What would you say about the executive ability of a governor who, in order to keep a failing, state-owned dairy operating in order to support local farmers, fires the entire Board of Agriculture and Conservation that appoints the Creamery Board  that had decided to shutter the money-wasting enterprise?  (Wait - supporting money-losing state enterprises - was Alaska part of the former Soviet Union?)

Now let's say the gov increased the price of milk the already unprofitable dairy paid to those local  farmers?  Ok, kind of counter-intuitive from a management standpoint, but good for the local farmers anyway, right?  Right?

Uh, wrong. Several months later, after a huge monthly loss, our Chief Exec decides to close the Dairy down anyway. So our good buddies the local farmers are screwed - except maybe not all of them, as we shall see.

The Gov (who is obviously just applying good business sense to government)  insists on holding an auction for the whole operation as a going concern, instead of auctioning off the equipment and land, because "they'll get more for it that way".  Because what prudent entrepreneur wouldn't want a Dairy in Alaska losing huge amounts of money every month?

And what should we start bids at, for this homogenized money pit?  Why don't we set the price at, I don't know, $3.3 Mill?  That way, the total bids made for the Dairy end up being - exactly none.

Ok, so let's just auction everything off.  Hey, we got $1.4 million for the equipment alone!   I didn't think anyone needed that stuff - oh, yeah, except maybe dairy farmers.

It's so sad, though - now there's no one to buy milk from the locals - oh, wait, except maybe there is...Senator Ted, what do you think, can we help this guy out?

Continued in my next post.