Weblog
Friday, 30 April 2010
-
From Investor's Business Daily
The $10 Trillion Climate Fraud
Al Gore is co-founder of an investment management firm that is now the fifth-largest shareholder in the Chicago Climate Exchange. AP View Enlarged Image
Cap-And-Trade: While senators froth over Goldman Sachs and derivatives, a climate trading scheme being run out of the Chicago Climate Exchange would make Bernie Madoff blush. Its trail leads to the White House.
Lost in the recent headlines was Al Gore's appearance Monday in Denver at the annual meeting of the Council of Foundations, an association of the nation's philanthropic leaders.
"Time's running out (on climate change)," Gore told them. "We have to get our act together. You have a unique role in getting our act together."
Gore was right that foundations will play a key role in keeping the climate scam alive as evidence of outright climate fraud grows, just as they were critical in the beginning when the Joyce Foundation in 2000 and 2001 provided the seed money to start the Chicago Climate Exchange. It started trading in 2003, and what it trades is, essentially, air. More specifically perhaps, hot air.
The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) advertises itself as "North America's only cap-and-trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects worldwide." Barack Obama served on the board of the Joyce Foundation from 1994 to 2002 when the CCX startup grants were issued. As president, pushing cap-and-trade is one of his highest priorities. Now isn't that special?
Few Americans have heard of either entity. The Joyce Foundation was originally the financial nest egg of a widow whose family had made millions in the now out-of-favor lumber industry.
After her death, the foundation was run by philanthropists who increasingly dedicated their giving to liberal causes, including gun control, environmentalism and school changes.
Currently, CCX members agree to a voluntary but legally binding agreement to regulate greenhouse gases.
The CCX provides the mechanism in trading the very pollution permits and carbon offsets the administration's cap-and-trade proposals would impose by government mandate.
Thanks to Fox News' Glenn Beck, we have learned a lot about CCX, not the least of which is that its founder, Richard Sandor, says he knew Obama well back in the day when the Joyce Foundation awarded money to the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, where Sandor was a research professor.
Sandor estimates that climate trading could be "a $10 trillion dollar market." It could very well be, if cap-and-trade measures like Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Boxer are signed into law, making energy prices skyrocket, and as companies buy and sell permits to emit those six "greenhouse" gases.
So lucrative does this market appear, it attracted the attention of London-based Generation Investment Management, which purchased a stake in CCX and is now the fifth-largest shareholder.
As we noted last year, Gore is co-founder of Generation Investment Management, which sells carbon offsets of dubious value that let rich polluters continue to pollute with a clear conscience.
Other founders include former Goldman Sachs partner David Blood, as well as Mark Ferguson and Peter Harris, also of Goldman Sachs. In 2006, CCX received a big boost when another investor bought a 10% stake on the prospect of making a great deal of money for itself. That investor was Goldman Sachs, now under the gun for selling financial instruments it knew were doomed to fail.
The actual mechanism for trading on the exchange was purchased and patented by none other than Franklin Raines, who was CEO of Fannie Mae at the time.
Raines profited handsomely to the tune of some $90 million by buying and bundling bad mortgages that led to the collapse of the American economy. His interest in climate trading is curious until one realizes cap-and-trade would make housing costlier as well.
Amazingly, none of these facts came up at Senate hearings on Goldman Sachs' activities, which may be nothing more than Ross Perot's famous "gorilla dust," meant to distract us from the real issues.
The climate trading scheme being stitched together here will do more damage than Goldman Sachs, AIG and Fannie Mae combined. But it will bring power and money to its architects.
-
From Investor's Business Daily
The $10 Trillion Climate Fraud
Al Gore is co-founder of an investment management firm that is now the fifth-largest shareholder in the Chicago Climate Exchange. AP View Enlarged Image
Cap-And-Trade: While senators froth over Goldman Sachs and derivatives, a climate trading scheme being run out of the Chicago Climate Exchange would make Bernie Madoff blush. Its trail leads to the White House.
Lost in the recent headlines was Al Gore's appearance Monday in Denver at the annual meeting of the Council of Foundations, an association of the nation's philanthropic leaders.
