Freep backs climate change bill

i'm in james hansens camp (0.00 / 0)

the freep also backed nafta. for real journalism you have to go outside these dead papers that have lost their cirulation.

the phony environmentalis behind cap and trade want to make a trillion dollar business out of cap and trade by the same folks that brought us this depression.

you can read real journalism on cap and trade here:

Great American Bubble Machine
Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression

Gone are Hank Paulson and Neel Kashkari; in their place are Treasury chief of staff Mark Patterson and CFTC chief Gary Gensler, both former Goldmanites. (Gensler was the firm's co-head of finance.) And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits - a booming trillion- dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an "environmental plan," called cap-and-trade. The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.

http://www.rollingstone.com/po...

The paper article in rolling stone is longer and more comprehensive - read it.

democrats should have fun taking this home to their districts in 2010. The last i heard obama's approval rating in ohio is only 30%. we could see a repeat of jimmy carter in 2012.

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by: jsalera @ Sun Jul 12, 2009 at 23:46:19 PM CDT

Conspiracy Theory (4.00 / 1)

Reading Matt Taibbi's comment above and his rant on Goldman Sachs here (from a guy who is normally insightful and well-informed) is like reading a rambling paranoid-fueled disquisition on how the Illuminati controls the world or how the Freemasons are the true founders of the U.S.A. Taibbi seems to think Goldman Sachs was in complete control of our economy and had engineered its crash on purpose to benefit themselves. The economic collapse has its roots in lots of things, from stupid mortgage brokers, so-called "financial wizzes" who packaged mortgage-backed securities, people who had no business putting no money down on a $500,000 mortgage in the first place, and the idiots who decided it was okay to insure those loans. There's plenty of blame to go around. Not some Evil Cabal of Goldman Sachs people.

Sorry, but cap-and-trade makes sense.

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by: rich @ Mon Jul 13, 2009 at 08:10:34 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

dont you think it's best to refute the facts instead of crying CONSPIRACY? (0.00 / 0)

here what taibbi has to say about those kind of charges:

Normally I don't care so much when people criticize my work. It goes with the territory. But in this case, the response of a bank like Goldman and Goldman's supporters is characteristic of the subject matter in a way that is important to point out, even after the fact of publication. These are powerful people who know how to play the public relations game, have all the appropriate contacts, and have a playbook that they follow to discredit their critics. Whether it's me now or the next guy who takes them on, they're going to come back with some kind of charge, be it "Everyone was doing it," or "We're just smarter than the other guys, you can't blame us for that," or "The real culprits are the ineffective regulators," something.

They're going to say that and more, but whether it's this time or the next time, the important thing is to pay attention to what they don't say. And what they didn't say about this piece is that it was wrong. They didn't deny any of it. They said others were just as bad, they said I was a bad guy, they said it was a conspiracy theory. But they didn't say it was mistaken, and that's the only thing that matters.

This is becomming a michigan liberal tradition. There's another guy here who, when he can't refute a real jounrnalists argument, cries COMMUNIST. And, now it's CONSPIRACY!

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by: jsalera @ Mon Jul 13, 2009 at 09:59:05 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

But there's no argument... (0.00 / 0)

All he's been doing is ranting about how Goldman Sachs People are putting the fix in. Sure there are Goldman Sachs people floating around. Here's the problem with Taibbi's charges in a nutshell from someone who understands economics.

First of all, Taibbi doesn't say that Goldman Sachs is just a sort of Everyman; he claims they helped engineer crises so that they could profit from them.  Second of all, ignorance leads Taibbi to ask the wrong questions, and provide no useful answers.  The problem isn't that pointy-headed bankers were rooking us--that may have been an individual problem for individual investors, but a crisis this big cannot be explained by any sort of fraud.  To make these charges stick, Taibbi needs to posit a ludicrous level of naivite among institutional investors.  Being satisfied with sloppy answers, he doesn't talk about, say, Goldman's role in the AIG collapse, or how you build a banking system without putting bankers in charge of it.  He doesn't prove anything except that Matt Taibbi knows little about how the financial system works.

