CAP AND TRADE EXPLAINED

While world leaders are congregating in Paris to determine what approach they will use to deal with climate change, we thought it would be a good time to look at the original idea of how to deal with the climate.  

The idea of Cap and Trade had been proposed as a "Market Approach"  to reducing greenhouse emissions. It was proposed in the 1990's by Richard Sandor with the help of Al Gore.  The "Chicago Climate Exchange" or CCX was opened in November 2000. The largest Stockholder was Goldman Sacks, with large stakes by Richard Sandor and Al Gore.  

This idea was that emission caps would be set by a government agency on individual companies, I am sure this would have been done in a strictly objective and unbiased way. Then if a company could not meet those caps they would be required to purchase permits to exceed those caps from companies or individuals whose emissions were less than those set for them, of course in an unbiased and objective way.   

The result of all this was the Chicago Climate Exchange,  which is where all these permits would be bought and sold. This was expected to begin as a $500,000,000 business and grow to a $10 trillion dollar business.  

We have the Chicago Mercantile exchange which trades pork bellies, hogs, beef, oil, or any commodity. We also have the New York Stock Exchange which trades stocks in publicly traded corporations. These transactions all require someone to eventually ship the products or certificates to someone.  The genius of the Cap and Trade business is that the permits are created out of thin air by a government agency, no shipping is required, no packaging needed. In effect they are trading an inert gas and collecting a commission on every transaction.  

The Chicago Climate Exchange was started with a grant of 1.1 million dollars from the Joyce Foundation of Chicago-Barak Obama was a board member at the time. Richard Daly, former mayor of Chicago and Obama adviser, was an honorary chairman. It was a gravy train of money and power for a long list of left-wing advocates. When the handwriting was on the wall, that the law was not going to pass in the U.S. Senate, the original investors unloaded it to the International Exchange for $600,000,000. A few months later in November 2010 the Exchange closed when the whole idea collapsed in the U.S.

All plans being proposed have to do with laws passed by countries, or international bodies. All require government control of all energy.  All will allow government bureaucrats to pick winners and losers. All require taxes that will be re-distributed from energy users through energy providers to poorer countries, or persons determined by the ruling bodies..

While Cap and Trade is dead for now, the plan to tax and control all energy is still alive.