Alaska oil companies are on the brink of complete destruction. Their infrastructure is collapsing, they are nearly broke, and their youngest and brightest are killing themselves in record numbers. All of this is happening while rural Alaskans are reaping record profits and living high on the hog.
Take the rural community of Bethel, Alaska, for example. People living in this tundra oasis enjoy ridiculously low orange juice prices of $17.99 a gallon, milk for $8.99 a gallon, and water for $4.89. This opulence occurs as Alaska's oil companies struggle to sell oil for barely over $100 a barrel, all the while being taxed into oblivion by legislators who seem to have forgotten they owe their very existence to these companies.
No one denies the important role rural Alaskans have played in building the state, but the slow decline in their population and their continued drain on the state coffers with their constant demands for tax breaks and threats to take their business out of state can no longer be tolerated. If they don't want to work and live in Alaska, they can take their complaints about overpriced heating fuel elsewhere, perhaps North Dakota.
We need to ignore rural Alaska once and for all and focus our efforts on saving the oil companies. These are the original corporations. They were here first and deserve our utmost attention and respect. We can't sit idly by while the youngest oil workers, having lost all their hope and self-respect, kill themselves at numbers twice that of the rest of the country. Those who aren't directly killing themselves are consumed with substance abuse. Alcohol and drugs have become the only way for these young Texas roughnecks to cope with the loss of jobs and lack of investment in new oil wells.
The constant and insatiable, not to mention unsustainable, attitude of rural Alaskans will spell their doom. You would think that they, of all people, would support Alaska oil companies, but these folks appear to have no respect for resource development, profit, or corporate culture.
There was a time when a group of Alaskans cared deeply about the success and survival of Alaska oil companies. Those brave members of the Corrupt Bastards Club fought valiantly against corruption and against bastards who didn't support saving the struggling oil industry. We need leadership and legislators who are brave enough to bring back those intoxicating days of parsimony, prudence, and temperance.
We need someone who will stand up and fight for these impoverished companies. We must insist on giving these corporations real tax breaks, not just a paltry one that only leads to billions in profits, but real meaningful tax breaks worth tens of billions of dollars. It's only right, and we all know there is nothing more pressing for our leaders to focus on. After all, there is no other way to ensure the survival of these fragile, yet vital oil companies.
Don Rearden, author of The Raven's Gift, now lives and writes in Anchorage, where he can almost afford orange juice.
The views expressed in the preceding satire are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch. Alaska Dispatch welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.