A lot of laymen, and not a few financial writers, like Taibbi because he's willing to take the piss out of self-important bankers.  But you can learn about how the banking system works without being coopted by the bankers--look at Michael Lewis, whose Liar's Poker remains a classic twenty years on.  What you can't do is build cartoon villains.  Felix Salmon isn't overly friendly to Wall Street.  But he doesn't write rubbish.

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by: rich @ Mon Jul 13, 2009 at 11:42:23 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Must every conversation with you go thusly? (0.00 / 0)

A.  I never said Alexander Cockburn wasn't a credible source because he is/was a communist.  I said as such because he remained an apologist for Stalin long after it was apparent that Stalinism had killed tens of millions of people.

B.  That wasn't a "real journalist" who wrote that piece in particular, but someone actively involved in campaigns to not build new nuclear power plants.  Predictably, the thing was poorly written, riddled with non-sequitirs and irrelevancies, and veered off its intended topic so often I was dizzy by the end of it.

C.  The first and best way to establishing whether someone has a credible argument is not to first judge whether that argument confirms your personal suspicions.

D.  Rich didn't make any claims of a conspiracy.  He said that Matthew Taibbi's accusation that Goldman-Sachs had rigged the entire game for its own benefit runs afoul the considerable body of evidence that says that there are a lot of other players who share the blame for last year's financial sector collapse.  In fact, Taibbi says as such by offering up Goldman-Sach's defense that they weren't the only ones guilty of gaming the system.  Taibbi refuted his own argument.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Mon Jul 13, 2009 at 12:15:56 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

here's why every conversation with me goes thusly (0.00 / 0)

you put something in front of this website opposite their own biases, such as cap and trade is just another wall street casino scheme that was bought before the election, GS put 4.5 million into the party that wants to pass it, and rich goes right past all that to this:

Reading Matt Taibbi's comment above and his rant on Goldman Sachs here (from a guy who is normally insightful and well-informed) is like reading a rambling paranoid-fueled disquisition on how the Illuminati controls the world or how the Freemasons are the true founders of the U.S.A.

The essence of taibbi's piece on cap and trade is it's a fraud that has nothing to do with environmentalism. A very prevalent view. Let's leave the banking stuff out and stick to the point of the post. If cap and trade isn't an environmental fraud state your case. and hopefully leaving the distractions of the illuminati and freemasons out of it.

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by: jsalera @ Mon Jul 13, 2009 at 14:27:02 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

That's because of the article you linked to... (0.00 / 0)

You brought the banks into this by linking to Matt Taibbi's article in Rolling Stone that incorporated the proposed cap-and-trade program into the larger story he says there is about Goldman-Sachs.  It was an entirely relevant point.

Second, a cap-and-trade program worked very well in reducing the amount of sulfur dioxide from smokestack emissions, and thus addressing the problem of acid rain.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Tue Jul 14, 2009 at 09:25:04 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

The Essence... (0.00 / 0)

That's the essence. But where are Taibbi's facts that Waxman-Markey is rigged in favor of Goldman Sachs? The bill has been praised by Al Gore as a step in the right direction and criticized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Or is Al Gore now in Goldman Sachs pocket, too? Along with Henry Waxman and every House Member who voted for the bill?

Taibbi's whole premise rests on the idea that Goldman Sachs has control over the World Financial Markets, which runs like this: the Goldman Sachs Cabal wrecked the financial markets for their benefit, therefore the same Goldman Sachs Cabal will rig cap and trade for their own benefit. It's a dubious claim at best. It's fear-mongering and willful ignorance at worst.

We all want to declare someone, anyone, as the Evil Villains behind the Financial Collapse. But the problem is that the villains are spread out everywhere, and their motivations run from Selfishness, to Greed, to Arrogance, to Ignorance, to just plain Stupidity.

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by: rich @ Tue Jul 14, 2009 at 09:50:25 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Cap and Trade, unfortunately, is the only game in town (0.00 / 0)

There just isn't any apparent appetite in Washington for a carbon tax.  The president campaigned on cap-and-trade and a significant, scientifically illiterate segment of the Beltway still insists it is better equipped to interpret climate science than are actual climate scientists.

