The smell of money

Image: Stickers - Buy a carbon Credit - save a banker

Thanks to Glenn Beck, we get bit more insight into the tangled web that The House of Global Warming was built on.

Who would have thought? Goldman Sachs has been working hard to save the environment for years.

Generation Investment Management (GIM) was founded by Al Gore, and a few friends, which included David Blood (former Goldman executive), Mark Ferguson (Goldman) and Peter Harris (Goldman). They are the fifth largest shareholder in the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). Then in 2006, when the CCX needed some extra funding, who should step up to buy 10% of the company – Goldman Sachs.

CCX is an exchange that won’t be doing a heck of a lot if carbon trading doesn’t become mandatory. All of these players have a vested interest in Cap N Trade legislation.

But it’s not just Goldman Sachs getting in on the deal to make money out of the trading-scheme-based-on-thin-air.

In 2001, a man was apparently working on a device (?) to make carbon trading possible. He filed a patent, then died. His wife onsold this patent application — to Franklin Raines, the CEO of … wait for it, Fannie Mae. The same CEO who has committed massive accounting fraud.

Now the story gets more slippery: In 2000 the Chicago Climate Exchange was helped to get started by the Joyce Foundation. It’s a charity set up years ago, that now manages around a billion in funds. Here’s how Beck tells it:

The Joyce Foundation is like the George Soros’ TIDES Foundation. In fact, it’s actually bigger than TIDES and even funds TIDES. Think of it as a place where uber-rich and powerful liberals like to dump their money into, so the cash can be spread around to their pet projects without a direct link.

There was one influential member on the board of the Joyce Foundation at the time the Chicago Climate Exchange got its seed money; someone instrumental in steering the funds towards the creation of the Chicago Climate Exchange. They were on the board from 1994-2002. The founder of the Chicago Climate Exchange, Richard Sandor, said that he “knew (this person) well,” which is perhaps how the money was awarded to the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, where Sandor was a research professor. I’ll get back to that person in a minute.

Who could it be — that one influential member of the board, who was active in getting the CCX started? Apparently it was a man named Barack Obama.

And that patent application owned by the Fannie Mae CEO? It was finally approved by the patent office on Nov. 7, 2006. Coincidentally the day after the Democrats took control of Congress.

So now, Fannie Mae, who is congressionally mandated to “make housing more affordable,” is poised to reap billions on a system that has nothing to do with housing except for that it would make housing costs go up.

There’s more:

Remember when Fannie purchased risky mortgages from banks, bundled them together and sold to investors as mortgage-backed securities? And then the housing market was absolutely destroyed? Well, former Fannie VP Scott Lesmes was responsible for that bundling.

Well, here’s the good news: Not only will this new carbon trading “system” try the exact same bundling method (except with air); they are using the exact same guy: Scott Lesmes.

The full Glenn Beck piece. He has challenged the media to report and investigate these connections…

Hat tip to Larry 🙂

10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

81 comments to The smell of money

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    Mark D.

    Soros is a Fabian!

    AT this web site:
    http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_143947.html

    “in 1947 George Soros took off for London. There he worked as a waiter at Quaglino’s Restaurant, as a house painter and an apple picker, enrolling in 1949 at that famous Fabian Socialist institution, the London School of Economics (LSE), where he studied philosophy and economics.”

    Also found on the web:

    A notable recent member of the Joyce Foundation’s Board of Directors was Barack Obama. While Obama was a director of the Joyce Foundation, the Foundation issued

    * a $347,600 grant to Richard Sandor “to design a mid-western pilot program for the voluntary trading of carbon dioxide and other emissions that cause climate change, with the goal of answering methodological questions and resolving operational issues.” (2000)
    * a $760,100 grant to the J. L. Kellog School of Management at Northwestern University, working with Sandor, to fund the design of the Carbon Climate Exchange, otherwise known as the CCX. (2001)

    The President of the Joyce Foundation in 2000, when the foundation made its first grant to the Climate Exchange, was Paula DiPerna, who is now executive vice president of the Chicago Climate Exchange in charge of corporate recruitment and public policy, as well as president of CCX International.

    DiPerna left the foundation in November 2001 and joined the Exchange. It was the same year in which the foundation gave its second and much larger grant to the exchange. The Exchange launched in 2003.

    And

    The Fabian Society has three global goals, one is to centralize credit in the hands of the Fabians which they’ve done with this huge fund at 10 Downing Street which has fifty-five trillion dollars in it parked in the Carbon Disclosure Project. The Fabian’s goal is to centralize credit with the state and control spending, lending and taxing and in fact, they want a global carbon tax in the global common so everyone pays them for the right to breath out. The second is to have global governance through a global elite of teachers at university level. And the third is eugenics, that is, the depopulation of the earth through sterilization, or abortion, or genocide. Fabians are known most amongst the Oxford-educated Rhodes Scholars. The Fabians just had a conference in early 2010 which the Prime Minster of Britain, Gordon Brown, gave a keynote speech in which 700 delegates were in attendance.

    Of course you know that William Jefferson Clinton is a Rhodes Scholar along with Robert Reich US, Malcolm Turnbull AU, Tony Abbott AU, among others.

    Finally look here to tie all of this together with Tony Blair and Maurice Strong.
    http://abeldanger.blogspot.com/2010/02/history-of-city-of-london-fabian.html

    I think I want to go into hiding now………..

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    janama

    Frankfurt prosecutors said on Friday they had arrested four people in Germany and Britain in connection with suspected tax evasion in carbon permit trading and 50 more people were being investigated.

    He declined to name individuals, as is customary under German law. Deutsche Bank said seven of its employees were suspects in the investigation.

