Everyone needs to read Matt Taibbi's latest article in the Rolling Stone magazine that discusses the next financial bubble Goldman Sachs intends to inflate. Mr. Taibbi discussses exactly how GS is going to game the carbon cap system:

"If gthe plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance...If the bill passes, there will be limits on coal plants,utilities, natural gas distributors, ann numerous other industries on the amount of carbon emissions they can produce per year. If the companies go over their allotment, the will be able to buy "allocations" or credits from other companies that have managed to produce fewer emissions...The feature of the plan that has special appeal to speculators is that the "cap" on carbon will be continually lowered by the government, which means that carbon credits will become more and more scarce each passing year. Which means that this is a brand new commodities market where the main commodity to be traded is guaranteed to rise in price over time." Matt Taibbi

The volume of the new market is estimated to be at least about $1 trillion. This compares to revenues from the entire electricity suppliers of $320 billion.

Enactment of this bill would be a catastrophe. Obama has yet to deal with the crooks who have left our economy in a shambles. Until he does, these criminals will continue to game every solution in every other area that he tries to enact. Get some balls President Obama and indict the Wall Street banksters.

I think most all of the posters on this board sincerely want to do the right thing wrt global warming so that damage is mitigated for future generations. However, people need to realize that there are a lot of snakes slithering in the corridors of Congress and the White House that say the right words but have an agenda that could finish us all off.

Sweden has a public system and regularly scores higher than the US on many indices of good health care. The Swedes love their system. It works well for these reasons: health care professionals don't have to worry about being sued; midwives, nurse practitioners and other professionals at this level are much more numerous per capita and much more accessible--this means that people get more personal care throughout their lives; the system can focus on wellness as well as illness; costs are reduced because there are no shortages of these professionals.

The US needs tort reform. We need a lot more medical schools and nursing schools.

Private insurance in the US has become a bad joke. Insurance companies do not want to honor the terms of their policies and make life miserable for anyone who actually has to use what they have paid for!

I have paid insurance premiums all my life and have never been really sick. However, with a private system, because of my age, if I lose my job, I will never be able to get private insurance again. This was brought home when a friend told me that she had been denied insurance, at the age of 62, because of a chronic condition, hammer toe!

None too soon. Congratulations Senator Franken.

A carbon tax, along with tax credits for green technology companies and consumers purchasing products from alternative energy sources and consumers and businesses showing a reduction in energy usage, along with grants for emerging green technology of a magnitude like that used to bail out the banksters is what we need to deal with peak oil and global warming.

The problem with a cap and trade virtual market is that the same criminals who destroyed the financial system have drawn up plans to game this market as well. An article by Matt Taibbi, referenced by Mr. Leonard last week, discussed how Goldman Sachs is going to leverage revenues of electrical suppliers of $320B to upwards of a trillion dollars in this cap and trade market. This means that at the very least, electricity costs will triple.

Someone commented that this increase is a good thing because it will force consumers and producers to use alternatives. The problem with this assumption can be seen by studying Enron. A lot of the Enron criminals that gamed the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity moved to Wall Street and other electrical utilities. They are all willing to take the entire system down to make a buck. They have done it before.

Our economy is in a shambles and is not stable. Where will consumers find the income required to pay for alternatives like photovoltaics or a windmill when they may not be able to afford food? Where will the small, green companies get the capital they need to commercialize their products? From Wall Street? In Minnesota, we had a wind turbine manufacturing lay off most of its employees because it is starved for capital. The same thing is happening to the ethanol plants and a wind turbine facitility in Iowa. This is occurring after the federal government gave the criminals on Wall Street over a trillion dollars to increase lending!

This cap and trade bill will probably achieve the objective of decreasing carbon dioxide output, to a degree that was not anticipated, but at what cost? With so many people already close to the edge of losing their homes and jobs, I think that we will see massive homelessness and starvation.

I like Obama and support much of his agenda. However, until he deals with Wall Street with a big fat gun and big insurance with a big fat stick, these jackasses will cynically game all of his efforts.

I'm going to send a copy of this article to our new Senator Franken and ask him what he is going to do about it. I'll also send a copy to Senator Klobachar and ask her whether this is the outcome that she anticipated when she voted to bail out the banksters.