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To: Snowshoe who wrote (35057)	6/15/2003 11:07:51 PM
From: smolejv@gmx.net	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

"Laura, gimme the hammer, I found one more piggy bank."

To: Snowshoe who wrote (35057)	6/15/2003 11:38:59 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Hello Snowshoe, this study is a snap shot of a particular pocket of goodies, out of the context of all other not-so-full pockets, in violation of the basic principles of management and financial accounting, and should be ignored for one's own good. I am aware of another pension fix in discussion, namely to (a) change the NPV discount rate with which liability is to be calculated, and (b) assume that blue-collar workers will die at a younger age. Chugs, Jay

To: Snowshoe who wrote (35057)	6/16/2003 9:17:27 AM
From: Snowshoe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Share the wealth Ex-(Alaska)Permanent Fund director pitches similar plan for Iraq adn.com By PAULA DOBBYN Anchorage Daily News (Published: June 16, 2003) Alaska financier Dave Rose has been burning up his hard drive lately. And the Web site he recently launched has people like President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell interested. Rose, a self-described idea guy and longtime Alaska money manager, thinks Iraq could use an oil wealth savings account modeled after Alaska's $25 billion Permanent Fund. U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, thinks so too. After asking Rose to develop the idea, Stevens pitched it to Bush and Powell. Stevens said he first broached the subject at a White House meeting with Bush and congressional leaders recently. The president was intrigued and told his budget director, Mitch Daniels, to explore it, Stevens said. Alaska's senior senator also laid out the concept for Powell at a separate encounter. The secretary later told a Senate hearing that modeling an Iraqi permanent fund after Alaska's was interesting and under consideration. As war-ravaged, oil-rich Iraq wades into the messy business of reconstruction and nation building, U.S. officials are trying to devise a mechanism for sharing some of the country's petroleum revenue with its 24 million citizens. Iraq has the world's second-largest oil reserves with about 112 billion barrels. When the country resumes full production, oil is expected to generate $15 billion to $20 billion a year. The idea is to get some of that wealth directly into the hands of Iraqis and prove to skeptics that the American-led war wasn't about the United States wanting to get its hands on Iraq's oil reserves, said Rose, head of Alaska Permanent Capital Management Co. "Politically, it makes sense, to show that the Americans aren't there to steal their oil," said Rose, former executive director of the Alaska Permanent Fund. His Web site can be viewed at www.iraqipermanentfund.com. The site lays out the case for Iraq to create a permanent fund. It recommends saving some of the country's oil wealth to both generate income and to pay dividends. Putting some oil revenue into citizens' pockets would mark the first time that ordinary Iraqis directly benefited from the country's vast reserves and would create jobs and investment, Rose said. For average Iraqis whose gross per capita income hovers around $2,500 a year, the dividends could make a real difference, said Steven Clemons, executive vice president of the New America Foundation, a centrist Washington, D.C., think tank. Clemons is a big booster of the idea. A New York Times editorial he penned in April that suggested Iraq could model a fund after Alaska's kicked off a wave of high-level interest inside the Beltway, he said. Clemons said a staffer at the National Security Council called him two weeks ago asking if he had "run the numbers and if I had more information on how to approach the issue of governance." Clemons has briefed State Department officials about the concept as well. Besides helping Iraqi citizens make ends meet, a dividend program could help stabilize the country politically, he said. "Putting money into people's hands weakens the influences of mosques" as political organizations, Clemons said. "People are so poor, the situation is so miserable, the only way to lessen the influence of mosques is to begin the process of trying to empower people more directly." Few people think an Iraqi permanent fund will be created quickly. The country faces hundreds of billions of dollars in debts and may need its oil revenue to pay bills and run the government. "I don't think anything will come to fruition until this fall," Stevens said. But Stevens said Friday that he planned to e-mail Paul Bremer to get the wheels turning. Bremer is the president's envoy to Iraq in charge of the country's reconstruction. Clemons said it's crucial that Stevens talk to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as well and get him to buy into the Alaska model. Rose, meanwhile, has a team in place ready to help Iraq should it come to that. Besides Rose, it includes Eric Wohlforth, chairman of the Alaska Permanent Fund's board of trustees, as well as Scott Goldsmith, director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska Anchorage. "We're going to endeavor to get a contract," Rose said. But he added there's still a lot of work to do to see if a permanent fund makes sense for Iraq in political, cultural and economic terms. U.S. officials are also studying oil wealth accounts in Norway and Chad to see if those models would work better for Iraq. Key to any Iraqi oil revenue-sharing fund would be anti-fraud mechanisms to ensure that the people at the top don't steal the money, Rose and Clemons said. "We have to make sure that this is not a get-rich-quick scheme," Clemons said. An Iraqi permanent fund fashioned after Alaska's could forge lasting ties between the two oil patches, Stevens said. "Heck, they're leaders in oil production. We should have a good relationship with them." Daily News reporter Paula Dobbyn can be reached at pdobbyn@adn.com or 257-4317.