"Time's running out (on climate change)," Gore told them. "We have to get our act together. You have a unique role in getting our act together."
Gore was right that foundations will play a key role in keeping the climate scam alive as evidence of outright climate fraud grows, just as they were critical in the beginning when the Joyce Foundation in 2000 and 2001 provided the seed money to start the Chicago Climate Exchange. It started trading in 2003, and what it trades is, essentially, air. More specifically perhaps, hot air.
The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) advertises itself as "North America's only cap-and-trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects worldwide." Barack Obama served on the board of the Joyce Foundation from 1994 to 2002 when the CCX startup grants were issued. As president, pushing cap-and-trade is one of his highest priorities. Now isn't that special?
Few Americans have heard of either entity. The Joyce Foundation was originally the financial nest egg of a widow whose family had made millions in the now out-of-favor lumber industry.
After her death, the foundation was run by philanthropists who increasingly dedicated their giving to liberal causes, including gun control, environmentalism and school changes.
Currently, CCX members agree to a voluntary but legally binding agreement to regulate greenhouse gases.
The CCX provides the mechanism in trading the very pollution permits and carbon offsets the administration's cap-and-trade proposals would impose by government mandate.
Thanks to Fox News' Glenn Beck, we have learned a lot about CCX, not the least of which is that its founder, Richard Sandor, says he knew Obama well back in the day when the Joyce Foundation awarded money to the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, where Sandor was a research professor.
Sandor estimates that climate trading could be "a $10 trillion dollar market." It could very well be, if cap-and-trade measures like Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Boxer are signed into law, making energy prices skyrocket, and as companies buy and sell permits to emit those six "greenhouse" gases.
So lucrative does this market appear, it attracted the attention of London-based Generation Investment Management, which purchased a stake in CCX and is now the fifth-largest shareholder.
As we noted last year, Gore is co-founder of Generation Investment Management, which sells carbon offsets of dubious value that let rich polluters continue to pollute with a clear conscience.
Other founders include former Goldman Sachs partner David Blood, as well as Mark Ferguson and Peter Harris, also of Goldman Sachs. In 2006, CCX received a big boost when another investor bought a 10% stake on the prospect of making a great deal of money for itself. That investor was Goldman Sachs, now under the gun for selling financial instruments it knew were doomed to fail.
The actual mechanism for trading on the exchange was purchased and patented by none other than Franklin Raines, who was CEO of Fannie Mae at the time.
Raines profited handsomely to the tune of some $90 million by buying and bundling bad mortgages that led to the collapse of the American economy. His interest in climate trading is curious until one realizes cap-and-trade would make housing costlier as well.
Amazingly, none of these facts came up at Senate hearings on Goldman Sachs' activities, which may be nothing more than Ross Perot's famous "gorilla dust," meant to distract us from the real issues.
The climate trading scheme being stitched together here will do more damage than Goldman Sachs, AIG and Fannie Mae combined. But it will bring power and money to its architects.
-
Crime Inc.
Watch "Glenn Beck" weekdays at 5 p.m. ET on Fox News Channel
On Monday, we gave you a story and explained that you can't have financial regulation done by the crooks and thieves we currently have in Washington, D.C. The best way I can explain it is with George Clooney.
Do you remember the movie "Oceans 11"? They go in and rob the casino and Andy Garcia's character calls the police. But he wasn't really calling the police. When the cops arrived, it was George Clooney's team of
crooks dressed up as cops. They rigged the phone lines and the real cops had no clue. Garcia actually called the m>robbers to come and help stop the crime they were committing.
So we're Andy Garcia on the day of the robbery: We call the police and these are the robbers.
This is what's happening; the only difference is there are trillions dollars at stake.
It's been 17 months since the financial scandal that resulted in entire life-savings being wiped out. No one's been arrested. And now Goldman Sachs is being painted as the bad guy. There are plenty of bad guys to
go around. This question led us to show you what has turned out to be a wormhole of bad guys: the Chicago Climate Exchange.
