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Clayton Williams Energy Inc. - I think Commodities Have Bottomed, and not for any arcane, or unique reason. - CWEI - InvestorVillage

Commodities look to me like they have bottomed.

This may sound silly, considering the global economy has not bottomed.

In addition, I don't think commodities are necessarily forecasting any near term recovery in global industrialism. No, I'm saying I think commodities have bottomed in the simpler sense: they have mostly found the level where dead demand growth meets halted supply growth. For all I know, we could be at this bottom for 2 more years.

After all, global governments and our own are now engaged in trying to bail out the Shadow Banking System.

Good luck with that.

This started of course last fall, with the first injection into AIG. It's a shame this board remains over-focused on the political personalities.

Most of these leaders nothing more than enabling bystanders to the Big Wheel that's now rolling over us.

If you want to convince yourself that the guy who entered the White House 40 days ago took a good thing and messed it up, be my guest.

Same too with the last 8 years. Allow me to let you in on who is responsible for the last 40 days, the last 8 years, and the 8 years before that: The American people, that's who.

You and me. Anyway, commodities have bottomed.

What comes next is some combination of global nationali sm , more global national ization (as part of protectionism), the first sprouts of hoarding and competition for resources, political crises, and then war. In the near term, looks like China is going to snatch up a big load of existing copper inventories, and will start trying to buy more oil.

I tip China to have de-hoarded at least 10% of their USD holdings on both above and below ground resources by This Summer. It's funny.

The rest of the world is a deer caught in the headlights, hoarding paper cash, as China clearly is making the move the whole world will be making inside of one year. Spend faster, China, before the dumb-ass world figures it out. G

Recent deals with Brazil and China highlight Beijing's ability to use loans a means of securing energy supplies.

In mid-February, Beijing negotiated a $10-billion loan to Brazil's state-owned oil company Perobras, as well as a $25-billion loan to Russia's state-run oil company Rosneft.

Both companies' revenues have plummeted in recent months as crude oil prices fell by more than two-thirds.

China offered large cash amounts in a tight credit market, but rather than require that the loans be serviced and repaid in cash, Brazil and Russia will repay the loans in crude oil supplies to China over the next two decades.

Russia will ship eastern Siberian oil, while in Brazil, China hopes to get a share of major offshore fields which have recently been discovered.

So, no matter what happens to the global economy, China is assured steady oil supplies over the next 20 years from two major oil-producing countries, in regions which are far more politically stable than China's suppliers in Africa. But China's shopping spree has gone far beyond oil.

The Australian government is examining a bid by the Aluminum Corp.

Of China or Chinalco to buy an 18% stake of the heavily indebted minerals giant Rio Tinto, for about $19.5 billion.

It is also considering a bid by the Beijing trading company Minmetals to buy Australia's mining company Oz Minerals for about $1.7 billion — enough to wipe out that company's debt.

Meanwhile, Chinese president Hu Jintao made a five-country swing around Africa in early February, signing deals in Tanzania and Madagascar on agriculture and telecommunications, and promising debt relief to the poorest continent.

(See pictures of China's electronic waste village.) China's appetites are good news for manufacturers in demand-depressed Europe.

Last Wednesday, Beijing's Commerce Minister Chen Deming arrived in Germany with executives from about 90 Chinese companies, on a multi-billion-dollar shopping trip around Europe.

The delegates signed more than $10 billion worth of deals in Germany alone, and another $400,000 worth of deals on a brief stop in Switzerland.

Next stop was Spain, where the Chinese party bought about $320 million worth of goods ranging from auto parts to olive oil.

Finally, in Britain they signed deals worth about $2 billion, including ordering 13,000 Jaguar cars.

And while thousands of German auto workers marched in protest at layoffs in the country's debt-ridden auto industry, the Chinese delegates signed a deal to buy $2.2.

Billion worth of BMWs and Daimlers.

