What a surprise: The free-market-that-is-not-free leaps from one scandal to the next. In a real free market where salesmen sell something real, and buyers buy something they want, people can’t get away with cheating, or not for long.
If someone sold you a bulk carrier of coal, and it turned up empty, you’d notice.
But, if someone sold you two million Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs) that were worthless, how could you tell? They are “certified”. They are real “certificates”, and as long as you believe they exist, perhaps they do? Welcome to the world of fiat currencies, where confidence doesn’t just make or break a market; it’s its sole underwriter.
Times Online reports on the Chaos in the carbon market over recycled permits.
The Hungarian Government, the cheeky sods, figured out that if CERs were issued by the UN (and not the EU), they could use them to write off the obligations of some Hungarian companies, and then, apparently, sell them again, so others could use them to write off their obligations, too.
It’s like reselling a three-course meal after it’s been eaten.
When confronted, the Hungarian Government claimed the used CERs were only sold to non-European investors. (So that makes it alright then? Someone outside Europe wasted money?)
Except that, as things do in a “free” market, the used CERs turned up in the EU market anyway, and eventually someone noticed.
“BlueNext and Nord Pool, the French and Nordic exchanges, suspended trading in certificates of emission reduction (CERs) when it emerged that some had been illegally reused.”
The value of the CERs promptly fell from €12 per tonne of carbon to less than €1.
“The European commission will suspend the surrendering of allowances, CERs and ERUs, it said today.”
Things are tough for the fledgeling carbon currency market. First the individual governments issued too many permits, creating a glut and crash. Then the top two auditors of the European system were busted, one after the other, and suspended for irregularities. Then Europol discovered that some traders had found a way to collect taxes on behalf of the government, and keep the money for themselves. The fraud may have cost taxpayers about seven billion dollars, and in some markets amounted to 90% of the volume. (See CBC Canada.)
The unfixable unfree market
Hopeful souls imagine that they can improve the regulations or auditing, or close the loopholes, but that’s just the problem: In a fake market based on an unmeasurable, unverifiable thing like the motivations of Third World businessmen, the market itself is the loophole. The only way to close the loophole is to close the market.
Hat tip to Colin in the UK.
Thought up by a corrupt organisation supporting a fraudulent theory, massaged by corrupt businesses. Was it any surprise that corrupt trading ensued ?
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About the only thing worse than being at war with reality is trying to fake it. Then, based upon the intensity of the faking, believing that it is sufficient to turn reality into what it isn’t and can’t be. It’s nothing but a superficial approximation of the form of reality but without any substance beyond theft, extortion, fraud, and blackmail. Its at most cargo cult economics backed up by cargo cult science in an attempt to achieve cargo cult politics.
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Looks like the greening of the financial community is having the same positive effects as the greening of the scientific community, and being promoted and run by people of comparable ethics and honour. This is a surprise, how? It’s just birds of a feather flocking together.
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Oh No Jo,
The dollar has enough problem already.
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I do hope that this means that Carbon Traders and their like can lose large amounts of wonga, in a market that they thought was literally a license to print money.
Here’s hoping!
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Yes, sorry Michael, no disrespect intended for the US dollar (well not above and beyond all the flaws I’ve already mentioned). I didn’t happen to have any shots of CER’s, but I had already discussed the similarities with carbon and the worlds reserve fiat currency (feb 09), and I had an image I could adapt.
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“There is no truth,
there is no reality,
there is nothing but opinion and perception.”
Note to Carbon Traders: Time to put your game consoles away, and step outside into the real world, where people want to buy and sell real things …!
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Did a quick look for currencies that could be photo-shopped but the dollar works best. Maybe I’ll design something for the public domain that people could easily swap out titles and pictures. Speaking of pictures, why do you have FDR on your 20 dollar bill?
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My mistake. It’s Woodrow Wilson
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I saw a link saying that CER’s could be purchased on eBay the other day. Following the link resulted in displaying the metaphysical section of eBay. Says it all really. And there were no CER’s for sale either. So disappointing!
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I am pleased to see the carbon credit market in trouble let us wish for more. No doubt there is and will be more corruption but the comments about selling something that is real are a much wider issue. I have a Rembrandt print if it was an original then I could sell it for a fortune. But you say the original looks far better but a million or so dollars better! Okay say I do my own painting and try to sell it, I would not get enough for the paint. But yours is crap you say. Maybe but I am sure I could do as well as the perfectly black painting in the Australian Art Gallery here. I could pick a new color red say and be equally good but I have the wrong name. But these are only for looking at not useful. Well a bottle of wine sold for $40000 a few years ago, you could drink that so useful in the same way as you can burn coal. Carbon credits don’t seem to be much different in nature to bonds or money and there you get corruption as well. Currently the USA and the UK are doing some quantitative easing you know printing more money to pay of the debt.
How the whole ETS idea affects our lives is much more important and there is a looming problem in Australia http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Time-to-fill-the-gas-pipe-pd20100318-3MRS7?OpenDocument&src=kgb we are not building power stations. It is probably why this is happening http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/18/2849971.htm?section=justin electricity up 65%. Even if ETS works according to the law it is still Wong and a heap of KRudd.
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The EU is almost as bad as the UN. Maurice Strong and Al Gore are close to the end of this scam and will be moving on to their next one, they will check with Greenpeace first to see what kind of BS governments are buying. The reason Maurice is in China… it’s because he can hide out from the Americans who had some pretty pointed questions on the Oil for Food scam he ran out of the UN after the first Gulf war. I wonder where Al will hide?
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You really have to wonder about the future of carbon trading if this is true.
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Carbon credits fallen to 1 Euro, that makes then over valued by at least 1 Euro!
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I almost felt a twinge of nostalgia when I heard Plenny Wrong recently using those magical words ‘carbon reduction’. Magic is what it would require to reduce the amount of carbon in our environment, isn’t it? After all, carbon is rather common in the chemical structures around us.
My boss put it this way: Carbon is the cheap tart of the periodic table. It’ll hook up with practically anything.
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The real fear, in the wake of the global credit meltdown. Is can the world’s financial markets cope with the bursting of the carbon bubble.
