President Trump is one of the best at this.  Two examples of issues he grabbed are immigration and the wall on the Mexican border.  Nobody in Washington DC wanted to touch either.  The problem is that the general public thought it was important.  He grabbed them.  And those issues got him elected.

We have a bit of free money here in Alaska, issues lying around for any enterprising legislative challenger or incumbent to grab.  A few of these issues include local bans on single-use plastic shopping bags, vote by mail, dates of local elections, and diversification of the economy following the Wuhan Flu lockdown. 

I’ll concentrate on the plastic bag ban for the remainder of this piece, though the other issues continue to be available for a suitably creative candidate or incumbent.

The Anchorage single use plastic bag ban went into effect Sept 15.  It was passed with much fanfare about cleaning up the environment and decreasing our footprint, essentially environmental virtue signaling.  Arguments and concerns based on sanitation were either dismissed out of hand or ignored.  The ban was also passed in several other Alaskan communities.  Nationwide, it was the Next Big Thing in the environmental movement, sweeping from state to state.

But a funny thing happened on our way to environmental Nirvana with reusable shopping bags mandated.  Sanitation became the became paramount concern.  And state by state, bans on single use plastic bags were either repealed outright or temporarily suspended as state and local governments determined that reusable shopping bags were now disease transmission vectors.  Even San Francisco, whose ban has been in place for 13 solid years repealed their ban outright a couple weeks ago.

What about Anchorage?  For my part, conversations with three Assembly members got nowhere.  The closest anyone came to even acknowledge that the world had changed was an observation that in his opinion the ban was working well.  No interest in reversing the ban whatsoever.

For his part, Mayor Berkowitz at least considered the change in the world and suspended enforcement of the 10-cent fee for paper shopping bags imposed to change our behavior on March 25.  Little more than a week later, he quietly suspended the ban on single use plastic bags, warning that the suspension was temporary at best.  Given that the vast majority of reusable plastic bags are manufactured in Asia, many of them in China, it remains to be seen how temporary that suspension actually will be.  Local stores have banned reusable shopping bags over the last six weeks.  The JBER commissary has banned them for at least a month.

Here’s where the free money comes in for an enterprising candidate or incumbent.  They could propose legislation to remove the ability to ban single use plastics by any state, local or other governmental entity.  Propose the legislation.  Give choice back to shoppers to embrace safety and sanitation or do something else. 

Legislators have been loath to do this in the past because the plastic bag bans polled roughly as a 50 – 50% proposition.  But that was before the Wuhan Flu.  That was before sanitation became Job One.  That was before the world changed. 

The first candidate or incumbent who proposes this legislation will trigger a firestorm from the greens in response.  The answer ought to be some version of “scoreboard” used in sports arguments when the final score ends the discussion.  “Scoreboard” in this context is sanitation, with a gentle follow-on question about why did we shut down the entire state for six solid weeks to contain a disease on one hand and insist on reusable shopping bags that can transmit the same disease on the other?

Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.

The post Free Money and the Plastic Bag Ban appeared first on Alaska Politics and Elections.

For those of you out there who question shutdowns at the Municipal or state levels here in Alaska, I ran across a piece out of an outfit that calls itself the Kansas Policy Institute, which makes a compelling case that the seven states which did not impose statewide shutdowns fared better than those of states that did.  Pay particular attention to the chart and the numbers for Wyoming (which had some local stay at home orders) and the Dakotas (which had none). 

As of 1200 April 20, Alaska had 321 total cases and 9 deaths.  Based on the chart above, and an Alaskan population of 731,000, Alaska has 439 cases per million residents, 12 deaths per million, or about the same as North Dakota.  So, why did we shut down the entire state? 

Granted, there will be those who point out that the infection and death numbers in Alaska were based on the ANC and statewide shutdown.  Statistics from the other states OTOH tell us that shutdown was simply not necessary, especially given the wanton destruction of small businesses in the state by the shutdowns. 

And as the shutdown goes, Alaskans are getting really, really antsy.  Though we’ve not yet seen the sort of public protests seen in other states where mayors and governors are milking the shutdown for everything they can get, that time is coming fast, particularly here in ANC, where it appears Mayor Berkowitz seems driven to stretch this out as long as humanly possible.  Those protests will come.

Two articles caught my eye over the last couple weeks.  One by Art Chance calls for the use of the Permanent Fund (because the rainy-day fund now has a rainy day to address).  He also calls for a minimum of 30% cut in the size of state government.  Tuckerman Babcock gets into name-calling with the legislative majorities retaining most of the PFD for state spending rather than for small business owners to keep themselves afloat.  Both articles are worth reading. 

