Personal flotation device? Poop-full diaper?
posted in Alaska |Nope. Permanent Fund Dividend.
The newspapers hereabouts (and no doubt the radio waves and TV ads) are chock-a-block full of “PFD Sales”.
I come from a background where “PFD” means “personal flotation device”. Ah, but now that I am in Alaska, the Final Frontier, land of milk, honey, and oil (that’s “ohl“, chilluns!), PFD means something totally different.
Many moons ago, when the Alaska pipeline was first established, the state of Alaska got $900 million bucks for leasing the oil fields. The money was spent in a wink of an eye. Alaskans, irritated by the waste of the state government, installed a permanent fund to stash 25% of oil and other revenues in, invest, and (hopefully) spend wisely.
The permanent fund started with $734,000 in 1977, and is now about $40 billion. Each year, designated Alaskans who apply (ya gotta apply!) receive a dividend check from the fund, based on an average of the previous five years’ performance of the fund. The check has ranged in size from $331 to $1963. You are eligible for the PFD if you’ve lived in Alaska for the entire previous calendar year, haven’t committed a felony, can swear you’re going to remain in Alaska indefinitely, and a few other provisions that I’m not going to look up and transcribe here.
This year’s check is $1654. The checks were disbursed today. Every eligible person in Alaska gets one of these checks.
And boy howdy, the merchants are lappin’ it up.
Buy a sofa! Buy an ATV! Buy a wide-screen HDTV! Buy stuff from Sears! From Fred Myers! From all your local merchants!
Invest!
Put it into a college fund!
And more! Buy, buy, buy!
The ads are everywhere.
We, of course, are not eligible. We won’t be eligible next year, either. However, in January of 2009, we’ll be eligible. That’s assuming we’re here, that OmegaMom hasn’t faded away from dismal wintertude, that an earthquake or volcano hasn’t struck, that kind of thing.
I have to say, it’s a refreshing change from having to pay state income tax. And it’s definitely nice to think of a yearly chunk-o-change to drop into the dotter’s college fund. But I was mostly amused at the ads designed to milk the PFD checks for all they’re worth!
(In an aside: secure websites that don’t have everything secure are a PITA in Internet Explorer. Every darned page, you get a popup that says you’ve requested both secure and non-secure items…do you want them all to display?? Gah. Anyone know how to turn that irritation off?)