    “Deutsche Bank believes the allegations raised against its employees can be rebutted,” a Deutsche Bank spokesman said.

    Britain’s HM Revenue and Customs, which investigates tax fraud, said it could not comment.

    Apart from tax evasion, the authorities were also looking into allegations of money laundering, the Frankfurt
    prosecutor’s office spokesman said.

    “There have been raids and other measures in Britain, Denmark, Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Cyprus,” he said.

    The probe in Germany, where total damage is estimated at 180 million euros ($239.7 million), follows investigations in Britain, France, Spain, Norway and the Netherlands into carbon credit fraud over the last year.

    The UK has its own, separate investigation into tax fraud in the carbon market. It arrested and subsequently bailed nine people last August.

    http://planetark.org/wen/57822

    More than 2,450 UK and German tax officers were involved in the operation, with 81 house and office searches. The UK investigation saw 13 arrests in England and eight in Scotland as part of a major inquiry by HM Revenue & Customs.

    Britain removed VAT from carbon allowances last year, as European authorities revealed that carbon-trading fraudsters may have accounted for up to 90pc of all market activity in some European countries.

    Criminals mainly from Britain, France, Spain, Denmark and Holland are estimated to have pocketed €5bn (£4.5bn).

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/7659747/Tax-officers-arrest-22-in-UK-carbon-fraud-probe.html

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    Bulaman

    Back in 2008 before the crash here is Lehman bros trying to get out from under.. The links between Lehman and Gore were through shared directors,

    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.971784

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    Heny chance

    I can smell Chicago from my house.
    Years ago we had a company rapidly crash called enron. Between cooking their books and futurs trading frauds, they started the wind turbine company now under the name GE Wind. Enron worked closely with algore, the Democrats and Dr James Hansen in getting SOX, COX, NOX and CH4 declared toxic.

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    […] Obama wants Cap and Trade. The smell of money « JoNova There was one influential member on the board of the Joyce Foundation at the time the Chicago […]

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  • #

    The smell of money? More like the smell of blood! The problem for the greens is real simple: the money and the power is starting to break for the skeptics. I wish we could all mutually congratulate ourselves for fighting the good fight and winning the battle because we had the higher moral ground. Unfortunately, it was, is and always will be about the money. People are now paying attention because they are feeling it in the wallet. When a politician tells people to “get by with less” and it is an option but not a necessity then the politician needs to get his resume in order.

    A seminal moment has come to pass. Now, the games will begin in earnest. The next green scam is right around the corner. The question is, will we see it in time to stop it?

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    Brian G Valentine

    Smart investment counselors have advised, “Stay as far away as you can from ‘green’ investments or anything that has to do with ‘global warming’ etc because these investments will not hold value, they are based on false premises.”

    That indeed is very good advice.

    Obama does not want Cap and Trade. Obama would live to see the fallout of that horrendous mistake

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    pat

    new development…

    30 April: ICE Press Release: IntercontinentalExchange Announces Acquisition of Climate Exchange
    **Climate Exchange’s Emissions Markets Complement ICE’s Leading Integrated Futures and OTC Markets**
    Additional details will be provided upon the completion of the transaction, at which time Climate Exchange will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of ICE, operating under the Climate Exchange’s respective brand names.
    “The combination of Climate Exchange’s emissions markets and ICE’s futures and OTC energy markets is an important and logical strategic combination for our customers and shareholders, and clearly an exciting opportunity for ICE to grow and further diversify our revenues,” said ICE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey C. Sprecher. “ICE has been a partner with Climate Exchange and Dr. Sandor since 2003, and we have worked together toward the development and expansion of the emissions markets. The leadership that Climate Exchange has shown in establishing market standards in Europe, and increasingly the U.S. and Asia, has driven its success, and we see continued growth opportunities within these nascent markets globally.” …
    http://ir.theice.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=465267

    Sprecher is on the Management Team of SAFE! check out the highly militarised team and its financial connections….

    SAFE: Securing America’s Future Energy Management
    Jeffrey C. Sprecher
    CEO, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE)
    Eric S. Schwartz
    Former co-CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management
    John F. Lehman
    Former Secretary of the United States Navy
    General John P. Abizaid, U.S. Army (Ret.)
    Former Commander of the U.S. Central Command
    Maurice R. Greenberg
    Chairman and CEO, C.V. Starr & Company, Inc.
    (from bio – Mr. Greenberg retired as Chairman and CEO of American International Group, Inc. (AIG) in March 2005, after serving as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from May 1989 until March 2005. He became President and Chief Executive Officer of AIG in l967…
    He is the past Chairman, Deputy Chairman, and Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York..)
    http://www.secureenergy.org/site/page.php?node=376&project=2

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  • #
    Ross

    Eddie @ 6 . You are absolutely right. Have to also add a lot of politics into the mix.
    ( This is why the UK elections are very important — that the Tories win on their own. They seem to be the least wedded to the AGW agenda ).
    Here is another report on Jo’s story

    http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=531731

    Brian @ 7 is right that Obama doesn’t want cap and trade ( even though he may have been tied up with the Chicago exchange at one time. ) I think Obama’s main priority is more energy independence.

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    Louis Hissink

    A well written summary of the politics behind AGW, including the money angle, is the book Climategate by Brian Sussman. Just finished reading it on the flight from Port Hedland last night.

    The general agenda is to depopulate the US, while some of them enrich themselves at our expense. Strange, or perhaps not so, that the richest seem to be also the socialists in a political sense.

    The actual agenda is to destroy the idea and practice of private property, and hence capitalism. This is achieved not by violent revolution but from incremental increase in state/government regulation so that while private property seems to exist, the individual actually cannot do anything with it unless that activity complies with state/government regulations. The totalitarian state by stealth, AKA Fabianism.

