Carbon Trade Ends on Quiet Death of Chicago Climate Exchange

Republican mid-term election joy deals financial uncertainty among green investors as the Chicago Climate Exchange announces the end of U.S. carbon trading.

The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) announced on October 21, 2010 that it will cease carbon trading this year. However, Steve Milloy reporting on Pajamasmedia.com (November 6, 2010) finds this huge story strangely unreported by the mainstream media.

To some key analysts the collapse of the CCX appears to show that international carbon trading is “dying a quiet death.” Yet Milloy finds that such a major business failure has drawn no interest at all from the mainstream media. Milloy noted that a “Nexis search conducted a week after CCX’s announcement revealed no news articles published about its demise.”

Not until November 02, 2010 had the story even been picked up briefly and that was by Chicagobusiness.com (Crain’s). Reporter, Paul Merrion appeared to find some comfort that while CCX will cease all trading of new emission allowances at the end of the year, “it will continue trading carbon offsets generated by projects that consume greenhouse gases, such as planting trees.”

Collapse is Personal Setback for U.S. President

Barack Obama was a board member of the Joyce Foundation that funded the fledgling CCX. Professor Richard Sandor, of Northwestern University had started the business with $1.1 million in grants from the Chicago-based left-wing Joyce Foundation enthusiastically endorsed by Obama. When founded in November 2000, CCX’s carbon trading market was predicted to grow anywhere between $500 billion and $10 trillion. Fortunately before its collapse Sandor was able to net $98.5 million for his 16.5% stake when CCX was sold.

Failure of European Climate Market May Follow

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/rep-darrell-issa-tells-chris-wallace-we-need-to-do-investigations-in-a-less-partisan-way/

“What’s the first thing? What’s the big investigation you’re looking to hold?” Wallace asked.

“Well, I’m going to go after a lot of things and I’m going to do a lot of investigating, but I think finishing off the Angelo Mozilo, Friends of Angelo Program where it created the financial meltdown in no small part because Fannie and Freddie took huge amounts of bad loans and are continuing to have losses…I think we have to bring that to a successful conclusion and make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2513537/posts

Chaffetz and Issa Seek Information on Fannie Mae Executives Inventing New Cap & Trade System
Chaffetz.house.gov ^ | 05/14/10 | Chaffetz/Issa

Washington, DC—Today, Rep. Chaffetz (R-UT), along with Rep. Issa (R-CA) sent a letter to David Kappos, the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, as well as Michael Williams, President and CEO of Fannie Mae, seeking information concerning a patent issued to Fannie Mae regarding a residential Cap and Trade system.

On June 7, 2005, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued Patent No. 6,904,336 for a “System and Method for Residential Emissions Trading.” The patent was assigned to the Federal National Mortgage Association (“Fannie Mae”) and CO2e.com, LLC of New York. The patent lists former Fannie Mae Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Franklin D. Raines as the primary inventor. Former Fannie Mae executives Scott Lesmes and Robert Sahadi are also listed as inventors.

“I have serious questions about why Fannie Mae, back in 2005, was working on a Cap and Trade scheme,” said Rep. Chaffetz. “Why would they be spending their resources on something that is well outside of the scope of Fannie Mae’s charter? We want to see all the information relating to the patents issued to these ‘inventive’ former Fannie Mae executives?”

“Having ventured far beyond sub-prime lending policies, Fannie Mae appears to have served as a full-blown liberal think tank for crony-capitalist ideas,” said Rep. Issa. “While the crony-capitalist Democrats who ran Fannie Mae like Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson used these kinds of ideas to enrich themselves, it was the American taxpayers who were left holding the bag after they failed. It’s disturbing that Fannie Mae executives were positioning themselves in 2005 for financial gain from an Obama Administration cap-and-trade system, but given the huge amount of campaign contributions Fannie Mae poured over President Obama it should be no surprise.”

(Excerpt) Read more at chaffetz.house.gov ...

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http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/40154/

Assembling the Team

During 2000 and 2001, the Joyce Foundation, a progressive trust with assets near $1 billion, known for funding groups like Center for American Progress and Tides Foundation, provided grants to CCX totaling $1.1 million. State Senator Obama served on the foundation’s board of directors during that time and was instrumental in awarding the grants.

Shortly after the first grant was approved, the president of The Joyce Foundation, Paula DiPerna, left to join the executive team of CCX. Other notables with familiar names soon followed.

• Former Vice-President Al Gore became part-owner of CCX when his company, Generation Investment Management, made a sizeable investment. Gore brought with him his senior partner at GIM, David Blood, former CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, along with a company chalk full of former Goldman Sachs’ executives

• Goldman Sachs itself soon joined the team buying a ten percent interest in CCX

• Maurice Strong, once linked to Tongsun Park, the central figure in the United Nation’s oil-for-food scandal in 2005 and one of the architects of the Kyoto Protocol, joined the CCX board of directors

• Carlton Bartels was one of the first, and perhaps most important, additions to the CCX roster. As CEO of a company called CO2e, Bartels developed and delivered the actual guts of the exchange — a system for facilitating and managing the actual carbon trades

Strange Bedfellows

Just three weeks after filing for a patent for his carbon trade system, Bartels was killed during the attacks of 9/11. Bartels’ death opened the door for a new partner to join CCX, easily the oddest fit of them all: Fannie Mae. In a move still unexplained, the quasi-governmental mortgage agency, led by CEO Franklin Raines, purchased the rights to the system from Bartel’s widow. A patent on the invention was granted to Raines and Fannie Mae on November 7, 2006, ironically, the day after the Democrats regained control of Congress. According to Barbara Hollingsworth of the Washington Examiner, the patent covers both the “cap” and “trade” parts of Obama’s top domestic energy initiative and gives Fannie Mae proprietary control over the automated trading system used by Sandor’s CCX.