I think this is what is driving the sheer panic, among EU governments and why they have completely lost the plot in promoting AGW. (See the nursery rhyme ads)
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Michael not Mann #13
The Raff Report on http://www.henrythornton.com recently opined that economically the EU is like the green prickly things growing in the Sonora Desert – cactus.
The EU’s declining GDP is simply a reflection of their wholesale adoption of socialism, and emissions trading the fantasy that they think they can engineer economic growth by not producing goods and services in a market system. It’s endemic in the socialist milieu and last year the Australian Fabians published an article in their magazine about setting up a digital currency – another fantasy, of course.
Socialists have never ever understood the role of private property rights, the market, the role of money and economic growth.
And Quiggin describes us as delusional?
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Hear the good news Michael? Your Feds ran a 221 billion dollar budget deficit for the month of February alone. Its just so damn depressing when we have Keynesian lunatics running things everywhere we look. I don’t see how you can hold together. Supposing a State isn’t in massive debt? Would the people there really feel so energetic as to not mind paying off the Fed debts, and the more indebted State depts as well? I figure you guys will have to go into surplus and repudiate your debts, or else you will wind up collapsing as a nation.
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both pieces should be read in full:
18 March: Business Week: Hungary Says Big Trader Bought Used Credits, Rattles CO2 Market
by Ewa Krukowska, Zoltan Simon and Catherine Airlie
With assistance from Mathew Carr in London. Editor: Mike Anderson
One of “the biggest trading houses” in Europe bought used UN credits from Hungary before they re-entered the bloc’s emissions market, Hungarian Energy Power Kft said, raising new concerns about carbon trading.
“We sold the permits to a London-based trading house, which then sold them to one of the biggest trading houses in the European Union,” Jozsef Spenger, director at the Budapest-based wholesale energy trading company, said yesterday in a interview. He said he isn’t authorized to identify the companies…
The EU said it is temporarily suspending the process that emitters use to surrender UN carbon credits for European compliance to address market uncertainty. The suspension won’t apply from April 19 to May 1 to allow emitters to meet an April 30 deadline for complying with 2009 carbon caps, the European Commission said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. A more permanent solution will be put in place after August, it said…
Microdyne Ltd., a company based in north London, bought credits from Hungary Energy Power and was aware that they had already been surrendered in the EU, Point Carbon reported, citing a statement from the company’s Anvar Kasimov. Microdyne hasn’t been asked by buy back the credits, Point Carbon said. Officials at Microdyne couldn’t immediately be reached yesterday.
Hungarian Energy Power’s agreement with the government and subsequent buyers was made on the premise that the credits wouldn’t be re-used in the EU and that the “final users” would be Japanese companies, Spenger said…
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-18/hungarian-broker-says-large-trader-bought-recycled-co2-credits.html
reuters spins rises of a few cents:
2 Pages: 18 March: Reuters: EU carbon up, EU to stop CER surrendering
Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by James Jukwey
“It was very well subscribed. It could have been due to compliance demand,” said an emissions trader, referring to utilities which are buying up EUAs to forward hedge power sales after 2012 when EUA prices are expected to rise.
But other traders were more skeptical about the level of interest in the auction, suspecting that some market participants were deliberately trying to boost prices.
“It looks like someone put 750,000 euros on the table to be sure to buy 4 million EUAs. I am quite anxious someone paid that much money at the auction,” another trader said.
Another possible scenario is that some players are replacing CERs intended for 2009 compliance with EUAs given that spot CER trade is largely suspended.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE62H15520100318
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Right now, I’m helping to get subdivisions out of the City of Cincinnati and in to unincorporated areas. I’ve been talking with a few people on amending the Ohio constitution to allow the governor to seize and sell any federal assets in the state to cover the cost of any federal law that increases the state’s budget.
In my view, the faster we can get cities and the fed bankrupt, the better.
“I figure you guys will have to go into surplus and repudiate your debts”
We don’t have the 65 trillion promised. The fed or the world currency exchange will trash the dollar to let use pay the debt off.
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Binny: #16
.
Good point, Binny.
I have been wondering why the politicians have been putting their fingers in their ears, and saying, “lalalala, I can’t hear you”. The threat of yet another meltdown in the banking sector would do it right enough.
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There’s a great amount of wishful thinking about.
There are those who hope to benefit by planting trees and developing biological carbon sinks and selling the credits to emitters.
There are regular citizens who realise that carbon trading is going to drive up the price of absolutely everything and in particular staples more than anything else, and they are hoping that science will discover alternative ways of generating energy that will drive down the costs of energy and make consumer goods affordable again and will allow them to continue to enjoy their motoring lifestyle.
Wishful thinking and hope.
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The whole AGW scam brings to, this Scottish, mind a simple toilet-humoured phrase. I believe it eloquently captures the essence…
Jo – apologies in advance but this shouldn’t really offend anyone.
“Flies round shite.|
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Jo,
I read that fiat post and your first comment. You’re a real peach. I’d like to see you in a debate. Seems like you’d have the AGWers scampering to the corners in a heart beat.
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Yeah well that’s all fine and dandy, they lost a few dollars, BUT THEY DID REDUCE THOSE NASTY EMISSIONS DIDN’T THEY? DIDN’T THEY?? oh no! don’t tell me the emissions haven’t been reduced. That was the whole point. Billions and trillions are irrelevant, reduce those emissions before we kill ALL the poly bears.
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others have commented here that maurice newman’s speech raised other topics, which have been ingnored, and none more than his comments regarding media cheerleading of financial ‘BUBBLES’.
Text of the speech by ABC chairman Maurice Newman to ABC journalists, program-makers and managers on Wednesday, 10th March 2010
Sometimes when what was obvious to me became obvious to them, I would puzzle why the Bonds, Skases, Rivkins, Judges, et al could ever have been seen for other than what they were. I concluded that these adulatory waves of uncritical group-think came easily for journalists who were spoon fed exclusive stories, lavishly entertained and given other incentives by these corporate wizards…
Take the tech boom of the late nineties as an example. We were overwhelmed by a wave of news and opinion which talked of new paradigms and never ending growth. We became giddy at the prospect of living off our stock market gains; the so-called wealth effect promoted by then Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan. Then came the tech wreck. Just like the ‘80s in Australia, names like Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, QWest and Global Crossing, inevitably collapsed leaving a sordid mess of spin, lies and malfeasance, practiced on an unprecedented scale. Not only did the media cheerleading add hot air to the market bubble, but its influence on public and private expectations led to serious resource misallocations and economic consequences. …
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/1006_newman.pdf
BlueNext/Nordpool only rates a BLOG mention in NYT; look who owns them!