    Australian Nartive Title legislation is part of this diminishment of the concept of private property.

    The Resources Tax is another tax based on the economic fallacy of economic rent.

    Mark D. Excellent sleuthing – especially the idendity of the Rhodes Scholars – and one reason I am not a member of the Australian Liberal Party, nor do I support it – it too seems to have been taken over by the Fabians/Keynesians. I have always wondered about the portability of a politician switching political allegiance between Labor and the Coalition here in OZ – they are all, to a degree, socialists, or statists to be more precise.

    Eddy, This fight is far from over – we are fighting the system, and right now I am having a skirmish with it.

    Remember folks, these people prefer to be called anything except by their true title – Fabians – progressives, social democrats, any label is acceptable except for the “F” word – and by their active dismissal of the Fabian Society as an irrelevant debating society.

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  • #
    Rereke Whaakaro

    janama: #2

    These police raids … what are they looking for?

    Perhaps the criminals were hiding billions of Euro’s under the mattress?

    Or perhaps they had a whole lot of carbon dioxide hidden under the bed?

    Or perhaps the people raided were bloggers, and people who commented on blogs? … Oh! Oh! (gulp).

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  • #
    Ronnell

    The brave new poor world of climate communism – 1

    http://www.twawki.com/?p=5529

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  • #
    Heny chance

    I found this on the desk of one of the ladies in my company

    The Love of Money is the root of all evil.

    …And women need roots.

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    Mark

    Found this today:

    http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/05/virginia-vs-michael-mann-ken-cuccinelli.html

    Personally, I think SM has gone off on a tangent with this one. Why defend Mann who has always had a “take no prisoners” attitude. Mann decided early on that politics on a world scale was his plan, he should not be surprised or offended if a real politician now decides to go after him for whatever reason.

    What do others here think?

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  • #
    Ronnell

    The Labor party, federal as well as both New South Wales and Queensland is determined to decimate the seafood industry through fanatical leftist green policies in the guise of “saving the enviroment”!!!!!

    This must be stopped!!!

    Treasonous policies against average Australians will see that the labor party is utterly destroyed at impending state and federal elections!!!

    Fraser Island……
    Minister Hunt warns of fish ban:-

    http://www.gympietimes.com.au/story/2010/04/15/minister-hunt-warns-of-fish-ban/

    Coffs Harbour………
    Fishermen’s Co-op on the line:-

    http://www.coffscoastadvocate.com.au/story/2010/04/21/coffs-harbour-fishermens-co-op-marine-park/

    http://www.coffscoastindependent.com.au/news/local/news/general/labor-ripping-heart-out-of-commercial-fishing-hartsuyker/1807523.aspx?storypage=0

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  • #
    Ronnell

    The Greenhouse Gas Theory Under a Cloud
    Climate Change, the Sun and the Albedo Effect

    http://climate-change.suite101.com/article.cfm/clouds-and-the-greenhouse-gas-theory

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  • #
    Ross

    MarkD @1. When I first read Lord Monkton’s comments about the world government idea I did not really accept it until I found and read the UN doc. involved and then when they removed the “offending” words before Copenhagen I really had to accept his view.
    Now I read your link about the Fabians and I have a similar “unbelievable” feeling but given what’s happening ( and seeing the UN paper discussed at their Feb. Bali meeting )I am able to accept it more readily.
    Thanks for the link.

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  • #
    Speedy

    Janama

    Why is it that the green schemes always seem to attract the crooks and shysters? Looking at the home insulation scheme here recently, it seems because of the following:
    1. The policy is not well thought out and planned.
    2. Implementation is poorly controlled.
    3. It is a whole new ball game – so lots of new loopholes to use.
    4. There is a lot of money involved.
    The people who are spending the money don’t expect to get value for it.

    So we have the perfect storm – whether it’s “Sky Money” in New Guinea, Carbon Trading in Brussells or Windmills in Spain. A big bag of money, a mob who don’t know how to spend it properly, and a few sharpsters who know how to pick a sucker.

    An excellent article, Jo, by the way – and very scary! This indicates that the people who are in government are not public servants in the true sense of the word. They are helping themselves. The same goes for the CEO’s of the large corporations mentioned – they are doing no more than lining their own pockets.

    While children starve so we can have bio-crops. The whole thing is completely amoral, if not a crime against humanity.

    Cheers (?),

    Speedy

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    I think it’s even “worse than we thought.” The scamming of the billions and trillions of whatever currency is not their real purpose. That is just a smoke screen to hide their real purpose: the destruction of human values for the sake of that destruction. I say this because their actions, if allowed to continue, will destroy the bases of value that stands behind the billions and trillions they are scamming: the ability and freedom of individuals to create human values.

    They cannot be ignorant of the consequences of their ideas and actions. The history of the 20th Century screams that the final result is poverty, despair, death, and destruction without exception. That they continue ever more eagerly, exposes that is actually what they want to happen.

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    Ronnell

    “If Guam Gets Too Overpopulated It Might Tip Over”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNZczIgVXjg

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  • #
    Speedy

    Ronnell @ 18

    Call me a dill, if you want, but I’m confused. The IPCC know little or very little about 9 of the 12 or so key factors they’ve identified as driving climate, and yet we see two things:

    1. They make little or no effort to develop an understanding to fill those knowledge gaps, and
    2. They are still 90%+ certain that global warming is caused by man-made emissions – it must be the CO2!