Germany's new Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told reporters in Berlin that the Chinese visit had "come at the right time." The shopping spree serves China's purposes, too, helping to head off possible retaliation from Western countries against the huge trade surpluses maintained by Beijing.

An unnamed European diplomat in Beijing told the Financial Times on Wednesday that China's "biggest nightmare" is being ordered by the U.S.

And Europe to raise the value of their currency by 30% or face a 30% rise in tariffs.

The pressure to revalue the Chinese currency could come as early as April 2, when the Group of 20 richest countries in the world meet in London, and where President Obama is scheduled to meet Chinese president Hu Jiantao for the first time.

In the run-up to that crucial meeting China's buying spree is aimed at soothing Western anger about the country's economic policies.

"This is a smart diplomatic move," says Damien Ma, China analyst at the Eurasia Group in Washington.

"China is seen as whittling down its trade surpluses." (See pictures of the global financial crisis.) China's buying spree has, however, been selective.

The United States was conspicuously absent from its global shopping itinerary.

The last major Chinese bid to buy a U.S.

Company ended in diplomatic disaster, when the China National Offshore Oil Corp.

Or CNOOC offered to buy the California oil company Unocal in 2005, in a deal worth about $18.5 billion, and a backlash in Congress prompted the angry Chinese to withdraw the offer.

Unocal was finally sold to Chevron.

More recent Chinese investments in the U.S.

Have also fared badly: Beijing has lost billions in recent months from investments in Morgan Stanley and the Blackstone Group, and Chinese officials who approved those investments have now come under fire in Beijing.

"People are saying, 'Why did you invest in that?'," says Downs of the Brookings Institution.

"They feel they have been burned in the U.S.

And they don't want to be burned again." Still, for many in Europe, Asia and Latin America, the Chinese offer welcome relief.

And it's not as if there are any rival suitors

Exactly Vivienne Walt's point yesterday in case you didn't see it.

Http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1882594,00.html     And this post points at them potentially buying a good chunk of gold too.

Http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=144&mn=19010&pt=msg&mid=6798448   Msg # 187822 Posted 3/3/2009  5:55:57 PM by  billjoclark Recs: 1 Add to Favorites Send PM Ignore Re: I think Commodities Have Bottomed, and not for any arcane, or unique reason.

The Chinese are going to clean our clock.

Most of their leaders are engineers.

There minds are anchored in scientific analysis.

Ours leaders are lawyers anchored in the cult of personality.

They are securing mining and oil resources and have 150 nukes on the drawing board.

We are baning drilling and oil shale leases, and taxing users of carbon based fuels, while we build wind mills and solar.

Even a child can do this math.

We will be very green because unemployed people don't produce pollution.

The major transition that China needs to make inside the country, how it is done and how long it takes , is probably the most important of all.

It's not just China - but China's transition is a major part of it.

I guess in reality we are all waiting for what is deemed the New World Order - which is not likely a smooth transition.

Do the people that are inventing this New World Order know what they are doing?

The decoupling scheme didn't work - so we'll see what comes next.

One thing's for sure - global growth won't return to what it was, anytime soon.

Inflation might be another matter.

>By James Saft LONDON, March 3 (Reuters) - Asia's calamity is that Americans are imitating frugal Asians a lot faster than Asians can become free-spending Americans. The old economic model -- that Asia exports to the U.S., saves its earnings and lends the money back to Americans to buy more stuff -- is broken and no one can say what will arise in its place. Americans are not willingly becoming savers, cultural change is being forced on them by the credit crunch and their own busted balance sheets. The hope for Asia, which has seen an absolutely stunning cliff dive in its economies, is that domestic demand can grow to replace U.S.

Consumption. This faces huge hurdles;

A social safety net that is threadbare to non-existent and a population that just doesn't understand the risks of living closer to your means but sees frugality and the storing up of wealth as a virtue. Asia banking on consumption at home replacing that from the U.S.

Is a bit like Las Vegas trying to make up for plunging gambling revenue by charging more for prime rib dinners;

It might help a bit but it's not a serious business model.

