The Cap and Trade Thread (Rush Limbaugh, environmentalist, politician, capitalist)

[floridasandy]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

What about Goldman Sachs, the alleged topic of this thread?

Are they involved? Aren't they always involved in every scheme to make some easy money on concepts involving vaporous "assets"? They were one of the biggest speculators in last year's insane crude oil piracy too, and still are.

I wish people would grow up. I constantly read posts in P&OC where so-called liberals and so-called conservatives beat each other's brains out, all day long. Those two terms are so convoluted they mean nothing these days. Same for 'where is the liberal outrage' or 'where is the conservative outrage' etc. All smoke and mirrors, put on by Congress to keep us at each other's throats, so they can divide and conquer us at the polls. Biggest joke going is the "two party system." Hell, there is no two party system. You get the SAME results from both parties. Been that way for the past 30+ years that I've been paying attention to all this crap. If people would grow up, they'd see that nothing really changes, that the only party which really counts is the party of MONEY. If you're in THAT party, you get your way, you get YOUR change, and you get it fast, neatly tied up with a presidential signature and photo op. If people would grow up, all of us could stop being played like rubes by pols who provoke us based on increasingly phony / empty labels such as "liberals" and "conservatives." No matter which "party" is in office, the MONEY PARTY gets it legislation cranked out PDQ. Last year's oil thievery happened on the watch of Bush-43, let's bash him. The new cap and trade money-making scheme is going down on Obama's watch, let's bash him. Do we think EITHER of them (or the Money Party) gives a damn about our bashing them? Is that the phone ringing, yes?, maturity calling .... anyone wanna take the call.

Now, let's all go back to beating out each other's brains and calling each other silly things like liberal or conservative.

i can't do anything about what happened on bush's watch. the democrats should have impeached him since they had a majority, but they were getting the things done that they wanted done so why bother? we have had a corrupt congress and we continue to have a corrupt congress.
people have to acknowledge that their party is corrupt before we can see any real change. i think 99% of republicans would acknowledge that bush was corrupt and / or stupid. are democrats willing to do the same so we can stop this abuse of power by our TRUSTED leaders?


i congratulate the democrats who stood up to their leaders and voted against cap and trade, and shame on the republicans who voted for cap and trade!

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

He who has the money gets to make the rules.

Thanks, I see you took the call. Anyone else?

Okay, back on topic.

What's so bad about making money on cap and trade, weren't they selling some sort of pollution credits a few years ago?

If cap and trade makes burning coal a lot more expensive, fine, I've no doubt that we can get all the FREE energy we need from the sun and wind, and with millions of electric cars on the road in ten years, we can tell OPEC to drink their stinking oil. If G-S makes a buck on selling these things, in a properly regulated marketplace, then let "free enterprise" roll on.

[Ruru]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

Thanks for that link. Most of it is "change page 46, section(8), "the" to "it" type of edits but the new additions of complete paragraphs is very interesting.

Here's some bits and pieces in that pdf for those that don't plan to read it..maybe you should:

-energy efficient housing. Low cost and government housing owners will get subsidies in order to keep the rents low.
-if your home gets damage and needs to be rebuilt (hurricane/tornado/etc) it has to be energy efficient as defined by this bill
(could be restricted to mortgage type..FHA vs Conventional..not clear enough)
-fleet cars (they really don't define this well) need to be fitted or retro-fitted with alternative fuel engines or addons
-Solar installation requires government permits: $500 residential, $10,000 commercial.
-prohibit HOA's from letting you put solar panels on your roof
-incentives for water efficient products
-clean energy manufacturing - grant program for 500 person or less mfg facility - total grants limited to $500 milliion per year - states have to chip in on loan..minimum 20% of state funds - lol..if they relocate out of US they have to pay back loan - also has salary requirements on the mft for laborers hired
-money to change consumer behavior
-new HUD construction must use "green building"
-a new market for energy-efficient mortgages for very low, low income families (yes they used "low" twice..this one's a doozie though..the person's income will be credited $1 for each $1 spent in energy efficiency for loan qualification purposes.
-special consideration for Indian and Hawaiian borrowers

I stopped on page 120
Also sprinkled with new oversight committees, subsidies for low cost government housing to comply, assistance for the elderly to comply but none for regular Joe.

Gives you an idea of how this will be implemented.

"Here's some bits and pieces in that pdf for those that don't plan to read it..maybe you should:" LOL...it's gonna take time just to get through this thread much less the bill.

But if your synopsis is correct it is just a bill designed to pad fees into the government and that is just alternative taxation. There seems no restrictions on builders or how a house or building is constructed to make sure it is possibly more energy efficient...double glazed windows, proper inner and outer insulation etc. just over site committees that never seem to really do any good. Do they to know if anyone is doing a good job? Since they can't do the job to start. (look at the S.E.C. and the Bernie Madoff scandal ripoff. They audited him every year and didn't find anything at fault. ) Over site committees usually don't know what they are doing. And all the fees for doing work are just middle class taxes. It's ridiculous to burden the more mobile, more transient communities and individuals. And then to encourage the investor in America to put their money with a foreign investment in China or India when the taxes and restrictions do nothing to help the environment just show how fast and far the global economy can go to downgrade USA and screw up the planet. Gore's dumb taxes do not help the planet they only help his pockets.