18 March: NYT: James Kanter: A New Setback for E.U. Carbon Market
BlueNext, which is owned by NYSE Euronext, partially suspended trading on Wednesday and Thursday after it discovered that some of credits had already been sold.
Trading was also temporarily halted on Nord Pool, owned by Nasdaq OMX, for what appeared to be similar reasons…
The traders — who spoke anonymously because they had not been authorized to brief the media by their banks — said at least one other E.U. member state had acted similarly earlier this year.
The market upset is the latest blow for carbon trading in Europe.
Last year swindlers robbed governments of about 5 billion euros in revenues — about $6.8 billion — by selling carbon credits and disappearing before paying the required Value Added Tax on the transactions.
In January, swindlers used faked e-mail messages to obtain access codes for individual accounts on national registries that make up the bloc’s Emission Trading System, and then used the stolen codes to gain access to electronic certificates that represent quantities of greenhouse gases.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/a-new-setback-for-e-u-carbon-market/
check out nordpool and bluenext on wikipedia, to see how the CO2 BUBBLE is being engineered.
18 March: Guardian: James Murray for BusinessGreen: Carbon traders voice fears over recycled carbon credits
But Stig Scholset, senior analyst at research firm Point Carbon, told BusinessGreen.com that it could take years for the loophole to be completely closed. “New legislation that is expected to come into effect in August will make it impossible for any surrendered CER to be held by a European account,” he said. “But there is nothing to stop surrendered CERs being traded outside the EU, and if the EU does want to close the loophole completely it will have to start over with the development of new rules.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/17/carbon-traders-recycled-credits
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Baa H, you are a hoot. The polars only eat a few of the millions of seals the poly bears are eating our lunch.
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We have learned absolutly nothing over the last 500 years, Tetsel sold Indulgencis to sinners claiming their sins would be forgiven at least that frought sparked of the Reformation.Now we trade pieces of paper which makes it ok for the seller to continue polluting.
The incredible thing is that the European goverments are right behind this sceem,I rest my case.
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Re Michael:
Did a quick look for currencies that could be photo-shopped but the dollar works best.
—
You must have an interesting version of Photoshop if it’ll let you play with currency. But don’t knock the AUD. They helped pioneer the practical petro-dollar with polymers instead of pulp and rag. Feels and looks a little strange, especially the windows, but no need to try and hide it while you go swimming. Australia got some environmental policies right, even if it’s land use rules are very wrong.
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I don’t know… for me another (in)famous currency immediately sprung to mind:
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Hmmmm not sure if that showed up… here is the link:
http://www.psephoholic.com/images/100billion_zimbabwe_dollars_ap_400x274.jpg
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In a fake market based on an unmeasurable, unverifiable thing like the motivations of Third World businessmen, the market itself is the loophole.
Never have I heard it said better.
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I have known a number of Hungarians, who were all enterprising people. But beware this new lot, they may be so enterprising they will sell the Harbour Bridge (Oz joke).
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[…] Carbon market chaos strikes again « JoNova […]
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Baa Humbug:
I agree your sarcastic point but disagree with the literal meaning of your comment at #25 where you say:
I have repeatedly said the following (e.g. at York University in October 2009).
“Carbon Trading markets are the only markets where both the buyers and the sellers are paid to lie. Corruption is a ‘built-in’, and we are already getting people prosecuted for fraud in the EU scheme. The Mafia would have been hard-pressed to suggest a system like this.”
Carbon Trading schemes are not going to go away soon. Every kind of crook has too much to get from it: i.e. to rob from our pockets.
Richard
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[…] Carbon market chaos strikes again « JoNova […]
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Atomic Hairdryer,
I have the Chinese version of Photoshop. It came with a set of $20 US press plates. Didn’t mean to knock the AUD. Just found it odd Woodrow Wilson was on the 20.
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Richard S Courtney:
March 19th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Oh Richard the whole post was meant to be sarcastic and not to be taken literally.
We, the working masses are being sold carbon trading, ETS etc as a means to reduce emissions. But the EU has NOT reduced their emissions.
Regards fraud and corruption: never a truer word spoken.
Regards
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Enough with the Chinese $20s.
Wilson, that scumbag, was on this bill. Only used for bank transactions. Back when money was backed by gold.
http://www.marshu.com/articles/images-website/articles/presidents-on-us-paper-money/one-hundred-thousand-100000-dollar-bill.jpg
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[…] Carbon market chaos strikes again « JoNova […]
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begley, who was touting 2035 for himalayan melt as late as august last year, is at it again:
28 March: Newsweek: Sharon Begley: Their Own Worst Enemies
Why scientists are losing the PR wars
Like evolutionary biologists before them, climate scientists also have failed to master “truthiness” (thank you, Stephen Colbert), which their opponents—climate deniers and creationists—wield like a shiv.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/235084
yet…
16 March: CBS: Dems Already Looking Ahead to the Next Fight: Climate Change
There is certainly room for bipartisan support on the issue, however. The Christian Coalition of America, founded by conservative televangelist Pat Robertson, supports climate change legislation and last week released a radio ad urging its supporters to call Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and encourage him to continue working on the issue
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20000572-503544.html
ironically, Penthouse (in this very lengthy piece) is more honest than the MSM:
15 March: Penthouse: An Inconvenient Fraud?
Al Gore and his pals in the science establishment want us to totally change our lives because of a theory that might not even be true. Have the sacred cows of global warming been gored beyond repair?
By Gerard Van der Leun • Illustration by Zachary Pullen…
Although the person responsible for exposing these emails is still unknown, the advice of Deep Throat in the film All the President’s Men is as valid for Climategate as it was for Watergate: “Follow the money.”
http://penthousemagazine.com/features/an-inconvenient-fraud/
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Atomic Hairdryer:
March 19th, 2010 at 10:23 am
“But don’t knock the AUD. They helped pioneer the practical petro-dollar with polymers instead of pulp and rag. Feels and looks a little strange, especially the windows, but no need to try and hide it while you go swimming. Australia got some environmental policies right, even if it’s land use rules are very wrong.”