In the meantime, economies across the region are seeing really stunning falls in activity and exports "Live by exports, die by exports," Gabriel Stein, chief international economist at Lombard Street Research told a conference in Singapore last week. Singapore's own highly trade-dependent economy shrunk by more than 16 percent in the fourth quarter on an annualized, seasonally adjusted basis.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said last week another 8 percent may disappear this year. Indonesia's January exports fell by 36 percent, the biggest annual decline in more than 22 years while factories in Korea left almost 40 percent of production idle in the same month.

Korean exports fell 17.1 percent in February from the year before, having fallen by a third in January alone.

In Taiwan export orders fell a record 42 percent in January.

Japanese exports fell by almost half in January, down 45 percent. China has gotten off relatively lightly in comparison, with exports falling 17.5 percent from a year ago in January. On the positive side, the government policy response has been reasonably prompt in many places, ranging from admirably front loaded stimulus spending plans that really should make a difference this year to plans to prop up stock markets via government buying which are wasteful, unfair and probably bound to fail. Shares across the region are falling and so too are some currencies, notably Korea's won which touched an 11-year low on Monday before the government spent an estimated $1 billion propping it up.

Competitive currency devaluations cannot be ruled out. WHO BUYS WHAT FROM WHOM? So should Asia just try to ride out the storm and wait for U.S.

Demand to pick up again? It may be a long wait.

For one thing, the U.S.

Population is aging, which will pinch consumption in two important ways.

Firstly consumption tends to revert to core needs as people get older and secondly retirement plans that were built on high property and share prices lie more or less in ruins and will prompt higher rates of savings to try and catch up. A recovery in U.S.

Consumption will come eventually, but it's not likely to bring the kind of heady growth in consumption we saw from 2000 to 2007, when personal consumption grew at a heady 4.7 percent rate. So either shutter a lot of those Asian factories or build up consumption at home. All eyes inevitably turn to China, with its huge population, high savings rate, low debt and fantastic head room for growth.

Independent economist Andy Xie estimates that current per capita income of $3,300 could triple within two decades through a combination of growth and currency appreciation.

But two decades is a long time, and in the meantime we have to survive the next two years. And it seems almost delusional to hope that Chinese and other Asian consumers will somehow throw off the habits of a lifetime, habits reinforced by the real risks they face if they lose their jobs and by their self-evident correlation with growing wealth to start to spend more.

These consumers will be seeing the same headlines about the stock market and plunging exports that the rest of us do. It's also hard to imagine Asians looking across the Pacific at U.S.

Profligacy and seeing this as a model they want to emulate.

Even now efforts at stimulus in Asia seem to focus more on keeping people in jobs rather than insuring them against income loss. So, maybe over time consumption in Asia will grow as its economies mature, but in the meantime pouring concrete into public works plans seems a better bet for keeping the economies afloat while we wait for the next world economic order to be invented.<

Commodities YTD: Oil -10% Gas +27% Ngas -26% Alum -14% Copper +8% Gold +6% Cows 0 Corn -15% Wheat -19%   Msg # 187847 Posted 3/3/2009  7:20:09 PM by  rodv1938 Recs: 45 Add to Favorites Send PM Ignore Re: I think Commodities Have Bottomed, and not for any arcane, or unique reason.

"Perhaps we are near a bottom but the contangos out there make it difficult to take a long view on the pure commodities." The commodities won't bottom UNTIL THE CONTANGO GOES AWAY, and its REAL SPOT DEMAND driving commodity prices, not FINANCIAL SPECULATORS buying outmonth futures contracts.

Until that happens, we'll have storage sloshing around as full as anyone can cram it.

Bull markets in commodities happen in Backwardation, not Contango.

  Msg # 187857 Posted 3/3/2009  8:25:49 PM by  timewave Recs: 1 Add to Favorites Send PM Ignore Re: I think Commodities Have Bottomed, and not for any arcane, or unique reason.