    I have a theory. That the IPCC are emotionally and/or politically attached to their existing conclusions and are only interested in evidence that supports that conclusion. In which case they will ignore or bury the article you linked, just as they have the earlier “earth-iris” work.

    If this theory is proved correct, then we would conclude that the IPCC is not following the scientific method, and, therefore, has no scientific validity.

    Cheers,

    Speedy

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    Mark D.

    Louis @ 10, thank you. I only recently learned about Fabians (from you) but I have been a keen observer of politics for a while. Putting pieces together and connecting dots along the way. Additionally I have a good friend that has followed green and socialist issues for a long time. The Fabians are seemingly the last missing link in his and my paranoid (and getting worse) views.

    WE NEED to put the Fabians out in the light of day. Expose them to the scrutiny of the electorate.

    Ross @ 19; I am happy that you can now see that world domination is a part of what is behind AGW. It is hard to believe, it is scary to believe. The truth about the Fabians is that they operate on a very slow but carefully planned schedule. Different than most world dominance (brought to you by megalomaniacs) strategies, the Fabians are ideologues with plenty of time. Take a look at their coat of arms; a wolf wearing a sheepskin. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_eno8NXaEoxA/S4ANYuIGtwI/AAAAAAAABkM/bG20MAW2g80/s1600-h/fabian.jpg

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    Mark D.

    P.S. Louis, it seems there must be a Fabian here on the blog as I see you and I both got tagged with a thumbs down. I’ll wear it as a badge of honor!

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    Dave N

    As Janama illustrates, this thing was so very open to fraud right from the get-go it isn’t funny.. and to add insult to injury, it’s all built on a false premise.

    Jeff Goldblum describes it here

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    Brian G Valentine

    I agree, Guam probably will tip over.

    I did learn some of the language spoken in Guam from some people whilst I was working in Iraq.

    That language (and a whole bunch of others around the world) is going the way of the dinosaur all because, of the TV and internet.

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    […] home to roost! ; Cuccinelli vs Mann ; Opponents against draconian global warming laws lining up ; The green stench of selling hot air! ; Climate models keep […]

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    Donald (S-E of SA)

    And we all know who their man in Australia is – the same man utterly desperate to have an ETS/CPRS, the same man who is “passionate” about AGW (but very strangely professes little knowledge of the overwhelming evidence against it), the man who owes GS so badly.

    And let’s not forget his two little handmaidens, Hunt and Macfarlane, brainlessly assisting him to deliver Australia.

    At least our man knows there are millions of Coalition supporters now watching his every move and who are ready to hound him from here to eternity if he puts one foot back in the current sleaze of Obama’s Washington/Chicago.

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    janama

    Speedy: @20

    “Why is it that the green schemes always seem to attract the crooks and shysters?”

    It’s because they were badly thought out schemes so it was open for fraudsters. Just like the BER.(Building Education Revolution)- for overseas readers the BER is a program set up to create work in the building industry to survive the global economic crisis by giving all the schools new buildings. There are stories of buildings costing $1 million where local contractors could have build it for $1/2 million.

    This current green/left government is absolutely hopeless at organising anything, let alone a country! And to think I voted for them.

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  • #
    Ken Stewart

    Mark D 24 & 1:
    We should point out that just because someone (once) was a Rhodes Scholar or attended the London School of Economics does not necessarily mean he/she is a Fabian. That is guilt by association. Likewise there would be plenty of Fabians who did not attend it.
    OTOH there are plenty of policies and regulations now in place that have pretty much destroyed private ownership eg tree clearing legislation, green zones (as above), barrier reef protection…
    Ken

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    Bulldust

    For all the conspiracy theorists… here’s the Fabian Organisation link for the Aussie web site 😉

    http://www.fabian.org.au/1.asp

    They are basically just another leftist thinktank/advocacy group. Much as everyone likes a good conspiracy story, pointing at “reds under the bed” on this web site is only going to trivilise some of the good work that is done here. It is hardly going to help the cause now is it?

    No doubt you will want to mark me down, but think about it… better to spend the time researching the money flows and pointing out the corrupt nature of the prime movers behind the socialist policies (like Rudd’s latest mining tax) than to scream and shout about conspiracies.

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    Bulldust

    Thanks Ken for a balanced view – my brother went to the LSE, and he is as yuppie-capitalist and unFabian as the next person. Abbott is a Rhodes scholar, and I don’t see him backing socialist policies anytime soon.

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    Brian G Valentine

    Sorry, Bull, but a lot of people promoting the “green death” (really) behave like Fabian Socialists.

    It’s not a conspiracy theory – it’s just an observation about some people who have decided to take a Machiavellian approach to their goals (for the public’s “own good) because they have no other means by which to achieve them

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    Speedy

    Janama

    Bad spending and economic cluster-stuffs all of them – from the Stalinists down. Why we should think the Ruddsters will be any different is beyond me.

    Trouble is, these guys are great at grabbing the money, not so hot at spending it wisely. Governments need to spend the public money like it’s their own. But Fabians don’t believe in private ownership, so they can’t!

    Cheers,

    Speedy

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    Bulldust

    Brian:

    I hear you, and the irony is that I have always thought of myself as left-of-centre, but that was using the US political system as a baseline. That puts me pretty much in the Democrats or Liberal Party position in Australian terms LOL. Left-of-centre is a very subjective term… means very different things in Australia to the US to a country like Holland. Personally I think Australia has the balance pretty well right, but Rudd is heading off the deep end atm with the mining super tax and ETS.

    I don’t see these folks as Machiavellian, more wannabes. They are lobbying in one direction, and the right-wing think tanks lobby in the other direction. Much like Glenn Beck is balanced by the likes of Michael Moore in the US. As long as the balance is maintained nothing too dramatic ever happens.