I manufactured and sold to the Reserve Bank Note Printing Branch the electronic pressure sensor modules that went into the prototype $5 polymer note printing machine. It was a nice little job.
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more proof the rightwing MSM are as complicit in the CAGW scam as the leftwing rags. karoly mentioned in all but “new scientist”, but never a mention he is an IPCC lead author and no mention karoly was only brought in at the end to “find” a link with CAGW, see:
17 March: Austn Climate Madness: Butterfly study hijacked by AGW
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/?p=3444
18 March: UK Daily Mail: (unattributed story): Butterflies are emerging earlier due to global warming, claim scientists
The findings, published in a Royal Society journal, Biology Letters…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1258843/Butterflies-emerging-earlier-global-warming-claim-scientists.html
18 March: UK Tele: (unattributed story) Butterflies emerging earlier due to
climate change
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7464687/Butterflies-emerging-earlier-due-to-climate-change.html
18 March: USA Today: Wendy Koch: Early butterflies linked to global warming
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/03/early-butterflies-linked-to-climate-change/1
18 March: New Scientist: Global warming changes natural event: first causal link
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18671-butterflies-emerging-earlier-because-of-climate-change.html
naturally ABC, online and on air, have promoted this “study”.
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[…] Carbon market chaos strikes again « JoNova […]
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Follow the money folks:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/breaking_the_obama_code_the_gr.html
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Is the reference to 911 on the banknotes a reference to emergency calls ?
Then you should know that it is 999 in the UK (since 1937 – the US followed with 911 in 1968).
In Continental Europe they are gradually standardising on 112 after having a range of number for different services.
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So how do these carbon credit things work? Accepting the AGW hypothesis as true, how can transfering paper cool the “global temperature”. It sounds like a merry-go-round, you end up at the same point.
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John of Cloverdale WA:
Shhhhh no one is supposed to know that … jump on board the gravy train and keep quiet /nod
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[…] Carbon market chaos strikes again « JoNova […]
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[…] Carbon market chaos strikes again « JoNova […]
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I read somewhere that the carbon trading futures market could get much bigger than the existing forex market. If that happens, and problems develop, I expect it will be the last straw and the world economic systems will collapse. In that case, let it happen. I’m now in favour of the carbon trading futures market picking up steam. I can’t wait for the collapse to bring to an end to all this nonsense once and for all, and for people to come to their senses. As I always believed, people only learn the hard way, never the common sense way through logical reasoning.
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Gregoryn06 #15
Too right. How do we reduce element number 6 on the periodic chart? It’s here for good. And speaking of Penny Wong – it’s been the cone of silence since her last splash which was a few weeks ago. I haven’t seen her name come up anywhere. I wondered at the time whether she might end up muzzled, and I read that about 98% of respondents on ninemsn poll said they would not be prepared to pay more for electricity(NSW). Her days on the soapbox might be numbered – any bets on her next job?
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Probably at the UN.
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Matty, I’ve discovered the ideal product for PW to push.
If it doesn’t make the carbon disappear she can flog it on late night TV.
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Monopoly money would have been most appropriate!
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When gold and diamons have value, there are markets for fools gold and fake diamonds. Counterfeit weather records really do incite counterfeit carbon certificates for the crowd that lives in hysteria.
Neurotics build castles in the sky
Psychotics live in those castles
Psychologists collect rent
Algore sells the psychos carbon credits so they can live guiltfree.
Gee isn’t utopia great?
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[…] Carbon market chaos strikes again « JoNova […]
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[…] Carbon market chaos strikes again « JoNova […]
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A little touchy about currency humor?
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[…] Carbon market chaos strikes again « JoNova […]
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[…] Carbon market chaos strikes again « JoNova […]
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Jo,
I just thought I’d mention this article, if you’ve not seen it already:
One more response to the “Big Oil” jibe
Cheers,
John
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Sorry,I thought I’d put the hyperlink in: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/breaking_the_obama_code_t
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[…] Carbon market chaos strikes again « JoNova […]
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What the heck, Jo? At the rate things are going the U.S. dollar is on it’s way to oblivion anyway. I shudder to think about the possibilities.
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Peter of Sydney @51,
That collapse you’re hoping to see has a terrible price tag!
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Penny is just so annoying. She is just such a bigot. There is no other word for it. It seems that whitey males like myself have been preached to about our supposed bigotry for years. So we either have to be quits with the bigotry, be out and proud about it, hide it, or pretend its still there so as not to be wrong-footed by leftist projection.
But when you get a gay woman of Chinese extraction, where is the pressure for her to deal with her abhorrent bigotry? Its just not there. And Penny’s incredible bigotry is so exacerbating. You can imagine punching the male climate bigots on the shoulder. Or wearing your steelcaps around the whole time. You know the ones that look like sneakers. So if you meet a male climate bigot, you can plant a nice acute little bruise on their shin, and deny it relentlessly. SO FAST. Not even the cameras can capture it. And even if he takes a picture and its this small little thing, as excrutiatingly painful as it would be, if he complained about it he’d just look like a sissy.
No such pleasant thoughts can be entertained when thinking about the incurable bigot Penny Wong. This may be the reason why I find her so disturbing. She really isn’t fit for any sort of large job with those inbuilt blinkers.
An extraordinary thing happened on this ABC TV program. Both Bob Ellis and Penny of course think this CO2 thing is a real problem as opposed to marvelous dumb luck. So Bob gave Penny, right there on live TV, the solution to this make-believe problem. And it consisted of diverting one river, into another, so that the populated areas would have access to a great deal more fresh water. Hence they would be able to presumably reclaim more land and invest mammoth amounts of carbon in that land, in terms of plant growth and soil enrichment. Here I’m extrapolating on just a few words that Bob said. Of course Bob was right, given his scientific error in the first place. But the bigot Penny was unmoved. Totally unmoved. Such was her repulsive and incurable bigotry.