That's bullsh*t.  To blame everyone is to blame no one . I don't think that to blame the country for its ills, rather than particular leaders, is illogical at all. The context in which I made remarks : A CWEI board that was once an energy board, but over the years has descended into blaming high profile political parties, leaders, and Presidents for the problem.

Currently that falls to a guy names Obama.

But up until 50 days ago it fell to a guy named Bush. My response : my response is that American society and the American people are to blame for the problem we find ourselves in.

This is a fairly mainstream view on history.

I don't ask that you agree with it.

But, since I am against the Great Man Theory of history, I blame eras and the wider cultures for what happens. Great Man Theory : (from Wiki which is a good summary): One of the most vitriolic critics of Carlyle's formulation of the Great Man theory was Herbert Spencer , who believed that attributing historical events to the decisions of individuals was a hopelessly primitive, childish, and unscientific position.

[ 3 ] He believed that the men Carlyle called "great men" were merely products of their social environment, writing . (Obviously I side with Spencer.) Why I Blame my Country for the present problem :  At about that same time, in 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinburgh) is reported to have said this to say about "The Fall of The Athenian Republic" some 2,000 years prior .

"A democracy is always temporary in nature;

It simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.

A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury .

From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship ."

Yes, you are right.

But, we'll have more windmills to tilt at.

Perhaps the spectacle will entertain the unemployed masses while they wait on their next government check. our only hope to supply our energy needs are oil, gas, nuclear, and coal.

Nothing else has a prayer of making up the difference.

Some reliable friends have convinced me that we are so far on the backside of peak oil, that we're already toast.

And now BHO wants to shut down fossil fuels.

Pray for global warming, we are going to need it to survive. our leaders, socialist democrats and spineless republicans, are fiddling while the American empire burns.

Let us all drink more ethanol, it will numb the pain better than if it is used as transportation fuel. Comrade Don Quixote fishtools   Msg # 187864 Posted 3/3/2009  8:58:42 PM by  windfallwilly Recs: 15 Add to Favorites Send PM Ignore Re: I think Commodities Have Bottomed, and not for any arcane, or unique reason.

You're response is over-literal and too reactive, Susan.

I certainly know that the US is a republic.

What's clear is that it found a way to operate as a Democracy. Do you disagree the the US found a way to destroy itself just as Tyler asserts a Democracy would. Your response is very snarky and pedantic.

A good example of why many of us have left the board.

Really, must I be lectured to by you on Democracy vs Republic? G

Gregor, you have a lot more to learn than those two definitions one day when all the dust has settled you might want to read some real history...not that of the college spoonfeeding sessions there are powers at fast work now and you are snidely drowning with your nose turned up like a chicken in the rain   Msg # 187869 Posted 3/3/2009  9:10:23 PM by  Eagle1 Recs: 2 Add to Favorites Send PM Ignore Re: I think Commodities Have Bottomed, and not for any arcane, or unique reason.

Until America wakes up to the fact that they have put a radical left winger better known as a Socialist in office, things are not going to change.

Everytime he speaks on tv, the market goes down. If he doesn't stop the frantic spending, I guess he has 2-3 months if things don't change.

People are mad and not going to tolerate Obama and George Soros taking down this country.   Msg # 187875 Posted 3/3/2009  9:20:42 PM by  kilowatt8 Recs: 3 Add to Favorites Send PM Ignore Re: I think Commodities Have Bottomed, and not for any arcane, or unique reason.

The Tyler you Quote: is probably actually Tytler, and Tytler never wrote a book called "The Fall of The Athenian Republic" .

The author of the paragraph you Quote: is unknown, but it is apparently of recent origin.

It may be a corruption of the following Tytler Quote: from his Universal History .

It is not, perhaps, unreasonable to conclude, that a pure and perfect democracy is a thing not attainable by man, constituted as he is of contending elements of vice and virtue, and ever mainly influenced by the predominant principle of self-interest.

It may, indeed, be confidently asserted, that there never was that government called a republic, which was not ultimately ruled by a single will, and, therefore, (however bold may seem the paradox,) virtually and substantially a monarchy.