    Personally I think it is inevitable as socieities develop that the politics tends to shift to a social-democratic point in the political spectrum… i.e. left-of-centre by US standards, or pretty much the centre by Aussie standards. This does not mean, however, that I support concepts such as an ETS, eugenics or any of the other evils mentioned above. I am certainly no Fabian.

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    janama

    What was that line of Reagan’s when congress was debating an important agenda – “the right hand doesn’t know what the far right hand is doing”. bom bom.

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    Anne-Kit Littler

    Back to the beginning of Jo’s article:

    (Sorry can’t resist this!)

    David Blood and Al Gore start a company together and whaddaya get? … hmmm = blood and gore (hehe) 😉

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    MattB

    To be honest Bulldust the ETS and Super Tax are not even left of centre really. I don’t think Turnbull is left of centre economically, and the ETS is an economic solution to what could be a left of centre concept (AGW) but actually science is not really right or left wing it just is science.

    What you could say about Rudd is that he appears to deliver poor versions of what could be decent policies. he likes to get all the accolades of seeking expert and independent advice (Henry and Garnaut)… then sit on the reports for too long then suddenly out of the blue bring out some half-cocked bastardisation of those reviews… or rather policies that claim to be based on those reviews but are essentially unrecognisable ideological policies.

    I feel very jealous of the poms at the moment. Maybe we need the democrats back.

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  • #
    Louis Hissink

    MattB:

    I suppose you haven’t studied economics – I did, as part of my MSc.

    That wrote,

    “To be honest Bulldust the ETS and Super Tax are not even left of centre really.”

    How?

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    MattB

    well an ETS and the CPRS are two different things Louis. is that what you mean? Don’t ask me to defend Rudd’s policy as I won’t. On the super tax I should have said a resource tax, as again the super one is specifically rudd and thus left of centre I’ll grant that. Ken Henry does not strike me as a lefty… and I assume he knows a lot more about economics than your MSc taught you Louis, even if he was a lefty.

    The economics blogs I follow do not seem to be blasting the henry review as a lefty conspiracy… but they are not as kind to Swan’s interpretation.

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    MattB

    I mean even Howard wanted an ETS… damn lefty.

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    Mervyn Sullivan

    If you want to know how the “great global warming swindle” was able to be perpetrated, you need only do one thing… follow the money.

    How amazing to see that some of the world’s most influential, wealthy and powerful names keep popping up in relation to carbon trading. It starts with Canadian billionaire industrialist Sir Maurice Strong… there’s the Rothschilds… Goldman Sachs… Al Gore… and the list just goes on and on and on.

    And its all about making obscene amounts of money and nothing to do with lowering CO2 emissions. Of course, these designers and promoters of carbon trading used brilliant networking to persuade prominent scientists, economists and politicians that emissions trading is the sure way of reducing CO2 emissions. But commonsense dictates carbon trading cannot have any impact on CO2 emissions whatsoever. In actual fact, the higher the emissions, the better for the carbon traders… the perfect con. And besides, which government official would then ever admit “the emperor has no clothes”?

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    Ronnell

    Seeing red: jobs initiative to limit California’s AB32 greenhouse gas law will be on the November ballot

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/04/seeing-red-jobs-initiative-to-limit-californias-ab32-greenhouse-gas-law-will-be-on-the-november-ballot/

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    Brian G Valentine

    Californians CAN’T be so crazy as to vote themselves into purgatory, can they?

    They have a LUNATIC Senator (Barbara Boxer) and an incomprehensibly shallow Governor/character actor of robots/former body builder/flunky of green enterprises Arnold Schwarzenegger who brought unemployment misery upon the State and nearly bankrupted the government all to (vaguely) please Al Gore (who said “they didn’t do enough”)

    – they can’t vote to hang themselves, can they?

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    Bob Malloy

    Another member of the flock looking to leave the nest.

    PepsiCo’s Lobbying for Cap and Trade to be Hit at Annual Meeting
    Submitted by Peter Flaherty on Tue, 05/04/2010 – 09:42

    Flaherty says:

    NLPC is sponsoring a PepsiCo shareholder proposal asking for a report on the company’s lobbying priorities. At the PepsiCo annual tomorrow in Plano, Texas, I will argue that the company’s lobbying priorities are seriously out of whack.

    Corporate membership in USCAP has become controversial in the wake of the “Climategate” scandal, and as the prospects for cap and trade have ebbed. BP, ConocoPhillips, and Caterpillar have withdrawn from the group. I will propose that PepsiCo do the same.

    http://www.nlpc.org/stories/2010/05/04/pepsico%E2%80%99s-lobbying-cap-and-trade-be-hit-annual-meeting

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    Mark D.

    Brian G. Valentine @ 46:

    – they can’t vote to hang themselves, can they?

    I say: maybe they’ll hang themselves so they can’t vote!
    .

    P.S. good analysis on the current state of CA politics

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    hunter

    You really really really need to set up a site to sell shirts, stickers and mugs with that message!

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    Roy Hogue

    Brian G Valentine @46,

    Yes Californians can vote to hang themselves. Just watch and see. The legislature will raise taxes again. AB32 will roll on unabated. And no one will ever notice that none of it is working, much less notice the harm being done. Such is the liberal mind here! They’re not like computers. You put in good data and you still get garbage out.

    Do airplanes fly with two left wings? In California they do! Stupidity must be a major in the State University system.

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    Republik of Kalifornia…Population order of predominance and reverse order of voting power

    Illegal Aliens
    Gang Bangers
    Out of work Actors
    Actors
    Politicians
    Law abiding Citizens

    Adds up to increasingly liberal entitlement policies and general stupidity.

