Posted on 12/15/2012 10:38:30 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Steven Mufson is a Washington Post reporter covering energy and other financial news. He has enjoyed visiting Alaska without needing his passport.
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The prospect of once again hitting the federal debt ceiling has provoked the ritual round of hand-wringing about the intractable nature of this $16 trillion conundrum. But there is a simple, elegant option that involves no tax increases, no spending cuts and just a bit of imagination.
Sell Alaska.
hat’s right. Put the entire state — from Juneau to Deadhorse, from the Bering Strait to the Beaufort Sea — on the auction block.
Absurd? No more absurd than the spectacle taking place right now as we skid closer to the “fiscal cliff.”
Selling real estate at top dollar is all about timing, and now’s a great time to unload the Klondike state. The federal government, which owns 69 percent of Alaska, could cash in on the vast, resource-rich state at a time when oil prices are high and wild salmon is flying off the shelves at Whole Foods. Selling Alaska could fetch at least $2.5 trillion and maybe twice that amount, enough to lop off a huge chunk of the national debt and perhaps as much money as President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner hope to save or raise over the next decade.
The return on investment would look great, too. Secretary of State William H. Seward — you might know him as the handsome fellow played by David Strathairn in the new Steven Spielberg movie, “Lincoln” — bought Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million, drawing ridicule. One New York newspaper that year called Alaska a “sucked orange,” saying Russia had already drained all the value out of it.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I say yes. We don’t need to sell it to a foreign power. Sell it to the private sector. That’s eventually going to have to happen. Won’t solve the debt problem though.
Personally, I say just give California to Mexico. It will be just like the rest of that country in 5 years.
No matter how much money we got for it, 0bama and his regime would find a way to fritter away the money before the ink was dry on the closing papers.
They apparently just don’t get enough oxygen over there at WaPo.
On credit if necessary and give them New York City to boot.
On credit if necessary and give them New York City to boot.
Here’s another idea. Declare all debts to the Federal Reserve bank null and void. Arrest and imprison the members of said Federal Reserve and the TBTF banks. Try them for treason and hang them on the mall in DC. Declare a jubilee for all debts to the TBTF banks and reinstate gold and silver money as required by the constitution.
let’s sell New York, New England and San Francisco
let’s sell New York, New England and San Francisco ... they bring nothing to the table but moochers and whiners
Alaska brings plenty of resources
come to think of it, the market value of Alaska would be much higher then the other three combined... and you’d have a tough time finding anyone that would want them. hell, the majority of America doesn’t want them
This one has merit.
(though we would want to arrange a window, for the FR servers to be relocated somewhere nicer)
:D
PS: Also posted from CA.
They make back the money from all the new citizens that would flock up there...and addtional drilling, like in the Anwar. They could become the new Saudi America of oil to the world.
They make back the money from all the new citizens that would flock up there...and addtional drilling, like in the Anwar. They could become the new Saudi America of oil to the world.
Nuke DC, and sell the radiation pit as an energy source.
This is gthe beginning of a push to have the fed ‘distribute’ federally woned properties to our debt holders, to make further entitlements ‘palitable’. What it means is the oligarchs will be trading our national resources for their further spending, allowing chicoms, etc. to own and control huge tracts of America.
Meanwhile US companies, continue to send jobs to China...
Won’t do much good; what with the NHL no closer to an agreement than it was on September 16th.
Mexico wouldn’t buy California (assuming they had enough money to do so) when they can just bide their time until a future Democratic President gives it to them for free.
Or Indonesia?
No, wait. He's already a citizen of Indonesia.
They HAD a second MLB team.
The profit sharing began in 1976, when Sarah 8 years old.
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