In Florida they can't even end an argument on how to define water. It takes hours and days and dollars and lawyers and votes to define ground water because they have to waste time debating if it's the states or the central government will have a right to say what the definition of water is all about. I know OUC and Progress Energy are biting at the bit to raise fees and not just tax fees but prices charged for the use of fuel to power our electric use. Almost every town and city government is almost bankrupt and our energy use is NOT declining. But neither is China's or India's electric and fuel charges. All I see is Exxon/Mobile is still making a profit. Make them pay for the changes force them to find and fund the alternatives that seem like they might be around the corner.


HIDDEN TAXES SUCK. A democratic voter happy they don't live in California.

[kaimuki]

Originally Posted by allydriver

Obama in bed with big business and big banking.
Conservatives are suitably fed up, but I ask,where is the liberal outrage?

I'm a Dem and I'm outraged! My Rep didn't pay attention to us, the people (I begged him to vote no), here in Hawaii.

[HappyTexan]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Thanks, I see you took the call. Anyone else?

Okay, back on topic.

What's so bad about making money on cap and trade, weren't they selling some sort of pollution credits a few years ago?

If cap and trade makes burning coal a lot more expensive, fine, I've no doubt that we can get all the FREE energy we need from the sun and wind, and with millions of electric cars on the road in ten years, we can tell OPEC to drink their stinking oil. If G-S makes a buck on selling these things, in a properly regulated marketplace, then let "free enterprise" roll on.

It's not just coal and the bill has nothing about regulation of the market.
carbon credit trading could turn into what the oil futures trading did..driving up the price which in turn drove up prices at the pump.

The current derivatives market is still unregulated almost 2 years since subprimes started failing.

As far as solar and wind, I would have like to see incentives for residential installation and use and utility net-metering to buy back excess from residential people. Instead we got a $500 permit fee we have to pay.

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

It's not just coal and the bill has nothing about regulation of the market.
carbon credit trading could turn into what the oil futures trading did..driving up the price which in turn drove up prices at the pump.

The current derivatives market is still unregulated almost 2 years since subprimes started failing.

As far as solar and wind, I would have like to see incentives for residential installation and use and utility net-metering to buy back excess from residential people. Instead we got a $500 permit fee we have to pay.

Agree that regulation is not part of the bill, best if it's in another bill.

Agree that it'd be nice to have some tax incentives for John Q Homeowner to get on with solar and wind, but we don't count with congress, never will. We used to have tax breaks for solar hot water, Reagan/Bush killed that, IMO since that didn't go into the pockets of big money types. At 61, I'm not holding my breath that we the people will ever take our country back from the vested interests that control things via 33,000 registered lobbyists in DC.

[floridasandy]

Originally Posted by kaimuki

I'm a Dem and I'm outraged! My Rep didn't pay attention to us, the people (I begged him to vote no), here in Hawaii.

GOOD FOR YOU! every american knows that there is something wrong with this bill, besides the obvious.

Last week, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (the "Cap and Trade Energy Bill"), or H.R. 2454, was 946 pages long. Over the weekend, it ballooned to 1,201 pages with no explanation for how or why. It is currently only available online at the House Rules Committee, and is reported as "text of the bill to be introduced." This legislative maneuvering reminds us of the failure of Congress to make bills properly available before consideration.

why on earth would someone rush a bill through of this magnitude, impacting every american with a new TAX, unless they had an agenda? it reminds me of the rush to do the bank bailout

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Spot

This is kind of ridiculous. How does this bill lead to the end of capitalism? It's based on capitalist principles.

When you punish one industry to subsidize another that are competing against each other that is far from capitalism as you get.

[floridasandy]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Agree that regulation is not part of the bill, best if it's in another bill.

Agree that it'd be nice to have some tax incentives for John Q Homeowner to get on with solar and wind, but we don't count with congress, never will. We used to have tax breaks for solar hot water, Reagan/Bush killed that, IMO since that didn't go into the pockets of big money types. At 61, I'm not holding my breath that we the people will ever take our country back from the vested interests that control things via 33,000 registered lobbyists in DC.

it would be very hard to regulate:
In 2008, the Government Accountability Office examined the use of offsets in Europe's Emissions Trading Scheme, which theoretically has a rigorous process to certify that offsets are "additional"—that is, that they cause emissions cuts that wouldn't have occurred if the project hadn't been implemented. But even though projects must be reviewed by both national officials and an external independent monitor to qualify, the GAO found that it was "nearly impossible" to ensure that offsets really were additional. It concluded that offsets present "a significant regulatory challenge" and should probably be viewed as a temporary measure at best. "In practice [offsets] have proved impossibly difficult to successfully implement without fraud," writes Michael Wara, a carbon trading lawyer and coauthor of a Stanford University study that found that one- to two-thirds of offsets authorized by the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism didn't represent true emissions cuts. "Even in the presence of a tough regulatory system…that is working hard to get things right…lots of counterfeit carbon currency is making it into the system."

At a CFTC hearing earlier this year, Skip Hovarth, president of the Natural Gas Supply Association, questioned whether the agency had the tools and the manpower to keep track of such an incredibly complex market, adding, "If this market fails, and all the derivatives and all the markets that attach to it that grow over time fail, it will make this last recession look like nothing.........

[HappyTexan]

How do you measure carbon ? How do you deliver carbon ?
Would I get a paper certificate, a box with nothing in it but assured the carbon is there ?
Better yet..send me a balloon with mouse ears on it to represent our Mickey Mouse government.