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    Bulldust

    MattB @ 43:

    I mean even Howard wanted an ETS… damn lefty.

    Even you don’t believe that story do you? I assumed you had some sense. Or perhaps you were being humorous…

    BTW I am curious to hear how you think the CPRS and the ETS are different things. Like Louis I have a MSc in Economics and am curious to hear your arguments on this one.

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    MattB

    An emissions trading scheme is a system where rights to emit CO2(e) are traded between emitters, with supply and demand setting a price.

    The CPRS is a specific policy introduced by the Rudd government which starts with the basic concept of an ETS and then introduces so many loopholes, freebies, complications, price ceilings etc etc that it is essentially unrecognisable and doesn’t work.

    It is like asking me the difference between a car and a rusted out Datsun Sunny running on 2 cylinders. If you can;t tell the difference then I have a lovely little runner you may be interested in;)

    Louis didn’t actually say he has an MSc in economics, he said he studied economics in his MSc.

    As for John Howard: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/industry-sectors/howard-goes-silent-on-the-ets/story-e6frg976-1225804361337 Ok you can argue over whether he really honestly wanted one, or thought he needed one to win an election… but it was the policy they took to the election with him as PM.

    “After refusing for many years to sign the Kyoto Protocol or implement an ETS in Australia, Mr Howard changed his mind before the last election, after a report from his hand-picked emissions trading taskforce led by the head of his department, Peter Shergold.

    In June 2007, he told the Liberal Party federal council in Sydney the nation needed to respond to man-made climate change.

    “I announce specifically that Australia will move towards a domestic emissions trading system, that’s a cap-and-trade system beginning no later than 2012,” he said. Mr Howard said emissions-reduction targets would be set in 2008, after detailed economic modelling of the impact of the scheme on the economy and families. “The scheme will be national in scope and as comprehensive as practicable, designed to take account of global developments and to preserve the competitiveness of our trade-exposed emissions-intensive industries,” he said at the time.”

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    Brian G Valentine

    What about the tree-hugging parasites funded by NGO’s to lie down in the middle of highways in protest during their “work” hours

    – and naked on beaches smoking reefer on their “days off”?

    Many of the “professors” within the California university system are so radical they seem almost alien to Earth. There could be no regulation or code imposed on California that would go far enough to please them.

    Living there would be nearly a penal colony for me (apologies for bringing up Australian past ill memories)

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    Bulldust

    Any ETS implementation has had loopholes exploitable by players/institutions willing to rort the system. The European experience has demonstrated this, and the Aussie system would have been just as bad if not worse. I got the impression you thought the CPRS mechanism (i.e. the market) was somehow different to an ETS, which it isn’t.

    My Howard comment – I don’t think anyone is naive enough to believe he really wanted an ETS. Howard was desperate and crumbling in the polls and needed anything to buy a few votes. He would have promised to house boat refugees in Crown Casino had he thought it would keep him in power.

    The fact that AGW types wave the Howard ETS pre-election promise around as if it were core Liberal policy is what annoys me. They are either being naive or disingenuous. I would argue the latter.

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    Bulldust

    Brian G Valentine @ 55:

    You will find most modern Aussies are somewhat proud of their convict heritage (if they have some)… so I doubt any offence would be taken. Characters such as the swagman (Waltzing Matilda) who was a sheep-stealing crim and Ned Kelly are celebrated as cultural icons.

    I hear what you are saying about California mate… I used to live in Denver and know all too well the mentality of the people who lived in Boulder (Colorado). Like Calfornia we used to refer to Boulder as “30 square miles surrounded by reality.”

    I guess everyone has their equivalent faux environmentalist towns… our closest equivalent is Fremantle, the people of which voted in the first ever Green candidate into any lower house in Australian State politics. She recently professed to sleeping with the enemy (literally), but I digress…

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    MattB

    Well no more disingenuous than Howard in making an ETS an election policy. If you can get Howard to admit it was just a stunt for a few votes from a desperate pollie then go for it.

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    snorkish

    I have studied a lot of history in my time. I don’t believe anything Glenn Beck says because on the types of history I know a lot about his distortions, which are usually many, are obvious. Instead of saying how the “great” Glenn Beck uncovered the whole story one must check to make sure his whole story is true, not just the parts we all know about. AGW is bull but this guy spouts more than his fair share of bull no matter the subject.

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    Louis Hissink

    MattB: #42

    Ken Henry is a Keynesian, but Keynes was not a professional economist, so make of it what you wish but you have, again, score an own goal.

    I follow the Von Mises/Hayek school of economic thought, and the fallacious economic modelling of the Henry Review has just been identified by us in the mining industry – which I won’t bother with here as it will be publicised elsewhere.

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    Bulldust

    MattB:

    The point, as well you know, is that Howard isn’t harping on about it. The AGW mob are the ones insisting over and over again that it was Liberal policy and that they wanted an ETS too. It is patently obvious Howard just tacked it on so as to not lose more votes.

    Carrying on about it shows that people are more concerned about scoring pretend political points than arguing anything vaguely intelligent. The only points scored are in their own minds, because the realists know full well it was a hollow promise and I certainly don’t need Howard on the record to prove it… his stalling on Kyoto is ample proof in fact.

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    Bulldust

    Louis:

    Why limit to one school of thought? I doubt one single macro-school has a firm handle on the economy just like no single group has a handle on the climate science. Both areas deal with insanely complex systems.

