From what we have seen this has been a very cool and wet summer here in the “Last Frontier.”  Even if the weather is cool the prospects for the future here are hot.  The price of oil may be hurting most of us but up here there is a silver lining to the high prices being paid at the pumps.  The State coffers are filling rapidly with oil revenue and even as the State adds money to their constitutional reserves there is enough that the Governor here is proposing a fuel rebate for every citizen.  She is proposing dipping into the multibillion dollar state budget surplus to send every Alaskan a check for between $500 and $1,000 sometime over the next few months.

In addition the Alaska Permanente Fund looks like it may have a dividend for every resident in an amount in excess of $2,000.  The newly proposed gas pipeline will be huge positive for the economy and it is finally likely that some drilling will finally be allowed in ANWR.  If you don’t mind short cool summers and long winters this may be a great place to be over the next ten years!

By the way the inventory of home on the market back home in the Sacramento area has started to increase again.  In the past month, according to HousingTracker, we are up almost one percent to 14,796 homes for sale.  This can be attributed largely to the continued high rates of foreclosures and short sales coming on the market.  There has never been a time when so many homes being sold are in a distressed situation.  The increase in inventory is putting more pressure on sellers to lower prices and in the past month the median asking price has declined another two percent to $299,000.  Maybe California needs to consider more drilling for oil!