Vapor Market Sweep

There used to be a game show on TV that I'd watch from time to time. The name of the program was Supermarket Sweep.  There were two 2-person teams and the objective was within a limited period of time, to run around the supermarket filling a cart(s) with as much stuff as you could get in the cart.  The team with the highest dollar total won.  I think they won the value of the groceries plus a couple of hundred dollars.  Not much anyway.   I didn't watch it because I liked it so much.  I watched it to watch the people.  It was like a live-action character study of how people react when there is some "free" they can win. 

A variation of this game show seems to be the economic model that is being followed in the United States.  It's called Vapor Market Sweep.  The objective of the game is to sweep up all the hard assets of the country in exchange for vapor.  The pseudo environmentalist attorneys and financial engineers with their economic models set up the Vapor Market and the players who are aware of the game run through the market and load up their carts with the property and assets of their fellow citizens.  The players win when they get something for nothing.  They win when they've stripped the assets of the Marks in the market.   

Recently, at the University of Virginia, Miller Center, there was a forum of Central Bankers.  Paul Volcker was one of the participants.  At one point when he was asked to respond, in just a few minutes, he summed up the entire problem when he talked about the financial engineers shifting rents.   Click here for Volcker's brief clip.   Volcker knows that it's a scam, but it's just not socially acceptable in professional circles to call a thief a thief.

An example of both the rentier economy designed by the financial engineers and Vapor Market Sweep is found in this article about a presentation that "environmentalist" Zack Willey gave to Florida land owners on how to get money for nothing.  Who is paying them?   The consumers of electricity.  Of course the people who run the Vapor Market take a skim off the top of the money stolen from the consumers of electricity with the balance going to the "Lords of the Land" for being clever enough to own a few trees. 

               

Landowners Introduced to Benefits
of a Reduced Carbon Economy     [PDF]

September 5, 2007
Jay Liles
Florida Wildlife Federation

Tallahassee, FL. – For generations farmers and other large landowners have relied on their crops to return a profit. At a recent conference, sponsored by the Florida Wildlife Federation, Environmental Defense and Tall Timbers Research Station, noted economist Zach Willey brought what he thinks is a new source of income to local farmers and those who own tracts of land in timber.

Landowners, developers and environmentalists listened to Willey's presentation on the future of using agriculture to reduce greenhouse emissions, and using carbon credits as a commodity in Florida.

Willey said using large tracts of forested land that naturally transform carbon dioxide into oxygen may come to be a $100 million industry in Florida. Energy companies would reimburse property owners based on the amount of carbon dioxide their land can absorb.

Willey is a senior economist for Environmental Defense and leading researcher on the emerging carbon capture markets. Dr. Willey splits his time between consulting duties here in the United States and newly emerging industrial giants like China and Southeast Asia. Environmental Defense – a nonprofit organization that helps businesses and communities find environmental solutions – has hired Dr. Willey to introduce agricultural landowners to the potential in the reduced carbon economy.

"Landowners can achieve a new source of income and, therefore, increase the value of their land. The very first step is having a land owner in Florida know this is an option," Willey said. "It's great for both the power sector and the agriculture, so it's good for the economy."

"People are holding their land in conservation and agriculture because they want to keep a vital part of Old Florida," said Jay Liles of the Florida Wildlife Federation. "Doing so could become a profitable alternative to development".

Because carbon sequestration is most applicable to large tracts of forested land, the strategy is optimal for regions like North Florida, Liles said. He added North Florida may benefit financially, but sequestration would serve the entire state by reducing the impacts of climate change and ocean rise.

Mike Joyner, the St. Joe Vice-President for Environmental Affairs, was one of more than 45 people who attended the conference. The St. Joe Company, one of North Florida's biggest developers and landowners, has looked into carbon sequestration for the past year, he said. A majority of St. Joe's 740,000 acres are in the North Florida.

"We're trying to get an idea of how much carbon our forests are sequestering now," Joyner said. St. Joe will wait to see if legislation at the state or federal level is enacted before making a final decision on carbon sequestration, he said.

"Today has been very good," Joyner said. "Willey has a national reputation in this area".

Here is a link to the presentation at the bottom of the article:

Carbon Credits as a Marketable Forest Commodity

 

              
 

Crooked lawyers set up the scams using whatever "worthy cause" suits the con game.  In our legal system, we have a maxim that it's better for a hundred guilty men to go free than to imprison one innocent man.  In the case of our legal system itself and in particular with lawyers and judges, the new maxim should be that it's better for a hundred innocent men to be taken  down than it is for one guilty man to go free.  The only reform this country needs is to flush the legal system of the crooks and to return to a system of plain language and honest dealings. 

Of course there is no end to the number of people who will play the game of getting something for nothing.  In the hoity toity language of professionals, the set ups for the theft are called "moral hazards".  The scenarios are set up by the thieving lawyers and the "risks" of the "moral hazards" are calculated.  It's like calculating the odds of a goldfish surviving in a tank of piranhas.  And after it's over, it's always, "Whoops... our bad.... Just didn't see it coming...   lessons learned". 

They are bringing our economy and our country down with these con games and widespread theft.  And if it isn't stopped soon, we will all be slaves on the land - paying "rents" to the fat ass landowners who were smart enough to own a few trees but who produce nothing. 

And I almost forgot to say the above article shows why an "honest money" system isn't this country's biggest problem.  If we did have an honest money system, you'd be paying silver and gold for vapor instead of T-Paper federal reserve notes.    
 

Vicky Davis
October 14, 2010