    If you missed the video I linked elsewhere you might enjoy the following (apologies for being O/T):

    http://singularityu.org/videos/2010/04/john-mauldin-the-end-game/

    John Mauldin firmly believes on taking ideas from all schools of thought. Personally I am more of a micro-man… I find macro far too woolly to be of interest other than lay commentary. After all, wasn’t macroeconomics the only field in which Nobels were awarded for two people essentially arguing contradictory theories?

    As for the mining modelling… how can an increased net tax on an industry possibly lead to more activity in the sector? It fails even the basic common sense test… those economic modellers are just as pliant as the IPCC ones in terms of delivering the answers you want to hear.

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    Bulldust

    Anywho … back on topic, apparently Westpac has been dabbling in carbon offsets already:

    “The result follows Westpac New Zealand’s foray into carbon trading this week with the launch of a broking service between forestry companies and large corporate polluters.

    Westpac said it has started buying carbon offsets from New Zealand forest owners with carbon credits on their books, with plans to package them up for sale to large polluters that need to manage their liability under the emissions trading scheme.”

    Source: http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/westpac-result-shows-banks-not-out-recessionary-wood-yet-122523

    At least they promised not to increase rates more then the Fed Reserve for the foreseeable future after posting a massive half-yearly profit… where’s Rudd chasing after that money???

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    MattB

    Bulldust – you can claim that Howard only tacked on the policy and would probably have been keen to have dumped it given an opportunity but we’ll never know. I put it to you instead that in fact it is the guy who won the election who demonstrably got on the AGW bandwagon for the political point scoring at the election, and has dumped it when given an opportunity.

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    Louis Hissink

    Bulldust @ #62

    “Why limit to one school of thought? I doubt one single macro-school has a firm handle on the economy just like no single group has a handle on the climate science. Both areas deal with insanely complex systems”

    Because the Austrian School rejects modelling of economies as scientific nonsense except under one case, in order to understand economic factors. This rejection is based on the fallacy made by economists that “price” is a measured property of a good or service, like mass is for an object in physics.

    Prices are subjective valuations by buyers and sellers during an exchange of goods or services.

    Econometrics is basically stating with po faced seriousness that the price of a carton of eggs is dependent on the position of that carton of eggs on the earth along its orbit around the sun. This is the basis of plooting price vs chronological time.

    It’s a nonsense.

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    Louis Hissink

    MattB: #64

    No Matt,

    Rudd didn’t support the AGW badwagon to win the election – it’s a bandwagon he and his global mates created; he’s just put it in it’s stable along with the donkeys pulling it, for a rest until he can bring it out again.

    Why are you lefties so intellectually dense?

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    Bulldust

    Louis:
    I am the first to decry the limitations of econmetrics because I have done a couple handfuls of courses that employ econometrics and forecasting techniques. As you say, econometrics is best when testing a hypothesis based on sound theory. Econometrics is meaningless if one tosses in variables willy nilly and expects wisdom to drop out of the analysis.

    But econometrics resulting in forecasts is the biggest crock out, and my gut tells me the climate models are just as bad. The sensitivity of complex economic forecast models to the slightest tweaks in parameters can be enormous. I have no doubt (gut feel, that is) that the feedback parameters in climate models are exactly that… exceptionally sensitive model parameters. No climate scientist on the AGW will ever admit of course…

    Having said all that… to accept one school of economic thought and reject all others based simply on its rejection of econometrics seems somewhat obtuse. I have never heard anyone state in econometrics that price should have a function based upon time. Not quite sure where you picked that one up.

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    Bulldust

    MattB:

    You are talking garbage again… Howards record on Kyoto is clear. To claim he changed tack on the ETS for anything other than political expediency is rubbish and you know it. You are the one that claimed it was Liberal party policy, deludedly thinking it was scoring a point in the debate. But as usual you were probably just trolling.

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    MattB

    “You are the one who claimed it was Liberal party policy”

    Earth to Bulldust… IT WAS LIBERAL PARTY POLICY!!! In fact it remained so until Abbott ousted Turnbull.

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    average joe

    I felt sick after reading about Goldman Sachs, Obama, Fanny Mae, Enron, and all
    those vultures just sitting there, waiting. Hungry for power and money.

    Why is Jeppe drinking?

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    Tel

    After all, wasn’t macroeconomics the only field in which Nobels were awarded for two people essentially arguing contradictory theories?

    I hereby offer you Bulldust the “Tel Prize for Blogging in Dishonor of Alfred Nobel” so that you too can pretend to be a Nobel prizewinner. There is unfortunately no cash stipend associated with this prize at the current time, but the advertising rights are, well, priceless really.

    Makes sense, a sham prize for a sham science. Hopefully economics can some day grow up and move beyond clinging to illusion.

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    Bulldust

    Average Joe:

    Want to feel really sick… watch “Capitalism – A Love Story” by Michael Moore. As with all his films it is hard to know how much truth there is to it without some serious research, but I would imagine tha the basic thrust of the film was accurate. The main thesis was the Goldman Sachs was essentially running the financial policy of the US Government.

    Tel:
    Not sure what your point is mate, but it is something I picked up elsewhere in my readings – i.e. two economists (macro variety) basically picking up Nobels for opposing theories. It would not be surprising, but I would have to research the reference. Perhaps the description is a tad extreme, but many schools of macroeconomic thought have mutually exclusive core assumptions.

    Economics, because of the macro field, has always struggled somewhat against the hard sciences for credibility. I find the US approach of applying complex models and statistics to human behaviour (i.e. market choices) to be somewhat lacking at most times. Some of the most daunting mathematics I have ever seen, let alone try to grasp, has been in economics lectures in the US. There comes a point where you step back and say… humans are often irrational… this can’t possibly be a realistic representation of their behaviour. And then you get back to worrying about how you are going to fake comprehension to pass the mideterm >.>

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    Mark D.

