Fascism at Work, Hold on to Your Wallet!

News Flash!

The 100+ year old investment banking firm Lehman Brothers has just yesterday filed for bankruptcy. It would appear that its management has been blindsided and overtaken by mismanagement and the events of the subprime mortgage meltdown. How interesting! Just last year the company, in an effort to boost the profits of its clients including Al Gore's carbon trading scam, the Alliance for Climate Protection issued a report concerning the economic and financial impact of "climate change" a century hence. Hoping to board the cash bandwagon of governments implementing various schemes of "carbon trading" they even presumed to assign a value to a ton of carbon emissions on a government controlled market 50 years in the future. The hubris of socialist theoreticians appears to be boundless.

A year ago they couldn’t predict their bankruptcy but were predicting the climate 100 years ahead. Thousands of green militants have been using the Lehman report as a proof of global warming and impending chaos. Lehman Bros. said it! sacred words! Its scientific advisor is James Hansen! The report is the basis for policies on climate change in Spain, Argentina and several other countries playing the progress game; it is used by economy professors playing the climatologists; by newspapers editorials, and even by a State Secretary: Lehman Bros., said it!

Lehman Brothers spoke in his report about the climate in 2100 and its economic and financial projections, about climate change costs several decades away.

By the way, we also learn that Merryll Lynch, while teetering on the brink of bankruptcy is heavily involved in the carbon trading scheme and has now merged with BankAmerica. Not many remember or are aware how heavily invested in the Kyoto Treaty and banking on huge governmental contracts that Enron was, preferring to assign that debacle to the so called failure of capitalism.

The interests of the environmental movement in acquiring more power and influence are reasonably clear. So too are the interests of bureaucrats for whom control of CO2 is a dream-come-true.

After all, CO2 is a product of breathing itself. Politicians can see the possibility of taxation that will be cheerfully accepted because it is necessary for saving the world. Nations have seen how to exploit this issue in order to gain competitive advantages. But, by now, things have gone much further.

The case of ENRON is illustrative in this respect. Before disintegrating in a pyrotechnic display of unscrupulous manipulation, ENRON had been one of the most intense lobbyists for Kyoto. It had hoped to become a trading firm dealing in carbon emission rights. This was no small hope. These rights are likely to amount to over a trillion dollars, and the commissions will run into many billions. Hedge funds are actively examining the possibilities. It is probably no accident that Gore, himself, is associated with such activities . The sale of indulgences is already in full swing with organizations selling offsets to one's carbon footprint while sometimes acknowledging that the offsets are irrelevant. ....Archer Daniels Midland (Americas largest agribusiness) has successfully lobbied for ethanol requirements for gasoline, and the resulting demand for ethanol is already leading to large increases in corn prices and associated hardship in the developing world (not to mention poorer car performance).

And now we learn that Barclays Bank UK will acquire the profitable sector of Lehman Brothers operations and the remainder will be left to be mopped up in all probability by the US taxpayer.