When asked about the patent recently Fannie Mae communications director Amy Bonitatibus told the Washington Examiner, “Fannie Mae earns no money on this patent. We can’t conjecture as to the cap-and-trade legislation.” A source close to Fannie Mae, however, says a plan is in place to funnel future earnings from the patent to a non-profit housing organization called Enterprise Community Partners. Ironically, Raines, who left Fannie Mae in 2004 amidst allegations that he inflated earnings reports in order to collect higher bonuses ($52 million in bonuses over 5-years; $90 million in total compensation), serves on the board of trustees at Enterprise. In a continuation of theme, Goldman Sachs also has a representative on the board in the person of Alicia Glen.

Chaffetz and Issa Seek Information on Fannie Mae Executives Inventing New Cap & Trade System Chaffetz.house.gov ^ | 05/14/10 |

Rep. Chaffetz (R-UT), and Rep. Issa (R-CA) sent a letter to David Kappos, the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, as well as Michael Williams, President and CEO of Fannie Mae, seeking information concerning a patent issued to Fannie Mae regarding a residential Cap and Trade system.

BACKSTORY On June 7, 2005, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued Patent No. 6,904,336 for a “System and Method for Residential Emissions Trading.” The patent was assigned to the Federal National Mortgage Association (“Fannie Mae”) and CO2e.com, LLC of New York. The patent lists former Fannie Mae Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Franklin D. Raines as the primary inventor. Former Fannie Mae executives Scott Lesmes and Robert Sahadi are also listed as inventors.

It’s disturbing that Fannie Mae executives were positioning themselves in 2005 for financial gain from an Obama Administration cap-and-trade system, but given the huge amount of campaign contributions Fannie Mae poured over President Obama it should be no surprise.” (Excerpt) Read more at chaffetz.house.gov ...............

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REP ISSA: “Having ventured far beyond sub-prime lending policies, Fannie Mae appears to have served as a full-blown liberal think tank for crony-capitalism. While the crony-capitalist Democrats like Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson used these ideas to enrich themselves, American taxpayers are left holding the bag after they failed. "

AMERICAN ARE HOLDING THE BAG IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE:

Franklin Raines looted and pillaged Fannie Mae as Clinton's appointee. Raines famously facilitated the climate control scam w/ F/M funds.......then hooked up with Ohaha's Chicago mob who organized the Chicago Climate Exchange.

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REFERENCE Ex-Fannie CEO Franklin Raines should be behind bars for life. He is a crook of the first order. This thief Raines cooked the FM books precipitating losses of $9B (that we know of) for the single purpose of creating bonuses for himself and other F/M insiders. The SEC said Raines broke accounting rules by playing with risky derivatives.

RAINES COOKS THE F/M BOOKS---WALKS AWAY A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE After Raines was outed for cooking the books, Raines walked away w/ $90 million dollars, a $26 million parachute,

PLUS..........

Raines gets a MONTHLY pension of $116,300 for life. Raines had already collected $4.87 million in special performance shares.

Raines owns options giving him $5.8 million in net profit after redemptions, plus another $8.7 million in deferred compensation for six years at the F/M helm.

Raines keeps $5 million of paid-up life insurance. He and his spouse get free medical and dental benefits for life, worth over $1 million.

Raines earned $20 million in salary, bonuses and stock awards (that we know of) in one year.

After he was fired, Raines told the F/M board that he's entitled to get paychecks until June 22 giving him another $600,000, which triggers a $2,000 monthly raise in his lifetime pension. He also said he's entitled to disputed options with a gross value of about $5.6 million.

To keep Raines happy within philanthropic circles, Fannie Mae will match Raines' charitable contributions by $10,000 a year.

(1) Have the CCX'ers merely changed their names? (2) Will they be back under other aliases? (3) Who is laudering money now?

G-r-e-a-t questions, HM. Anytime these CCX'ers take trips offshore means another laundering job.

REFERENCE The court-appointed lawyer ID'ing Ponzi King Madoff's assets, unearthed a labyrinth of interrelated international funds, institutions and entities of almost unparalleled complexity and breadth...... and assets and businesses in 11 places overseas.

No question, tax evasion and money laundering was the name of the game for wealthy Madoffians-----businessmen acting like "philanthropists" were funneling income to Madoff to evade US taxes.

HERE'S THE CCX GAME PLAN (AS MADOFF RAN IT) Madoff was running several scams simultaneously:

(1) a Ponzi fraud that made him and his family personally wealthy;

(2) laundering tax-free money for phony tax-exempt organizations and "charities,"

(3) IRS fraud facilitation;

(4) a protection racket (shielding investors from L/E);

(5) laundering tax-free money destined for big buck campaign contributions (campaign fraud).

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