Here's a quick review of what we've covered so far, to get you up to speed:
Cap-and-trade — what is it? It's the trading of puffs of air. Company A pollutes more than Company B. Company A must pay a fine, which is transferred to Company B, who earns a credit. The companies continue to pollute the exact same way, it just costs Company A more and Company B gets rewarded.
If I am going to build this into an industry, I need a to-do list:
• First we have to put together a carbon exchange:
While Obama was on the Joyce Foundation board, the group steered $1.1 million in grants instrumental in developing and launching the privately owned Chicago Climate Exchange.
• Now we need investors:
Al Gore's company — Generation Investment Management — is the fifth largest shareholder in the Chicago Climate Exchange. Gore's company has several former Goldman employees on the roster.
Then Goldman Sachs steps to the plate and buys 10 percent of the combined company.
• Next we need the technology:
Fannie Mae, under the leadership of the Franklin Raines, purchases patent on system to trade residential carbon credits that was described as "how carbon and other pollutants yet to be determined" would be
"combined into a single emissions pool" and traded — just as Fannie's toxic portfolio of subprime mortgages were. It appears Raines wasn't content with destroying only the housing market.
So you have the same crooked people who have contributed to the financial meltdown — Goldman, Fannie, socialists and out and out crooks — actually trying to "fix" the economy and the environment and, oh boy, believe me the fix is in.
• Now we need the law:
Well, the law is cap-and-trade. Remember when cap-and-trade was supposed to happen right after health care? Well, immigration has Congress' attention now, so let's skip ahead to:
• The cover:
Al Gore has been pushing cap-and-trade for quite some time. Obama has been pushing it as well. Many on the progressive left want it. Why? If it's about the environment, cap-and-trade is a proven failure. It's been
tried it in Europe: failure. Now, a voluntary system — the Chicago Climate Exchange — is tanking. Why? Because you can't get people to voluntarily buy air, when there's plenty of air to go around. It's scam.
It's like being at the beach and selling people a bucket of saltwater. I'm three steps away from the ocean — it's free.
The entire green movement can't stand on its own two feet and the only time anything green ever gets money is when it comes from government. Even some of the top scientists who believe in global warming say this won't do anything to stop companies from polluting. They'll just be paying a little more for it and companies like Enron were scheming to make money off of it — they even lobbied for cap-and-trade.
Some of the eco groups don't even do what they promise. The Vatican found this out when they became "carbon neutral," but not one tree was planted in Hungary's so-called "Vatican forest" for offsets. Who scams the pope? You want to know about warming? I got "eternal warming" for you.
SoSo the question is: Why is it still being pushed? The redistribution of wealth and to enrich the corrupt.
We did a little digging and followed the money and the answers tell a familiar story. And before we get going on this, I just want to warn you: If there's one thing I'm learning about progressives, they really
like creating groups. They've got tons of them and it seems they just pass the money from one to the next. It's almost like money laundering. It's why health care can pass: You don't know what the hell anyone is
talking about and everyone always sounds so happy. Words and names of groups mean nothing. Unfortunately for them, people's faces still matter.
We know them by reputation. -
If George W. Bush were an Idiot
If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is
really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?
If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?
If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?
If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States, would you have said that he is clueless?
If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in Texas, would you have thought he was a self important, conceded, egotistical idiot?
If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?
If George Bush mispronounced CORPS would he be considered uninformed on Military terms?
If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is?
If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite?
If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11?
If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue
with claims of racism and incompetence?
If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?
If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?
So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He did all this, and more, in his first year as president -- so you'll have three years
to come up with an answer.
Friday, 29 January 2010
-
An Old Farmer's Advice:
- Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.
- Keep skunks and bankers and lawyers at a distance.
- Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.
- A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.
- Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled.
- Meanness don't jes' happen overnight.
- Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.
- Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.
- It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.
- You cannot unsay a cruel word.
- Every path has a few puddles.
- When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.
- The best sermons are lived, not preached.
- Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen anyway.
- Don't judge folks by their relatives.
- Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
- Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.
- Don't interfere with somethin' that ain't botherin' you none.
- Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.
- If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.
- Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.
- The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin'.
- Always drink upstream from the herd.
- Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.
- Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in.
- If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.
- Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.
Chatboard (0)