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203 lines
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From fork-admin@xent.com Fri Sep 27 10:43:18 2002
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<0H33001IM5VJWJ@mta6.snfc21.pbi.net> for fork@xent.com; Fri,
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27 Sep 2002 00:23:43 -0700 (PDT)
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From: James Rogers <jamesr@best.com>
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Subject: Native American economics (was Re: sed /s/United States/Roman
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Empire/g)
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Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 00:23:39 -0700
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I wanted to get back to this but didn't have the time. I actually lived on
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a couple different Indian reservations growing up in the Pacific Northwest
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and also spent a fair amount time in Lakota/Sioux country as well. And my
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parents have lived on an even more diverse range of Indian reservations than
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I have (my experience being a direct result of living with my parents). I
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do get a lot of my information first-hand, or in some cases, second-hand
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from my father.
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The income figures for the Indians are somewhat misleading, mostly because
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it is really hard to do proper accounting of the effective income. While it
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is true that some Indians live in genuine poverty, it is typically as a
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consequence of previous poor decisions that were made by the tribe, not
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something that was impressed upon them.
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The primary problem with the accounting is that there is a tribal entity
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that exists separately from the individuals, typically an "Indian
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Corporation" of one type or another where each member of the tribe owns a
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single share (the details of when and how a share becomes active varies from
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tribe to tribe). In most tribes, a dividend is paid out to each of the
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tribal members from the corporation, usually to the tune of $10-30k per
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person, depending on the tribe. The dividend money comes from a number of
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places, with the primary sources being the Federal Gov't and various
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businesses/assets owned by the Indian corporation.
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You have to understand a couple things: First, a great many Indian tribes
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are run as purely communist enterprises. Everyone gets a check for their
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share no matter what. One of the biggest problems this has caused is very
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high unemployment (often 70-90%) for tribal members, who are more than happy
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take their dividend and not work. The dividend they receive from the
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corporation often constitutes their sole "income" for government accounting
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purposes. Unfortunately, to support this type of economics when no one
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works, they've had to sell off most of their useful assets to maintain those
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dividends. Many of the tribes genuinely living in poverty do so because
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they have run out of things to sell yet nobody works. One of the ironies is
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that on many of the reservations where the tribes still have assets to burn,
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many of the people working in the stores and such are actually poor white
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folk, not Indians.
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Second, even though the tribe members each get a cash dividend, they also
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receive an enormous range of benefits and perks from the Indian corporation
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to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per person annually. By
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benefits and perks, we are talking about the kinds of things no other
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ordinary American receives from either their employer or the government.
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It should be pointed out that while many of these Indian corporations are
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ineptly run, and mostly provide sinecures for other Indians, a minority are
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very smartly managed and a few hire non-Indian business executives with good
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credentials to run their business divisions. An example of this is the
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Haida Corporation, which while having less 1,000 tribal shareholders, has
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billions of dollars in assets and the various corporations they own have
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gross revenues in the $200-300 million range (and growing). Yet the
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dividend paid out is strictly controlled, about $20k in this particular
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case, and they engaged in a practice of waiting a couple decades before
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drawing money from any of the assets they were granted which has led to
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intelligent investment and use. They don't eat their seed corn, and have
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actually managed to grow their stash. In contrast, a couple islands over,
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there is another tribe of ~2,000 people that has a net loss of about $50
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million annually IIRC while being regularly endowed by the Federal
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government with several billions of dollars in valuable assets. This
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particular tribe has a modest income in theory, but the actual expenditures
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per person annually is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and many
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borrow money against future income. Incidentally, in this particular case,
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the people that ARE working frequently pull in a few hundred thousand
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dollars a year, much of which goes back to the tribal corporation rather
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than their own pockets.
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Somewhat annoying, the Federal government semi-regularly grants valuable
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assets to these tribes when they've burned through the ones previously given
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where feasible, typically selling the assets to American or foreign
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companies. And the cycle continues.
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So what is the primary problem for the tribes that have problems? In a
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nutshell, a thoroughly pathological culture and society.
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Few women reach the age of 16 without getting pregnant. Incest, rape, and
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gross promiscuity is rampant. Inbreeding, heavy drug abuse during
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pregnancy, and other environmental factors have created tribes where a very
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substantial fraction of the tribe is literally mentally retarded. Many of
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the thoughtful and intelligent tribe members leave the reservation at the
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earliest opportunity, mostly to avoid the problems mentioned above. On one
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reservation my parents lived, the HIV infection rate was >70%. Many of
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these societies are thoroughly corrupt, and the administration of the law is
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arbitrary and capricious (they do have their own judges, courts, police
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etc).
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In short, many of these tribes that are still hanging together are in a
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shambles because they have become THE most pathological societies that I
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have ever seen anywhere. Because of their legal status, there really aren't
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that many consequences for their behavior. There are many things that I
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could tell you that I've seen that you probably would not believe unless
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you'd seen it yourself. There are always good people in these tribes, but
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it has gotten to the point where the losers and idiots outnumber the good
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guys by a fair margin many times, and this IS a mobocracy typically. (BTW,
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if any of you white folk wants to experience overt and aggressive racism as
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a minority in a place where the rule of law is fiction and the police are
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openly thugs, try living on one of these messed up Indian reservations. It
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will give you an interesting perspective on things.)
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There are only two real situations where you find reasonably prosperous
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Indians. The first is in the rare case of tribes run by disciplined and
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intelligent people that have managed their assets wisely. The second is
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where the tribe has dispersed and assimilated for the most part, even if
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they maintain their tribal identity. In both of these cases, the tribal
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leaders reject the insular behavior that tends to lead to the pathological
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cases mentioned above.
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The Indians are often quite wealthy technically, and a lot of money is spent
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by the tribe per capita. And the actual reportable income is quite high
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when you consider how many are living entirely off the tribal dole. It is
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just that their peculiar economic structure does not lend itself well to
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ordinary economic analysis by merely looking at their nominal income. The
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poverty is social and cultural in nature, not economic. This was my
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original point.
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On a tangent:
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One thing that has always interested me is the concept of quasi-tribal
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corporate socialism. Many Indian tribes implement a type of corporate
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socialism that is mind-bogglingly bad in execution. That they use this
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structure at all is an accident of history more than anything. But what has
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interested me is that the very smartly managed ones do surprisingly well
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over the long run. It is like a Family Corporation writ large.
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It seems that in a future where "familial" ties will be increasingly
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voluntary, the general concept may have some merit in general Western
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society, serving to create a facsimile of a biological extended family with
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the included dynamics, but with an arbitrary set of self-selecting
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individuals.
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Damn that was long (and its late), and it could have been a lot longer.
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-James Rogers
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jamesr@best.com
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On 9/22/02 3:53 PM, "John Hall" <johnhall@evergo.net> wrote:
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>
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> As I understand it, there is a huge difference between native Americans
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> who speak english at home and those who do not. I don't have figures
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> that separate those at hand, though.
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>
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> 1989 American Indians (US Pop as a whole) -- Families below poverty
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> 27.2% (10%), Persons below poverty 31.2 (13.1), Speak a language other
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> than English 23 (13.8) Married couple families 65.8 (79.5) Median family
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> income $21,619 ($35,225) Per Capita $8,284 ($14,420).
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