What else is going on?  Both of the primary players in Alaska’s economy, the tourism industry (Princess and Carnival announcing cancellations of summer schedule for 2020) and oil (negative price per barrel on 4/20) are flat on their backsides.  Both will come back, though it will take a while.  There is an estimate that a full 30% of all oil businesses will be closed by year’s end.  Mayor Berkowitz just announced a phased opening that will keep ANC closed for most of the summer, putting the coffin nail in most of our small businesses.  Thank you, Boy Mayor (/sarc).

We also have fears in Dillingham, Cordova and Valdez that visiting fishermen (commercial and sport) will bring Wuhan Flu into town with them.  Those towns no long want either the visitors or they money.  Dillingham went so far as to propose complete closure of the entire $300 million fishery (and go on welfare) due to those concerns.  The second or third most powerful politician in the state, House Speaker Bryce Edgmon who represents Dillingham was nowhere to be found during the discussion.

What are the solutions to this?

First and foremost, get back to work.  Get back to work now.  Today.

Second, take Art Chance’s number and use it as an opening bid to start cutting the size and scope of state government.  30% is a good initial target.  At a minimum, state government and state spending need to be cut commensurate with the destruction of small business during the shutdown.  State spending needs to be similarly cut.  Expect the current majority in the legislature to spend the Permanent Fund to cover both the shortfall and their unwillingness to control spending for as long as humanly possible.  My guess is that it will be gone in 5 years (or less), and that the PFD is already history.

Third, we need to take significant steps to diversify the state economy, steps we’ve refused to take over the last couple decades. 

For instance, a diversified economy in SE AK does not take nearly the huge economic hit if tourism is supplemented by a robust logging and salmon farming industry.  This also applies to PWS.  A diversified economy in Bristol Bay, say with a pair of world class mines (Pebble and Donlin Creek) and fish farming are not nearly so dependent on a successful commercial fishery to keep the lights on.  A similar observation would apply to the Fairbanks region, which should diversify oil patch jobs with mining jobs.  Approval of the Ambler Road is a great first step. 

We already mine and log a bit, though expansion of either is furiously fought by soon to be out of work greens and newly out of work NIMBYs.  Fish farming is another matter, also furiously fought, by commfish here in the state, yet the wheels of economics continue to grind slowly, finely, completely destroying Alaskan commfish ability to compete in the worldwide marketplace for salmon.  Craig Medred sent along a piece about an enterprising vet in the Faroe Islands who adapted testing techniques used to detect diseases in farmed salmon for human use, helping control the spread of the Wuhan Flu in the Faroes.  Imagine what we Alaskans could do to address the spread of the disease if we had this industry in state. 

New industry?  New ways to employ Alaskans?  There are a few opportunities, though they will be tough if Mayor Berkowitz gets away with his extended, unwarranted shutdown and wanton destruction of small businesses here in the Muni.  For example, Governor Dunleavy’s push to open Alaska as a casino mecca for gambling tourists will not likely proceed until tourism returns.  But the legislative and legal foundation can (and should) be laid down at sooner rather than later.

The final opportunity should come with the expected economic decoupling from China, moving American manufacturing out of China as a result of the Wuhan Flu.  First industry to come back to the US should be pharmaceuticals, which will need land, energy, and automation.  We have the cargo hub at Anchorage International that works both sides of the Pacific Rim and has an over the top connection to Europe.  Pharmaceuticals will not be the last one out.  Alaska should provide a welcoming home for industry pulling out of China.  Taxes, rules and regulations should be low, simple and stable (Robin Brena, Bill Walker and Alaska Firsters, I am talking to you).

Every time we Americans have a disruptive economic event, we have figured out how to come out the other end after the event better than we were when the festivities began.  We can do the same thing again here in Alaska, though it is important to stop doing the same stupid stuff we’ve been doing for decades. 

While I think we are up to the task, whether we choose to do the right thing this time around is another thing entirely.  It is possible to keep on doing stupid stuff and spend our Permanent Fund nest egg into oblivion simply keeping an oversized government at the state and local levels intact.  Once it’s gone, what will we have to show other than a brand spanking new income tax paid by the 100,000 or so still left in the state?  Personally, I’d rather have a viable economy.  Let’s get one built. 

Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.

The post Alaska’s Economy After the Wuhan Flu appeared first on Alaska Politics and Elections.

• 9 deaths
• 34 hospitalizations
• 293 cases (as of 1200, April 15)

Source for these numbers is the ADN.  At the same time, nearly 50,000 Alaskans filed for unemployment during the shutdown. 