    Tel: but the advertising rights are, well, priceless really.

    LOL 🙂

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    Louis Hissink

    Bulldust

    Economic modelling involves predictions, which means economic activity expressed in terms of time – and as the basic unit of economics is price – it ultimately means equating prices to time via some complex equation in calculus.

    But prices are not related to time per se – nor is human activity, and both are intrinsically unpredictable in the sense that a satellite’s position in space is intrinsically predictable using Newton’s Laws. Economists made the error of applying the calculus of the physical sciences to economics, putting it simply.

    That’s why its a crock. Hence the IPCC modelling of both economic activity AND climate is theoretically a nonsense, as neither can be.

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    Louis Hissink

    Bulldust

    In addition I suspect econometrics is essentially a Keynesian discipline, and thus Marxist in its origins, and hence the belief that socialism is a scientific theory and hence “scientific” economics that prevails today is the outcome of system of economic thought, economic here used as an adjective to imply parsimony. 😉

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    Tel

    Not sure what your point is mate…

    Scratious! You really don’t know. Seems I’ve been given the job of carrying one more bit of bulldust to your door, which I’m sure you have no use for but that’s the way of the world.

    The “Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel” has never been part of Alfred Nobel’s will and was created some 50 years after the man’s death for not much reason other than to give the economists a bit of good cheer while they pretended to be scientists.

    I for one have never been overly impressed by such shenanigans. If they needed a prize they could have invented their own and been proud of it, rather than slinking late into someone else’s party to perpetuate an endless shame which in unmentionable in polite company. Fortunately, on this blog there’s no need to be polite to economists 😉

    Funny just how much of the seemingly tangible world turns into crudely painted plywood when you get up close 🙁

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    Tel

    In addition I suspect econometrics is essentially a Keynesian discipline, and thus Marxist in its origins,

    I recently ordered “Statistics and the German State, 1900-1945: The Making of Modern Economic Knowledge” by Adam Tooze after hearing some good comments about it. Econometrics is a significant topic of the book.

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    Pachauri sits on the External Advisory Board of the CCX, as is know.

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    bill stinson

    Conspiracy theory? The following information may be of interest. Malcolm Turnbull was the former Leader of the Opposition in the Federal Parliament of Australia. He was supporting the Rudd Labor Government’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) Legislation but was rolled in the Opposition (Coalition) party room (after an unprecedented grass roots public uproar over Malcolm Turnbull’s support of Rudd’s ETS Legislation) by the current Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, who opposes the introduction of an ETS in Australia. Malcolm Turnbull was the chair and managing director of Goldman Sachs Australia (1997-2001) and a partner with Goldman Sachs and Co (1998-2001). Rudd is one of Barack Obama’s strongest supporters. All sounds too cosy to be coincidence.

    “Malcolm Turnbull to recontest Wentworth

    Published on: May 01, 2010
    Today I am announcing that I will recontest the seat of Wentworth at the election later this year. I have advised the Leader of the Opposition and the Presidents of the NSW Division and Wentworth FEC of the Liberal Party accordingly.
    When I recently announced that I would not stand at the election, I said it was the most difficult decision I had ever made.
    Since then I have been overwhelmed by the many local residents and members of the Liberal Party who have urged me personally and via hundreds of emails and letters to reconsider my decision and run again.
    I have carefully reconsidered my decision, as my Party and many of my constituents have asked me to do. I have taken the decision to re-contest the seat fully understanding the commitment required of those who seek election to public office.

    The most important service I can render is to continue to represent the people of Wentworth with the commitment, the conviction and the energy which I have always sought to bring to the last five and half years of my parliamentary service. I am determined again to earn the support of the people of Wentworth and in doing so, contribute to the election of a Coalition Government.
    The Rudd Government has shown itself to lack both competence and commitment. Its financial mismanagement surpasses even the recklessness of the Whitlam years and the Prime Minister’s abandonment of the central element in his climate change policy – measures which he said were necessary to combat the greatest moral challenge of our times – constitutes an extraordinary act of political cowardice.
    Over the last two terms of Parliament, whether as a backbencher, a Minister or as Leader of the Opposition, I have always stood up for my political convictions. And I will continue to do so.
    Above all I am committed to continuing effective representation for Wentworth, ensuring that our area, which I believe is surely the best part of the best country in the world, has a strong voice in the Parliament and that it secures the services and the support from the Federal Government that it deserves.”

    Eric says:
    May 3, 2010 at 10:39 am
    If you ever become leader of the Liberal party again Malcolm, it wil be the first time in decades that I will not vote Liberal.
    You at least showed some honour in your original decision to quit, now you’ve shown that you’re a double-minded man who can’t be trusted. You and Kevin Rudd have the same politics – go join Labor where you belong, or start your own party – it’s now doing a lot better without you as it’s leader. The ETS is one big tax scam, and you and Goldman Sachs know it.
    Anne says:
    May 3, 2010 at 8:48 am
    I think Nick Minchin summed you up today Malcolm.
    I’m a died in the wool Liberal supporter and as long as you remain on the Back Bench and out of the way so you don’t impede the progress of the Party.
    You are disruptive Malcolm and you are not following the Party Line with the ETS. Therefore, you cannot be on the Front Bench! You want a great big new tax, as does Kevin Rudd and his Government, even though the rest of the world have woken up to the fact that Al Gore and Goldman Sachs are about reaping billions of dollars for their own coffers. I’m reminded that you worked for Sachs and with that, I’m very uneasy.
    In less than one month you have changed your mind to return. That does not inspire confidence Malcolm !! What will it be next week???

    Keep up the good work.

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