We really have to stop tolerating people in the public sector who cannot do the job. And I’m not just talking about the elected reps which we can do very little about. But public servants more generally. Its the old Greshams law, in one of its many permutations. If we tolerate the Ken Henry’s in Treasury. The Gruens in Finance. Any of these dummies in any public sector job at all, we are driving out, and blocking people who can do the job. And if perchance a competent fellow slipped through. If Kates or Gerry Jackson somehow made it into Treasury, Finance, or other good people found there way to near the top of other departments….. Then the ubiquity of idiots who cannot do the job, would prevent the good people from being productive, or from even being seen to be competent.
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Many thanks to my government for revealing the other side of the carbon market to a wider audience. Unfortunately, no one talks about this at home.
AGW proponents have an extremely strong position in the country, the Alliance of Hungarian Environmentalists (MTVSZ) is campaigning for the introduction of a personal(!) cap-and-trade scheme, unfortunately they even gained some support in the Hungarian parliament. In most of the cases, dissenting views remain unnoticed. The only well-known AGW skeptic is Miklos Zagoni, I’ve met him last december on a conference. Dr. Ferencz Miskolczi, author of the saturated greenhouse paper, is almost unknown in his homeland… 90 percent of the Hungarian population haven’t heared anything relevant about climategate and what it really means.
Kindest regards from Hungary,
Adam Soereg
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Graeme Bird,
One of the perks of being self employed, besides the easy tax dodge, is you get to work with the people you want, penis and race be damned. For example:
I had a recent dealing with a “normal”(white US gal) girl. She wanted me to kill the coyotes that were killing the feral cats she was trying to trap. I checked with the county warden about the regs and he said the county was over run with feral cats and the coyotes were keeping them in check.
I explained this to her and she said “it’s not fair, they don’t deserve to live here, they should be in California”.
I told her I don’t kill for irrational people. I didn’t say anything about killing irrational people.
See, self employment works well.
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Not to moderator. The person posting
[…] Carbon market chaos strikes again « JoNova […]
is a spammer. While popular in Hawaii, you might want to get rid of it down under.
[Thanks for keeping watch! ED]
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Another “great” article Joanne!!! I love the red print in the lower right corner of the “bills”. 911 is our “emergency” number we use here in the States…Yes, let “Them” call and we’ll get them out of this fiasco right now…What a joke..and certain people are suckers to participate! Maybe I should get out “The Wagon” and start selling “Snake Oil” again…$10.00/ bottle, so you folks down under will get a good deal??? Is your curency holding against the U.S.dollar?? Anyway, can’t find a decent job otherwise I starting to search for alternatives…;-)
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I agree. But it’s inevitable if enough people are too stupid to see through the AGW scam and keep voting for governments like ours.
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Dear Friends of Truth,
Please do not allow our governments to ram down our throats a new carbon tax and emmissions trading ponzi scheme, that is based on the pseudoscience of the IPCC. How can you trade something you can’t see or hold?
The reality is, despite the daily lies spouted in the mainstream media, there is no conclusive evidence of man-made global warming caused by CO2 (a harmless gas plants need to make food). The only conclusive evidence we have is of IPCC-linked scientists, bankers, and politicians who all have their hands in the cookie jar of carbon commissions.
I ask you to judge these proponents of man-made global warming on these three simple rules:
1) Tell the truth.
2) Don’t hide or spin the truth.
3) Admit and take responsibility for your errors.
Have any of these following individuals fulfilled these three simple rules?
– Al Gore
– Rajendra Pachauri
– Michael Mann
– Phil Jones
– Kevin Rudd
– Ed Miliband
– Barack Obama
Have these people shown integrity and responsibility in the conduct of their affairs? Should we base the entire overhaul of our economic system and way of life on the words of these people?
When I was young, I was taught this and it still rings true today:
“Your word is your bond,
Once broken, the trust is gone.”
Please do not allow the greedy bankers, politicians, yes-man scientists, and unelected UN bureaucrats to dictate how we should live our lives.
Already, the UN secretary Ban Ki-Moon is pushing for global carbon taxation. THEY ARE TRYING TO SNEAK THIS UNDER OUR NOSES. For example, see here:
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/IMF%20proposes%20climate%20change%20kitty%20/-/2558/878408/-/yco3d3z/-/
The rich and wealthy people don’t care. Laws that affect the middle class don’t apply to them. “Let them eat carbon” for all they care. Remember, most of these rich people own the hedge funds and venture capital that are all heavily invested in “green” technology — and they are lobbying hard for carbon emmissions trading because they are going to make a lot of money at the expense of middle-class taxpayers.
The issue of global warming was never about saving the environment. It’s all about scaring, extorting, and controlling middle class taxpayers. For the UN, this carbon emmissions ponzi scheme is the perfect cash cow to fund their New World Order agenda–no need for accountability and cannot be prosecuted by law.
Even worse, they are now attempting the unforgivable, which is to brainwash and indoctrinate our children into believing the global warming hogwash. Hitler youth, anyone? You can try and scare me but HANDS OFF MY KIDS. Growing up is hard enough, they don’t need the added burden and guilt of a false idealogy.
It’s time to close the IPCC. It’s time to close the UN. Warn everyone you know about how the UN is hijacking our democracy and pushing their one world government agenda, so they can one day control the masses as they wish. So much power in the hands of a few unelected people, how can abuse and corruption not take place?
PLEASE BE VIGILANT. Our way of life is currently under serious threat from this unelected clique of elites under the guise of man-made global warming. THEY ARE TRYING AND WILL KEEP TRYING TO SNEAK CARBON TAXATION AND CARBON EMISSIONS TRADING UNDER OUR NOSES.
Please write to or call your representatives and tell them that you do not accept the pseudoscience of the IPCC/UN. Call for independent inquiries into the various AGW-related scandals errupting now but conveniently being swept under the carpet. Ask the AG to investigate Al Gore for fraud. Vote out any representative who continues to push this false religion of AGW.
Thank you.
Special note on Obama: When Obama was first elected, I had great hopes for him and his administration. In recent times, it has dawned on me that he is just a self-serving politician no different from Al Gore, out to make a quick buck at the expense of American taxpayers. Don’t be fooled by the current healthcare reform nonsense–this is just a smokescreen for Obama and his wealthy patrons’ real agenda: to push through a carbon emissions trading system in the US. Note how Obama tries to stay away from this issue at the same time instructing the EPA to regulate CO2. Further note how Obama played a crucial role in founding the Chicago Climate Exchange, of which now Rajendra Pachauri and Maurice Strong are board members.