For the above Tytler Quote: , see Bartleby quotation .

For the misattribution generally, see snopes , also Wikipedia, .

Alexander Fraser Tytler ,     It is ironic that both the actual Quote: and the corruption make the point that eventually power devolves from the many onto a single person, whose individual will is substituted for popular or republican governance.

Shades of Carlyle and the Great Man Theory, it would seem.

Best regards, Plato   Msg # 187885 Posted 3/3/2009  9:47:55 PM by  windfallwilly Recs: 28 Add to Favorites Send PM Ignore Re: I think Commodities Have Bottomed, and not for any arcane, or unique reason.

Sell them AIG for $1   Msg # 187897 Posted 3/3/2009  10:25:49 PM by  lostcreek Recs: 14 Add to Favorites Send PM Ignore Re: I think Commodities Have Bottomed, and not for any arcane, or unique reason.

I know that everybody thought Obama was saying "Change that matters", but he skews his words sometimes.

What he was actually saying was "Chains that matter."   **Tongue in cheek**   Msg # 187907 Posted 3/3/2009  10:48:10 PM by  keesindy Recs: 6 Add to Favorites Send PM Ignore Re: I think Commodities Have Bottomed, and not for any arcane, or unique reason.

"...No, I'm saying I think commodities have bottomed in the simpler sense: they have mostly found the level where dead demand growth meets halted supply growth..." Reasoning/evidence supporting this thought?   Msg # 187922 Posted 3/3/2009  11:52:46 PM by  godot10 Recs: 1 Add to Favorites Send PM Ignore Re: I think Commodities Have Bottomed, and not for any arcane, or unique reason.

We the people did not vote for a bubble in real estate.

Once you have loose money policy a bubble will manifest itself - just like every bubble that has been created in the U.S.

Economy. Who do you think passed loose lending regulations and why did they do it?

Just like every scam that has been created.

Who do you think those scams are created to benefit?

When the politicians are bought-off laws and regulations are then intended to bebefit those who bought off the politicians.

If you don't understand that - then it's because you choose not to.

It couldn't be more clear.

Money talks in the U.S.

Just as it does in many other countries.

Years ago I knew a man who ran for, and was elected Senator.

He would have made a good Senator - but there was a meeting of all elected officials shortly after he was elected.

Lobbyists came to that meeting and gave out free vacations, cars, and gifts to all the elected officials.

In all he said there there was more than $20,000 in gifts ( alot of money years ago).

He didn't take any of the free gifts.

He was able to get nothing done in his first term as Senator because the issues that he brought forth were either not what the rest had been paid off to be interested in...or they were paid to oppose it.

He stepped down when his tern was up - and decided that politics were too corrupt for him.

If you really think that the regulations and laws passed into law, are intended to be in the best interests of the people - you might want to look a bit deeper into what politics are really about.

If you really think that all the propganda is full of truth for our own saje and not about profit for the powerful elite - then maybe you better think twice.

And if you contiinue to be ignoirant to all of this - then yes - you are part of the probelm..

The corruption that is entrenched in our governemnt is quite clear to anyone who looks.

So yes - if you continue to ignore the corruption, you are part of the problem.

Not all people have been ignoring the corruption.

Example:   Gore's Circle Of Business Al Gore is chairman and founder of a private equity firm called Generation Investment Management (GIM).

According to Gore, the London-based firm invests money from institutions and wealthy investors in companies that are going green.

“Generation Investment Management, purchases -- but isn’t a provider of -- carbon dioxide offsets,” said spokesman Richard Campbell in a March 7 report by CNSNews. GIM appears to have considerable influence over the major carbon-credit trading firms that currently exist: the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) in the U.S.

And the Carbon Neutral Company (CNC) in Great Britain.

CCX is the only firm in the U.S.

