Just a minute of your valuable time, please.
That's all it will take for another $6,000 in state savings to disappear.
If you care about the future of Alaska and are feeling a bit shortchanged by the prospect that the state will send you $1,000 less than what might have been, there are other numbers to remember.
[Dead people qualify for PFDs? It's time to limit the program to those living in Alaska]
The state's traditional source of revenue has collapsed and we are covering three-quarters of the budget with savings that can't be replaced.
[Gov. Walker's veto cuts Alaska Permanent Fund dividends to $1,022]
The state is draining about $100 a second from savings or $1,000 every 10 seconds. That works out to $6,000 a minute, $360,000 an hour, $8.6 million a day and $3.2 billion a year.
Think about it this way — $3.2 billion is how much Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is worth, according to Forbes, or the estimated annual ad revenue of Instagram. It's nearly $4,900 for every person in Alaska.
What we have in Alaska is the biggest math problem in state history.
The numbers are too large for us to absorb, so we get distracted by the numbers we can digest, such as the $1,000 that isn't in the $1,022 dividend.
The longer we keep talking about the missing money, the longer we will fail to get a grip.
Earlier this year, you may recall, the Senate approved a plan to reduce the dividend to $1,000 as part of its stab at a fiscal plan. The measure wasn't at all balanced because it did not raise taxes, but it was a start.
The House Finance Committee amended the plan to include a $1,500 dividend.
Some members of the House Finance Committee claimed that it was an act of courage on their part to prevent all 40 House members from going on the record to vote up or down for a $1,500 dividend.
As I see it, the key decision was whether to use some Permanent Fund earnings to pay for government, which is entirely in keeping with why Alaskans created the account 40 years ago.
The vote in the House Finance Committee was 6-5, with Republican Reps. Dan Saddler, Lance Pruitt, Lynn Gattis and Tammie Wilson joining hands with Democrats Scott Kawasaki and David Guttenberg to kill the $1,500 dividend.
The five who voted to advance the $1,500 dividend plan were Republican Reps. Steve Thompson, Mark Neuman and Cathy Munoz, and Democrats Bryce Edgmon and Les Gara.
At that time no one expected that Gov. Bill Walker was going to veto half of the dividend money, but killing that compromise bill — the start of a fiscal plan — was a legislative evasion tactic and a serious mistake.
In that group of six that killed the $1,500 dividend, the Republicans claimed the budget has not been cut enough to touch the dividend — though they have not identified how they would cut hundreds of millions more. The Democrats said the state has to raise oil taxes and implement an income tax first — an equally short-sighted position.
What both sides failed to acknowledge was the danger of inaction, though they had no problem seeing Election Day on the horizon.
Their intransigence is mirrored by their party organizations, which simply roll out tired talking points. The Alaska Democratic and Republican parties have both attacked Walker's action, worried more about the next election than the next generation.
The Republican Party has yet to attack the Republican-controlled Senate, which voted for a $1,000 dividend as part of its fiscal plan and blocked an effort to hold a vote to override Walker's veto, which led to the $1,022 dividend.
The Constitutional Budget Reserve may support us for one more year. It would be foolish to drain that account and save nothing for a disaster, but that's the course we're on — speeding toward zero in 21 months.
Once it is empty, a prospect that is growing more likely, the dividend may end. The state will need higher taxes than those under review today, along with a chunk of Permanent Fund earnings to fund basic services. That's something the opponents of new taxes and tax increases have overlooked in their zeal to hold the line.
Barring a miracle oil rebound, the next Legislature will have a more difficult task than most candidates recognize.
We can keep arguing about the smaller check until Mexico pays for the wall, forgetting that a financial crisis draws $1,000 closer every 10 seconds.
Columnist Dermot Cole can be reached at dermot@alaskadispatch.com.
The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com or click here to submit via any web browser.