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wow. so many ill informed people who think it’s all somehow a hoax against them. why in hell would all these people spend all this time trying to fool everyone. wake up people. We’ve been polluting this would for a long time. there is six billion people polluting this earth. YES – WE DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. and unfortunately, six billion people polluting the earth make a bad effect on the planet. how could it be any different. it is only common sense.
you think all the scientists are lying?? really??? if you want to see people who have something to gain from lies, look at the corporations who finance the politicians. maybe then you’ll see who is lying to who.
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there is plenty of evidence. who the hell is Paul Z. no evidence??? really?? all you have to do is look at real science. where do you get your science??? out of a cracker jack box??
the science that supports the theory of global warming is 150 years old. it is basic thermal dynamics. where to you come off telling people that the science is not there??? you obviously have no education in science. you are more concerned about getting taxed than you are concerned about the future of our planet.
the facts about pollution, thermal dynamics, global warming and co2 are easily found in reputable science litterateur, .. but only if you have the brains to look for it.
do the world a favor and read a few books. In case you didn’t know, reading right wing political blogs and “opinions” does not count as science. hopefully the rest of the world can figure this out. If not, then we truly are doomed.
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Jim:
There is no evidence of any kind that demonstrates the AGW hypothesis is right; none, not any, nada, zilch.
If you wish to prove me wrong on this then all you have to do is state one, single, solitary scrap of such evidence.
And – if you are not making things up – you should be able to prove me wrong because at #75 you claim there is evidence that supports the AGW hypothesis.
I claim there is much evidence that refutes the AGW hypothesis. I have repeatedly cited it on this blog and elsewhere and will do so again if you want. The evidence that refutes the AGW hypothesis clear and indisputable.
So, please state the evidence supporting the AGW hypothesis that you claim exists.
Richard
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“wow. so many ill informed people who think it’s all somehow a hoax against them. why in hell would all these people spend all this time trying to fool everyone.”
So you’ve got the evidence then have you Jim? Finally. The fellow with the evidence for this racket has decided to show up. Now Jim. When it turns out you DON’T have the evidence, I want you to sit back for a moment and consider your own behaviour, writ large, and what happens when lets say 100 million people act as moronically as you.
I don’t know why you are lending weight to this hoax. So it will still be a mystery to me. But it ought not be a mystery to you at least, ‘why in hell would all these people spend all this time trying to fool everyone.’
This is a matter that you can know about with a little introspection. But unless you tell me why, its something I can never know.
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Hi Jim,
You don’t even have the brains to run a spell check on your posts.
Methinks you’re a little a bit out of your depth here.
One handed typists are more welcome at real climate or deltoid.
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Denny – In Australia emergency is 000 – you are asked the option of Police, Fire, Ambulance. I called it a couple of years ago as I was having a heart attack – the ambulance arrived within 5 mins and was the only charge ($300) I incurred in my treatment that ended in have a stent inserted after Angioplasty in Sydney.
You guys in the US should really forget your ill-conceived objection to a national health system – it works superbly in Australia.
BTW our dollar is around 91c to your dollar – it was 45c 10 years ago.
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Hello All.
Just a quick note on Jim. He’s just the latest of a string of antagonist that have visited us in recent times, e.g. JM on Deutsche Bank, Peter Pan prior to that, Post Hoc on Thursday, and several of us have taken the bait and wasted time trying to show them the error of their ways. They are here to waste our time and seem to be visiting on a roster system. Notice how it’s usually a different one on each new post by Jo, they come make a nuisance of themselves and move on.
Continue to take the fight to them if you like, you have my full support. However I will be letting their comments go through to the keeper, “for our visitors that’s a cricket term” for those who understand baseball better. It’s a ball, don’t swing let it go to the catcher.
If we don’t respond they may fish in another pond.
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You run in to Jims all the time. Unless information is produced by a government funded university or department, peer reviewed, and published in Nature or Science, its not valid information.
In the world of Jims, the McIntyres aren’t qualified to do research and comment because they lack a host of PhDs after their names and work in the private sector.
The Jims know it’s about money:
If human created CO2 was such a threat, government would ban CO2 creating fuels. Even Jim knows this is all about money, he just hasn’t realized it yet.
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Re: Mike Borgelt:
I manufactured and sold to the Reserve Bank Note Printing Branch the electronic pressure sensor modules that went into the prototype $5 polymer note printing machine. It was a nice little job.
—
I like currency. Here in the UK, we have £5 notes that fall apart faster than inflation rises. Also a nice museum at the Bank of England with a history of our currency and some of the arms race between issuers and forgers. Shame a lot of our modern day masters of the universe have overlooked the basics. We saw the carousel VAT fraud in Europe already, we’ve seen carbon auditors in trouble and now we see this. It seems rather funamentally insecure to create a tradeable instrument like CO2 permits without any registry to track issue and usage, and cancel certificates. This may be why Hungary traded them outside the EU, but not why they traded on EU exchanges.
With that lack of basic security, how much other fraud are they missing?
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Peter of Sydney @72,
As Paul Z. points out at 73, were still at a point where we can hope to fight this and win through. If you’re familiar with U.S. history you may remember Admiral Farragut who said, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” during the Civil War battle for Mobile Bay. That’s the way I always think when there’s a fight to win. You don’t give up until you’re really dead.
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Jo could pleas look at 34 36 40 44 49 50 60 61 they look like spam adds produced by a Bot. They don’t have an alias only a link the 8 mentioned all have exactly the same form.
[Thanks for keeping watch! I have removed them ED]
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MikeO: it’s just a reference that those sites have linked to Jo’s article.
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janama: Post 79,
janama, nope, not for what they are talking about here in the U.S..Besides we cannot afford another trillon plus program…It’s bad here and expecially where the auto industry is…I had to be 150 miles from Detroit! Ugh! ;-(
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The unintended consequences of health care will be interesting. The bill up for passage has very strong incentives for businesses to drop health care for their employees. Once uninsured, the bill has strong incentives for the individual not to have insurance. With nationwide hospitals and pharmacies running tests of dropping government funded insurance, America could soon have cash and carry health care. Which would be good since then health care will face market forces and the price will come down.