That claims to trade carbon credits. CCX owes its existence in part to the Joyce Foundation, the Chicago-based liberal foundation that provided $347,000 in grant support in 2000 for a preliminary study to test the viability of a market in carbon credits.

On the CCX board of directors is the ubiquitous Maurice Strong, a Canadian industrialist and diplomat who, since the 1970s, has helped create an international policy agenda for the environmentalist movement.

Strong has described himself as “a socialist in ideology, a capitalist in methodology.” His former job titles include “senior advisor” to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, “senior advisor” to World Bank President James Wolfensohn and board member of the United Nations Foundation, a creation of Ted Turner.

The 78-year-old Strong is very close to Gore. CCX has about 80 members that are self-confessed emitters of greenhouse gases.

They have voluntarily committed themselves to reduce their emissions by the year 2010 to a level 6% below their emissions in 2000.

CCX members include Ford Motor Company, Amtrak, DuPont, Dow Corning, American Electric Power, International Paper, Motorola, Waste Management and a smattering of other companies, along with the states of Illinois and New Mexico, seven cities and a number of universities.

Presumably the members “purchase” carbon offsets on the CCX trading exchange.

This means they make contributions to or investments in groups or firms that provide forms of “alternative,” “renewable” and “clean” energy. CCX also has “participant members” that develop the carbon-offset projects.

They have names like Carbon Farmers and Eco-Nomics Incorporated.

Still, other participant member groups facilitate, finance and market carbon-offset projects to “sequester, destroy or displace” greenhouse gases.

CCX aspires to be the New York Stock Exchange of carbon-emissions trading. Along with Gore, the co-founder of GIM is Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson.

Last September, Goldman Sachs bought 10% of CCX shares for $23 million.

CCX owns half the ECX, so Goldman Sachs has a stake there as well. GIM’s “founding partners” are studded with officials from Goldman Sachs.

They include David Blood, former CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM);

Mark Ferguson, former co-head of GSAM pan-European research;

And Peter Harris, who headed GSAM international operations.

Another founding partner is Peter Knight, who is the designated president of GIM.

He was Sen. Al Gore’s chief of staff from 1977-1989 and the campaign manager of the 1996 Clinton-Gore re-election campaign. Like CCX, the ECX has about 80 member companies, including Barclays, BP, Calyon, Endesa, Fortis, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Shell, and ECX has contracted with the European Union to further develop a futures market in carbon trading.

What’s in it for the companies?

They will benefit either by investing in carbon credits or by receiving subsidies for doing so. Front and Center Clearly, GIM is poised to cash in on carbon trading.

The membership of CCX is currently voluntary.

But if the day ever comes when federal government regulations require greenhouse-gas emitters -- and that’s almost everyone -- to participate in cap-and-trade, then those who have created a market for the exchange of carbon credits are in a position to control the outcomes.

And that moves Al Gore front and center.

As a politician, Gore is all for transparency.

But as GIM chairman, Gore has not been forthcoming, according to Forbes magazine.

Little is known about his firm’s finances, where it gets funding and what projects it supports. We do know that Goldman Sachs has commissioned the World Resources Institute (affiliated with CCX), Resources for the Future, and the Woods Hole Research Center to research policy options for U.S.

Regulation of greenhouse gases.

In 2006, Goldman Sachs provided research grants in this area totaling $2.3 million.

The firm also has committed $1 billion to carbon-assets projects, a fancy term for projects that generate energy from sources other than oil and gas.

In October 2006, Morgan Stanley committed to invest $3 billion in carbon-assets projects.

Citigroup entered the emissions-trading market in May, and Bank of America got in on the action in June. Some environmentalist groups disparage Gore and his investment banker friends.

They say the Gore group caters to others who share their financial interest in the carbon-exchange concept.

The bulletin of the World Rainforest Movement says that members of a United Nations-sponsored group called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stand to gain by approving Gore’s carbon-trading enterprise.

The IPCC has devised what it says is a scientific measure of the impact of greenhouse gases on global warming.

