Update: well, the cancerous concept of derivatives has once again bit us right on the be-hind. No, it’s not time for another bailout (yet), but maybe something even worse.

Ever notice how it sometime feels like were on the losing end of a rigged system. There’s a big inviting sign that says see our list of online slots for US players, and the room looks very inviting, full of color and mesmerizing optics and sounds. You can’t help but take notice, since this all revolves around money. Of course, it’s not just the slot machines, it’s the sense that money is fun, and that there are no losers here. The casino is open, the slots are spinning, the payouts are promised, and we’re being told everyone is having a good time. Only no one is winning except the house, who in this instance are the big banks, and overseas financial entities entangled within our monetary systems to the point where the payouts are expected in the form of bailouts. For our own good, of course!

Some countries (mainly China) have been creating huge amounts of pollutants simply to destroy them so they can make money under the Kyoto Protocol.

Let me say this again. The pollutants are not a useful thing in and of themselves. Nor are they a by-product of some useful thing. They are created by companies in China (and others) for the sole purpose of getting rid of them and earning carbon offsets, which can then be sold to necessary polluters so that they don’t have to pollute less (and since China — and others — tax these things, the government gets a nice chunk for letting it happen).

Sounds like a win-win situation for polluters, which was the whole point of the Kyoto Protocol, right?

Anyone who really understood the Clean Development Mechanism could have seen this coming. Whatever the motives of the folks that drew up the plans, it was very obviously a great way for major polluters to buy and sell themselves off the hook. Perhaps that’s why it was approved.

Many environmentalists are calling this a “scam”, as if someone was deviously figuring out some way to find a loophole in the system. This is not just failure to read the fine print in your home equity loan; this IS the system. This is exactly why “cap and trade” schemes shouldn’t even be on the table, let alone the main ‘solution’. You’re giving people Get Out of Jail Free cards in order to get them to stop committing crimes.

I almost miss the days when governments and corporations were openly contemptuous and dismissive of environmental concerns; “cap-and-trade” and other supposedly ‘sustainable’ solutions allow them to ape the language of environmentalism for a marketing coup, while continuing or expanding their destructive and murderous policies.

But that’s enough of a rant for now. The enlightened already know, and I doubt that the rest are willing to even listen…