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Graeme Bird:
Regarding civil servants, the days of giving “frank and fearless” advice are long gone in the public sector. The politicians have warped the system so badly with all the political placements at the top of government agencies that there is no clear distinction anymore between where advice ends and policy begins.
This is very similar to the problem with climate change where the distinction between science and advocacy/politics is now horribly blurred.
PS> Regrding the civil service, I know this because I am inside the system (albeit in a mid-level position). I have seen the rot that occurred as a result of a political placement at the top of my department by the previous Labor government.
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Its this that kills us you know. Its not Weber or some bullshit Spengler version of the senescence of once uppity civilisations. They are stealing everything from us. We have to telegraph to Prodeo and other communists that this is not OKAY.
I insist that this fraud does not end until the sackings start.
Not long ago the spirit of Michael Jackson departed from this world. We better hope that this is a new age of ANDREW Jackson.
Nothing else can save us and we will be gone, and dead, and no hint of matters arising to help out historians in the distant future.
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It is simply mind boggling that the financial regulatory agencies around the world have not yet realised that the carbon trading market is the biggest ever scam, and is the biggest potential threat to the global financial markets.
I thought readers might be interested in reading how the WWF plans to make an easy $60 billion:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7488629/WWF-hopes-to-find-60-billion-growing-on-trees.html?state=target#postacomment&postingId=7493149
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Michael (definitely) not Mann,
You have a point about “cash and carry”. One of the things that keeps our cost up is the small financial stake that patients have in their medical care. Some union negotiated plans for retirees have no premium that the retiree pays, for instance. And I’ve recognized this for years.
On the other hand, someone like me or my wife who depend on daily medication and a number of specialists to handle chronic conditions that simply would be debilitating or risk death if not managed will simply go under and that’s the end of us. Any diabetic is in particularly acute danger if regular, sometimes very expensive care is not available when it’s needed. I know because my late first wife was diabetic from age 7. Do we write off such people? That’s a poignant question since I never at any time could have managed to pay even the more reasonable cost of her numerous hospital stays early in our marriage.
This bill they’re trying to ram down our throats is an obamanation (spelling intentional).
We have real problems and should solve them. But this madness solves nothing and creates more — and more serious — problems for everyone.
I don’t say these things to get anyone’s sympathy but to point out that as much as 40% of doctors have expressed their intent to get out of medicine if this passes; to point out the obvious, that additional demand will be placed on fewer MDs (how long do you wait then for an appointment); to point out that it will not reduce our federal deficit but increase it; to point out that acceptable medical treatments will be put in the hands of unelected and unaccountable boards no one can even identify, much less appeal to for redress of grievance; to point out that the bill contains money to hire some ungodly number of additional IRS employees (I’ve seen 17,000) to enforce the “everyone buys” provision with tax penalties. Need I go on?
Bush Bunny (Bunny, I intend no offense) has said that she needed a hip replacement and only had to wait 10 months to get it. Last year I needed clearly elective surgery and was in the hospital within days getting what I needed. This bill will inevitably lead to the same rationing of care that goes on in every other nation with a government controlled system. And please, don’t anyone tell me that waiting 10 months is not rationing because it is.
We have an energy crisis because we lack the will to use what’s available to us. We’re now about to enact a medical crisis because we lack the will to face our problems squarely.
I’ve been working all my life to pay my own way. And that includes making sure I have medical coverage. It costs me cash out of my paycheck every other week and I’m glad to pay honestly for what I get. I was happy to pay the premium when it wasn’t so critical to me and I’m happy to pay it now. If this monstrosity is enacted I’ll pay an even higher premium and then be taxed more to support the damn system as well. Then I’ll still have the copayment and yearly deductable I’ve no doubt. Is this a better deal than what I have now?
The media has done no objective analysis of this bill and they’ve done no useful coverage of it. Congress is hiding what’s in it as best they can. Here’s the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi and I quote from her own recorded voice, “We have to pass this bill so you all can find out what’s in it.” Excuse me Madam Speaker; just who in Hell do you think you are? You work for the people! We don’t work for you! Tell us what’s in it before you vote on it not after.
Forgive my rant but this is too close to home.
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mervyn sullivan @90,
It just tends to prove my observation that sooner or later, no matter how noble the founding principles and intentions, every organization starts to serve itself.
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Fiat currencies are propped up by figurative hot air (from Central Banks, treasury ministers and rating agencies); the carbon “currency” is propped up by literal hot air!
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To bring health care costs down you want to have medical expenses paid from savings as much as possible. You may want medical services non-taxable and particularly retained earnings. So that medical services firms can invest to bring costs down. Quality control must be the responsibility of the firm alone. Perhaps it may have to be regulated in to some extent. In terms of the firm being held responsible. But it ought not be regulated in via mandatory qualifications for a great many employees. This is not the way to bring costs down. Hopefully that last sentence comes across as understatement of a very severe type.
In this country we have superannuation funds and we have the potential for a sort of HECS system on debts. We could close down government agencies by the bushel, take the 15% surcharge off Super and allow peoples super funds to be used for medical expenses. We could have a HECS in place for people who cannot pay up front. We want to lift the tax free threshold. All of the above would be enough for younger people who were not terminally ill. So thats the solution right there. The older guys and the terminally sick would likely need to be looked after under a different system if they were pretty poor. Policies to provide a glut of high-rise and to reform money are not a separate issue from bringing medical services costs lower. All our budgets start to look healthier if health care costs are falling every quarter.
But in every other way we want to get rid of all subsidies. Subsidies mean the destruction of any viable industry with the ability to continually bring prices down.
Subsidies are anti-economic. In this one case they may be necessary for the older Australians, for the time being. But you need current revenues being poured into reducing recurring costs to bring costs down. You don’t get that by subsidising current production. Subsidising current production leads to resources being poured into current production, not into reducing recurring costs.
We see this everywhere with our Prime Minister who has a sort of anti-Midas touch. Everything he touches turns bad. So we saw it with insulation, with cost blow-outs in school buildings. Borrowing money doesn’t bring new resources into being. So this deficit spending in a time of monetary expansion would always lead to blowouts. Someone has to tell Tony not to go with this Biochar subsidy. But worst of all would be the disaster of a lunatic like Kevin Rudd being let loose on our medical system. There is no gaudy failure too gruesome to contemplate, but that this moron cannot put it into effect. It could be worse than Gallipoli.