In fact, the critics charge, the IPCC sanctions a mechanism that mainly promotes the sham concept of carbon exchange. The global non-profit organization Winrock International is an example of one IPCC panel member that seeks out groups and individuals with an interest in carbon trading.

Arkansas-based Winrock provides worldwide “carbon-advisory services.” Winrock has received government grants from the EPA, USAID and the Departments of Labor, State and Commerce, as well as from the Nature Conservancy (whose chairman used to be Henry Paulson).

Winrock argues that cap-and-trade carbon trading is the best way to prevent a climate change crisis.

But consider this: When a non-profit group takes money from oil companies and advocates drilling for oil as a solution to energy shortages, it is certain to be attacked as a tool of Big Oil.

So far, the groups linked to Al Gore have avoided similar scrutiny. Then there’s the World Resources Institute (WRI).

It was the first nongovernmental group to join CCX as an associate member (a designation for virtuous groups whose greenhouse-gas emissions are negligible).

Many of its donors are CCX members or otherwise support carbon exchanges, including the Shell Foundation, Whole Foods Market, the Nature Conservancy, American Forest and Paper Association, and the Pew Center for Climate Change, as well as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ford Foundation. Connect the Dots In June 2006, the World Bank announced that it, too, had joined CCX, saying that it intended to offset its greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing emission credits through CCX.

The bank says its credits would contribute to restoring 4,600 hectares of degraded pastureland in Costa Rica.

Somehow, CCX has figured out that this is an amount equivalent to 22,000 metric tons of emission that the bank calculates are created by its activities. A World Bank blog called the Private Sector Development Blog regularly features items touting Al Gore and the concept of carbon credits.

Its articles typically announce corporate “green” initiatives in which carbon credits are said to cancel out “bad” CO2 emissions released by a company’s activities. In fact, the World Bank now operates a Carbon Finance Unit that conducts research on how to develop and trade carbon credits.

The bank works with Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain to set up carbon-credit funds in each country to purchase emission credits from firms for use in developing countries.

In addition, it runs the Carbon Fund for Europe helping countries meet their Kyoto Protocol requirements.

These funds are traded on the ECX (half of which is owned by CCX, itself a creature of Al Gore’s firm, Generation Investment Management).

Can we connect the dots? A website affiliated with An Inconvenient Truth invites concerned citizens to personally fight global warming by offsetting their “carbon footprint.” The ways to do that include changing over to fluorescent light bulbs and turning down your thermostat at home.

But the website also urges Americans to offset their personal CO2 emissions by “buying” carbon offsets from a native-American-owned company called Native Energy.

Native Energy promotes “renewable” wind energy by buying and selling carbon-emission credits and futures for wind turbine projects on Indian reservations. What the website doesn’t mention is that that the founder of Native Energy, energy industry veteran Tom Boucher, also founded a marketing company called Green Mountain Energy, a CCX associate partner that describes itself as “the nation’s leading retail provider of cleaner energy and carbon-offset solutions.

Green Mountain offers residential, business, institutional and governmental customers an easy way to purchase cleaner, affordable electricity products, as well as the opportunity to offset their carbon footprint.” In other words, Green Mountain sells advisory services to energy users, alerting them to opportunities to contribute to or invest in groups like Native Energy. So it seems banks and investment houses are going green, eager to enter an emerging emissions market.

Meanwhile, environmentalists are discovering new ways to get rich while believing they are saving polar bears and rainforests. In 2006 Al Gore established his own global-warming non-profit group, the Alliance for Climate Protection, a 501(3)(c) charitable organization.

The group favors more stringent environmental policy regulations on the private sector and especially wants cap-and-trade legislation so that companies will be forced to lower their greenhouse gas emissions and buy carbon credits. The alliance CEO is Cathy Zoi, a former environmental advisor to President Bill Clinton.

Gore is chairman of the board, which also includes environmental activist Theodore Roosevelt IV, Clinton EPA Director Carol Browner, the President George H.W.

Bush’s National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and Reagan-era EPA Director Lee Thomas.

