and effective architecture for creating
> and/or governing complexity.
>
> The lesson is that efficient and effective social
> organizations need to follow the architecture of
> nature. This lesson is also an argument against a
> centralized single tax on land or central banking
> instead of local communities establishing their own
> financial arrangements.
>
> This is why I am committed to Community Land Banks as
> an almost self-governing component of a regional
> authority and why I promote the ability of
> communities to create as much credit as they can
> justify through bio-regional competing private
> currencies.
>
> I accept the critiques made of the current form of
> capitalism by Karl Marx, Henry George and Major
> Douglas but not their centralized solutions. In
> short I am a committed decentralist but accept
> collective overrides as required that are found in
> nature to sustain life...
>
> Regards
>
> Shann
>
> Shann Turnbull PhD
> http://www.aprim.net/associates/turnbull.htm
> Principal, International Institute for Self-
> governance
> PO Box 266 Woollahra, Sydney, Australia 1350
> h+612 9328 7466 Mobile 0418 222 378, Papers at:
> http://ssrn.com/author=26239
> -
>
>
>
>
>
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