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Roy Hogue: Bush Bunny does have the choice of private medical insurance, just like you. We have private medical insurance companies, we even have a Government run private insurance company, Medibank Private. The government even subsidises your private insurance payments to the tune of 30% but most aussies are happy to go with the public system just like Bunny and myself.
When I had my heart attack I was kept in my local hospital until a bed was available in Sydney where I was to have an angiogram. Had I been privately insured I would have gone straight to the private hospital in my area and had the angiogram immediately, instead I waited a week and was then flown in an air ambulance to Sydney and booked into the Royal North Shore public hospital – that afternoon I had a stent inserted. I stayed overnight and checked out the next day and was given an air ticket to return home. Total cost – $0.00. A friend had a similar experience but was in the US – total cost $120,000
I can understand what your doctors are going through because under a public health scheme like ours most of them become public servants and their fees are set and administered through the Government. Sure the specialists can work freely in the private and public system but your average local doctor is basically a government employee. My daughter is currently completing her internship after graduating in medicine last year – she works in a local public hospital and she is paid $25 per hour, less than a carpenter.
I have to take medication and I pay around $33 per prescription and I have 3. – when I reach retirement age in a few months that will drop to $5 per script under the pension. Because all the drugs are administered by the Government the government can negotiate with the US drug companies on a bulk purchase deal so we pay less for drugs than you do.
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I might add that all this is paid for through the medicare levy. It is a tax of 1.5% on your gross income. So a person earning $100,000 per year pays $1500
[Janama, you win! You wrote the 20,000th comment. (errr… how about a years free subscription to the site. 😉 ) Thanks for all your wisdom — JN]
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Are Carbon Markets showing some signs of a financial bubble? Which would they be? Will this bubble take a long time to burst?
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janama,
Thanks. I didn’t know there was a private insurance option in Australia. But may I ask a question? Have you considered what might have happened to you in that week that you had to wait for the bed in Sydney? I ask this because I also had symptoms of a heart attack in 2003, unexplained shortness of breath. I was in the hospital immediately and the angioplasty was done the following day. My doctor told my wife that I had a very close call and was lucky to have escaped a major heart attack. In other words, the extra time could have cost me dearly. I obviously spent more out of pocket than you did but I count that as money well spent. I wish we could get our costs down. But as I said, we lack the will to do what that requires.
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Roy – the day I had my attack I was at home working on my computer – I picked up the phone on my desk and rang 000 – I was asked whether I required, police, fire or ambulance. I said ambulance and immediately put through to an operator – she asked what was wrong and I said I was having a heart attack – I gave my address and an ambulance was at my front door within minutes. (I live in a small country town and we have the local ambulance base – one of the units was returning to base and was only 500yards from my house). They gave me the first pills, loaded me into the ambulance and took me to the local hospital just down the road, the emergency ward was already preparing for my arrival and the local doctor was heading for the hospital from his surgery. I was treated there till by heart rate made it to over 100bpm and was then given Morphine. Once I settled down they loaded me into the ambulance again and they drove me to the local Base Hospital in the major city in my area.
I was admitted to the intensive care ward and spent 3 days there under observation. They also did a full untrasound on my heart. After they were satisfied I was ok I was transferred to a general ward where I waited for the bed in Sydney to become free. I understand the base hospital now has an angiogram theatre.
The doctors in Sydney told me I had had a major heart attack and it was the quick work of the local ambulance and local hospital that saved me. Whether I was insured or not would have had nothing to do with my survival. I was very lucky 🙂
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Janama, phew, you’ve totally stolen any glory of being awarded the “20,000th comment prize” on site with your story of a real win… (glad to hear our medical system did work so well). Jo
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Thanks Joanne – I was lucky – while I waited in the local hospital I was in a ward with 4 other guys – the old fellah in the bed opposite was the typical laconic Aussie. When the discussion finally came round to religion he commented that he ran into the local vicar who commented that he hadn’t seen him in church recently to which he replied, “I haven’t seen you at work vicar” 🙂
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Friends:
I know this is ‘off topic’ and I only comment in hope of stopping the discussion of US health care here.
Michael Not Mann is right in his initial statements at #87. The US is adopting a truly daft system of medical care. Many, many US Citizens could die from lack of medical treatment as a result.
There are two basic models of universal medical provision that are demonstrated to work in various forms in many countries. These are the French private medical insurance model and the British National Health Service model.
The US system has always been a ‘Third World’ model and its univeral implementation can be anticipated to make US medical provision even less comprehensive than it now is. But it will make a lot of money for a relatively few people.
Please note that I am an old-fashioned left-wing British Socialist so I am completely in favour of universal Health Services. But I am opposed to stupidity. What the US has done in this case is stupid.
So, please let us agree that this US government action is probably an error and let us return to discussion of climate issues.
Richard
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Richard, as a US resident (I say resident because I am open to other citizenship options especially after this administration took power)
Thank you for saying that (@102) and I concur.
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Richard S. Courtney Post 102 & Mark D: Post 103,
Richard, I also, as a U.S.Citizen would like to state, “Thank You” for your kind statement on the Fallicious HealthCare Issue…Richard, you are a gentleman and a scholar” and I “always” have respect for what you state and for what you believe…Your spoken truths are in the countless statements in this Blog and Parliment…If only other people of importance would see what “needs to be seen”…God Bless!
Mark D, I’m right next to you on your comment…You also are a very good person…Jo’s blessed to have you here..
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janama,
I’m glad it worked out well for you as it did for me.
To the several of you who understand what’s at stake here, thank you. I think that we all will have different opinions depending on what we’re used to. Richard is correct, we here have a lousy system in many respects but are simply refusing to solve those problems. I’ve no right to be a critic of medical care in Australia but I used it to illustrate what I do not like being enacted here.
Perhaps I should apologize for that and I hereby do apologize.
End of subject.
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Health care is a climate issue. Many of Obama’s
clownsscience advisers support the idea of population reduction to save the planet. Forced sterilization could work from one end and bad medical care from the other.10
Denny, thank you for the very kind words. I think, though, you were here first. Therefore all that you said about me are first about you.
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