A carbon tax would be better and more effective, but it's a politically dead option.  I don't know that I'd write off the likes of Joe Romm as "phony environmentalists" for recognizing as such.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Mon Jul 13, 2009 at 08:55:43 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

As long as our Senate remains conservative--good luck. (0.00 / 0)

Climate Change is a fact. The most conclusive report issued during the Bush Administration in 2007 and conclusive now in the Obama Admin. illustrates that climate change is not political as so many conservatives try to make out. Read about the 196 page report relative to the U.S.:
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/...

As for Cap and Trade, everyone needs to read "The Great American Bubble Machine" by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone.
It's a must read. http://www.rollingstone.com/po...

I've blogged over 535 blogs in "Our World and Everything in It" about the environment and still the skeptics keep coming, and most of them are conservative. An article out of the U.K. recently cited the fact that Exxon Mobil is still throwing money into skeptics coffers to keep the propaganda going:http://digg.com/environment/ExxonMobil_Continuing_to_Fund_Climate_Skeptic_Groups.  

We're just not getting the urgency of the whole thing. I've also blogged about the wealthy in this country taking over, they just haven't put on their crowns yet, or that they are polishing their crowns. Well, the crowns are on and Goldman Sacks is probably king, followed by every massive lobby there is.

As I just posted on Huff Post: There is no politics in this country or freedom. We're owned lock, stock, and barrel by companies like Goldman Sacks and whoever are the most powerful lobbyists of the day. Until congress is no longer "For Sale" we're never going to make a difference in the way our country is run. We won't get national health care, we won't move on with cleaner energy, we won't stop the carnage against animals, parks, and intrusions on property by big utilities, and we won't stop the gun trade. All of this reads insurance/pharmaceutical lobby, oil/coal lobby, agricultural/hunting lobby, utilities lobby, and the NRA respectively. Just combining the money from these top lobbies along with companies like Goldman Sacks clearly delineates who the kings are. They've donned their crowns and there isn't much we can do about it without a total revolution.

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by: riar @ Tue Jul 14, 2009 at 09:07:53 AM CDT

You've Made My Point... (0.00 / 0)

that Left Wing Conspiracy Theories (like the one Taibbi is peddling in the pages of Rolling Stone about Goldman Sachs) are just as cockamamie as Right Wing Conspiracies about the Masons and how the Famed Y2K Bug was going to send the world into utter chaos.  

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by: rich @ Tue Jul 14, 2009 at 09:31:25 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Research (4.00 / 1)

Baloney. That would be outright slander then. Taibbi's story wasn't presented as only "theory" like the endless stories about the Masons. You're comparing apples to oranges. Let Goldman Sachs sue Taibbi and Rolling Stone. Won't happen. There is so much research put into that article, something most people don't have a clue about unless they are a writer. Goldman Sachs maneuverings are facts that can be documented and Taibbi did a great job.

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by: riar @ Sat Jul 18, 2009 at 07:14:58 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Obama and the Goldman Fiasco: Is This America Under Democratic Leadership? (0.00 / 0)

A democrat voices the concern of many others concerning the administration's relationship with Goldman Sachs

from huff post by peter daou. juy, l7

Obama and the Goldman Fiasco: Is This America Under Democratic Leadership?

I live in downtown Manhattan, within a few blocks of the new Goldman Sachs World Headquarters and the (still) aching hole that was once the World Trade Center. The latter is a site where time stopped and the world gasped, where the unthinkable happened and heroes laid down their lives; the former is the site of unthinkable greed.

What does it say that the toil and sweat of the first responders who willingly streamed into the burning towers is used to enrich people who "earn" more in a week than a nurse or teacher makes in a year? What does it say that Iranians can march by the millions, put life and limb on the line, while Americans sit meekly by as a financial colossus with tentacles deep into the federal government enriches itself beyond our imagination on the backs of the poor and struggling? What does it say that the media and online commentariat, the crafters of conventional wisdom, spend a hundred times the focus on Michael Jackson and Sarah Palin? What does it say that Democrats, handed the reins of power, are allowing this to happen under their watch?

read the rest. a must read.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

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by: jsalera @ Sat Jul 18, 2009 at 09:29:26 AM CDT