As I drive along the spur, north of Kenai, I see more signage going up stating “Vote No on 1.” It seems small and medium size businesses understand who runs this State, Big Oil. Certainly our politicians understand. If the mega-oil companies do not get what they want they will pack their bags and leave. Many individuals believe these behemoths would never abandon Alaska. However, Corporations have only one fiduciary responsibility. It’s all about making more money. And so they do. Rules and regulations ignored. Pay the fines as long as the profits continue. Just ask the big banks.
It is true Alaskans own the State’s oil and gas resources but big oil dictate the terms of accessing it. I know, many believe our politicians have sold us out or are taking some sort of kickbacks. In reality, they clearly understand who runs the State. It could change but that would take honest questions and discussion on our monetary system and fiscal policies. But the “experts” tell us our economic/monetary system is perfect and no need to discuss an alternative to our current Crony Capitalism. Monopolies run the world and “we the people” accept it.
Given our current monetary and fiscal policies we must vote no on ballot measure one. We’re told there are only two choices on this issue. There are alternatives but they are ignored. Hoping we can access our gas and oil without these big oil corporations is impossible given our ignorance. We could vote yes and hope some other big oil company might agree to our terms and conditions. Perhaps Russia’s Gazprom corporation would agree on Alaska’s governmental rules for delivering our oil and gas to the surface. After all, we have millions of our dollars invested in Gazprom and other Russian corporations. Gazprom is the ninth largest oil company in the world. I bet they want to be bigger than Royal Dutch Shell who is number 1 or ExxonMobil (2), BP (3), Chevron (6) or ConocoPhillips (7).