If you do the math, we here in Alaska have destroyed 5,555 jobs per every single death.  We have destroyed 1,470 jobs for every single hospitalization.  Nationally, we have sacrificed 916 jobs for every dead American (24,000 dead divided into 22 million who have filed for unemployment).

Clearly, from the perspective of job loss, we are well past the point where the cure is worse than the disease. 

And the Governor and Mayor Berkowitz are busily writing new rules and regulations on what they deem is essential and what is not.  The most recent epistle out of the State of Alaska with Governor Dunleavy’s, DHSS Commissioner Crum and Chief Medical Officer Zink’s names on it was last revised on April 10.  Sections 5 (Food and Agriculture), 6 (Home Emergency and Safety), and 7 (Fishing) clearly state exemptions to closure orders.  They can be found at the previous link. 

If you read those three sections, Mayor Berkowitz’ closure of sporting goods stores (all sell food, firearms, ammunition and fishing gear) clearly violate this order.  Perhaps the State ought to do something about it.

Further, ADF&G published a clarification aimed at sport fishing on April 13.  It lists the following mandates:

Although travel between communities is prohibited under the issued health mandates, the public may still travel to fishing locations. When traveling to participate in sport or personal use fisheries that occur outside of their communities of residence, the public must follow these guidelines:

1. Conduct your fishing activities as close to your home residence as possible;
2. Local mandates may be authorized under Public Health Mandate 012. Find out local mandates in communities through which you plan to travel and abide by them;
3. Totally provision your trip from your community of origin. Don’t plan on buying food, drinks or even fuel (if possible) after you begin your trip and until you return home;

Somehow, I don’t think a lot of sport fishing Alaskans are going to abide by these.

Perhaps it is time to revisit precisely why we have been doing all this to ourselves over the last month.  There is one reason and one reason only, that is to “flatten the curve.”  Why was that important?  So as to not overload the existing medical care system, essentially emergency rooms and intensive care units. 

The problem with this is that Wuhan is a respiratory flu.  So far, there is no vaccine, and there will be no vaccine for some time, if ever.  Note that the common cold is due to 3-4 Corona viruses and while we’ve been working on vaccines for the common cold for over half a century, none exists so far.  OTOH, there are treatments, many of them pretty good. 

What happens when you flatten the curve of a respiratory disease is you slow down the spread of the disease for a time.  But the total number of those infected hardly ever changes.  In other words, the area under the curve remains relatively static.  In the case of Wuhan, this means that once people go back to work, there will be an inevitable resurgence of the virus.  All the current mitigation efforts have done is slow that down a bit. 

There is good news to all this.  And that is apparently Wuhan or something very close to it was running around in the US for months before the outbreak in the US in February.  This comes from phlebotomists in Chicago who report a 30-50% incidence in Wuhan antibodies in blood samples.  A similar thing may have taken place in California, explaining their anomalously low numbers of infected.  We might even have the same thing going on here in Anchorage, based entirely on the large numbers of Chinese passing in town until the end of January. 

The only way to make sure is to start testing for Wuhan antibodies, something missing from Dr Zink’s analysis as she busily writes new emergency orders, determining what is essential and what is not.

The only way we get through this is to increase herd immunity to Wuhan, quickly infect as many as possible so that the bodies can build immunity. Economic lockdowns stay at home and hunker down orders do little except extend the pain and string out how long this takes.  They also remove from us the liberty to make our own decisions for ourselves and loved ones.  They are a one size fits all solution, and a wrong and highly destructive one at that. 

Final point is the value of a human life.  As of 2012, OMB determined it was valued around $8 million.  Obviously, that is a variable number depending on your point of view ranging from near infinity for ourselves and loved ones to a very tiny number for a homeless druggie on Campbell Creek.  But using the number for sake of an argument, total loss of life nationwide is in the vicinity of $192 billion, yet congress just passed legislation over 11 times that amount aimed at correcting the economic damage caused by the shutdown.  Here in Alaska, that number is $72 million.  How many hundreds of millions to billions of dollars have we lost in economic activity due to the shutdown?  Perhaps it is time for someone at the State to do that math.

From here (and every single member of my household is in a higher risk group for various reasons), it is time to stop this.  Open things back up and get back to work.  We solve Wuhan by building herd immunity.  Antibody therapies and perhaps even a vaccine will come later.  But until then, we have a drug cocktail that we know will beat the disease of those who show symptoms.  And for those amused by continuing to play the game, choosing to stay home, masks and social distancing are always options, though shouldn’t be mandated. 

Like I said earlier, we are well past the point where the cure is worse than the disease. 

Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.

The post Time to end the shutdown appeared first on Alaska Politics and Elections.