Gore has reportedly given the alliance $250,000 and has donated his share of the profits from An Inconvenient Truth to the group.

The only core holding of equities i sleep at night owning right now is a chinese ob stock- that's how soundly i see chinese govt approach to their nation compared to geinther, bernanke and their figurehead, obama with theirs.

The biggest reason to see china kindly as an investor is their national fervor and zeal.

It's so much like the yankee-ingenuity of america old.

While we still drown in our decadence, they are verrrry hungry and folks, i'm not talking about all of those "starving people in china" my mother used as a ploy to get me to finish my veggies as a child they are hungry to succeed.

We, as a nation, are absolutely handicapped by our political rift now beginning to grow exponentially virtually weighing down hopes of a breakout in popularity.

All i see here with my neighbors and friends is angst and fear of an oboma they feel they may have elected based upon a mix of hope for an articulate new guy with no experience and their collective disregard for bush who they feel gutted and embarrassed the GOP by solcialistic spending policies while in office.

In a succinct but slightly crude summation- the chinese have their sh*t together- we americans do not.

Old-time valuation and growth investing still seems possible in china

Here's where those natural resources are going in China...not to the masses.

Some cities show obvious growth but the masses still live under abuse and poverty.

Amazing to me people here are buying the liberal china biases. Ask yourself why journalists weren't allowed to investigate China outside Olympic zones. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090304/ap_on_re_as/as_china_politics

Http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2009/03/china_all_about_jobs.html   Msg # 187963 Posted 3/4/2009  7:22:26 AM by  Spyderman Recs: 4 Add to Favorites Send PM Ignore Re: I think Commodities Have Bottomed, and not for any arcane, or unique reason.

That's the reason for the entire GW scam, and why a carbon tax is not that popular.

A tax takes money from business/people into the Government, nice but how do you get it out   Carbon trade takes money from Government/business/people into other organizations buying credits, great, especially if mandated by Government.

It's even better than Madoff scheme, because with Govt support it's legal, you do not owe the purchaser any thing and the amount of money is really unbelievable.

Trillions of $ I would think...   Msg # 187978 Posted 3/4/2009  8:16:54 AM by  thetraveler2046 Recs: 1 Add to Favorites Send PM Ignore Re: I think Commodities Have Bottomed, and not for any arcane, or unique reason.

"So yes - if you continue to ignore the corruption, you are part of the problem.

Not all people have been ignoring the corruption." Glad to see we're in agreement after all.   Msg # 187986 Posted 3/4/2009  8:43:25 AM by  godot10 Recs: 2 Add to Favorites Send PM Ignore Re: I think Commodities Have Bottomed, and not for any arcane, or unique reason.

Gregor Go get em tiger! Clearly, by some responses to your post, some are offended by your statement that "The American people" are responsible for our current situation.

Some on this board have been telling us about our national problems for some time but we as a nation right or wrong don't like to be told rather we are a nation that wakes up and responds when there is a crisis. The sooner we understand that "We the People" ultimately have the last vote the sooner we can get on with the real business at hand.

We vote in many ways including our ballot, how and where we spend or invest our money and the use of our voice to rally to the cause. Doesn't look like we are going to solve our poor economy or inept politician situation over night but our current situation certainly has allowed us to see that greed, greedy executives with bloated pay days, greedy politicans looking for more votes and yes, our nation's overall greed for the good life, far too often with little cost or sacrifice are at the root of the problem. We as a nation can see clearly now and we have no one to ultimately blame but our collective selves and we have had our wake up call and let the action begin. PS..gregor, I like your call on commodities bottoming.   Msg # 193908 Posted 3/25/2009  8:37:38 PM by  milton Recs: 0 Add to Favorites Send PM Ignore Re: I think Commodities Have Bottomed, and not for any arcane, or unique reason.

Agree

I have a trading account and a long term capital gains account with ung, uso, dba and cef.

Don't plan on selling for at least a year...so I really like your post.

:-)




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