I’ve let Major Clipton (from the Ethics Alarms TV and Movie Clips collection, #9 of 27) make the first observation, which is that this is nuts, and that it ought to be obvious to everyone that it’s nuts.
In case you missed it, ” Nearly200 countries concluded two weeks of talks early Sunday in which their main achievement was agreeing to establish a fund that would help poor, vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters made worse by the pollution spewed by wealthy nations that is dangerously heating the planet,” according to the New York Times.
The United States has reportedly “agreed” to contribute a billion dollars to the fund. Well…
1. The U.S. diplomats can’t “agree” to give away a billion dollars. Only Congress can do that. If you want a single reason to be glad the Republicans won a majority in the House of Representatives while falling on their collective, incompetent faces during the “pink ripple,” this is it. If…and it’s a big if…the new Speaker of the House can keep his troops in line, the U.N.’s Robin Hood Fund should be DOA.
2. The Biden Administration has exploded the National Debt like no other peacetime administration in history, and seems to be under the mistaken belief that taxpayer funds are just cryptocurrency—you, know funny money. The bigger the debt the more interest the U.S. pays on it, and the same regime that has exploded the debt has also created inflation that makes the debt more expensive. In fiscal 2022 alone, the federal government made $475 billion in net interest payments. It was “only” $352 billion the prior year, according to the US Treasury Department. That is more than the government spent on veterans’ benefits and transportation combined. But hey, why not just give away a billion dollars that will be mostly used to line the pockets of the corrupt and incompetent leaders of those “poor, vulnerable countries.”
3. The U.N. no longer keeps peace or even tries, so now its main mission, always part of the scheme, is to use world government for a vast, socialist income transfer from successful nations to struggling ones. The U.S. already gives more money away than any other nation (any other two nations, in fact), and doesn’t need United Nations’ activated climate change hysteria to pull out more.
4. KABOOM! #1: “The deal calls for a committee with representatives from 24 countries to work over the next year to figure out exactly what form the fund should take, which countries should contribute and where the money should go. Many of the other details are still to be determined.” What kind of fool agrees to pay into a fund before little details like what the hell a fund will fund and who will benefit from it? The Joe Biden kind of fool, apparently. As Nancy Pelosi would say, he have to agree to pay into the fund to find out what we’re paying for.
5. KABOOM! #2: The U.N. officially lists China as a “developing nation,” so unless one of the details is making an exception for the second richest nation in the world, China, which is also a major polluter, would not pay into the fund, and would receive money from it.
6. All those developing nations that will claim damages from “climate disasters” that can’t possibly be proven to be caused by carbon pollution will also be planning to increase their own carbon pollution in order to build industries, create wealth and improve their population’s standard of living.
You didn’t think that Third World nations became First World nations with wind farms, solar panels and electric vehicles, did you?
7. As a footnote: the brilliant diplomats who hammered out (sort of) this masterpiece of international socialism arrived at the Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, conference by using about 400 private jets…to bemoan the damage caused by carbon emissions. A private jet can emit two tons of carbon dioxide in one hour, which is five to 14 times more pollution per passenger than a commercial airliner. Science!
Ethics Alarms 
“under the mistaken belief that taxpayer funds are just cryptocurrency—you, know funny money. ”
All fiat money is “funny money”. There is nothing backing the US dollar except a promise that someone somewhere will pay their debt. It can be “printed” at will by entities other than the government, and has no more intrinsic value than the paper it’s made of. That’s why we’re in this mess. Not because the government treats it like “funny money”, but because, ever since 1971, that’s what it actually is.
Any form of money only has value if the users of that money agree that it does. We’re at the precipice of people deciding that the dollar isn’t a stable store of value. It could go either way at this point, and we have idiots in charge who aren’t acting like they understand how close we are to a tipping point.
This path was inevitable when we unmoored the currency from any commodity that has value and trusted the government with the power to simply print money at will. We’re very unfortunate that the end of the road is approaching at a time when we have clueless morons (or intentional saboteurs, I’m not quite sure which it is) at the wheel.
My longtime Usenet ally, Christopher Charles Morton, made this point.
https://forum.pafoa.org/showthread.php?t=380576&p=4522359#post4522359
No wonder he greatly influenced my own political views for twenty-five years!
Well, not quite, though the difference doesn’t affect the ethics, just the who/whom and the sustainability.
Fiat money is backed by making it part of the fiscal system. It gains value in exchange from that, as you can literally pass the figurative buck until it reaches someone who can and will return it to the government to extinguish a tax liability, and who values it for that and has the resources to trade for the currency. This only fails when the tax base can’t do that enough, whether from unwillingness or from sheer overstretch (it never fails from lack of taxing enforcement methods, now those have been worked out, though it theoretically could from lack of willingness to tax). This approach is technically known as “Chartalism”.
Calling China “also a major polluter” … I don’t know … takes my breath away. And they’re just getting started.
How can the media say, “Joe Biden agreed to give billions to a fund.” I suppose it’s true. Joe agreed. But where’s the “so what?”
RE: the possibilities of Global Warming INC, many career deniers, myself included, blame it on Rio. Not the hilarious 1984 Michael Caine flick, but the 1992 Earth Summit.
There, behind closed doors criminally insane thieves of epic proportions, I mean UN diplomats (with the help of cravenly savvy, rent-seeking corporations) decided to part from their stated mission of improving the human condition (despite the unqualified success that’d been, am I right?) to that of saving Mother Gaia from the Global Warming That’s Here And Worse Than The Models Predicted.
The scope of their originally anticipated shakedown (taking $ from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries) has exceeded even their wildest expectations.
In a perfect world, their brainchild/demon spawn, the UNIPCC (which conducts no research of its own, has no Conflict Of Interest provisions/safeguards, and whose ranks are thoroughly littered with activists and criminals, [forgive the redundancy]), would be disbanded and prosecuted under RICO.
Awesome, Paulie. But come on, how do you really feel?
“But come on, how do you really feel?”
Seeing’s you’s ask, OB…
Former SoS/current Inveterate Moron Lurch Kerry, et al, see Air Conditioners as the Demon Spawn, to which I say: Do something proactive; STOP_USING_THEM!!
Side Note: The world (poor areas in Asia, Malaysia, Africa, Mexico, etc.) is on pace to add 700,000,000 AC units by 2030 and a total of 1.6 Billion (that’s Billion with a B!) by 2050.
This makes the criminally insane cabal of Climate Criminals (AKA: the UNIPCC) recoil in horror. They believe everyone, (EXCEPT they themselves AND the well-heeled, coddled attendees of Climate Conferences) should cut back energy usage 50 %.
Despite Lefty trembling like dry leaves in a strong wind (made drier and stronger due to Global Warming) at the mere mention of Climate Change, a hilarious Lefty conundrum results: Suffocating White Lefty Guilt requires they feel sorry for poor people…with but one caveat…they CAN’T BE lightly complected, Southern Religious Y-Chromosomal Conservatives.
Funniest thing, Lefty’s concern incuriously wilts like August lettuce juuuuuust shy of their checkbooks…welp…that and the prospect of any sacrifice of personal comfort.
Once their vitals return to acceptable levels, ask them three (3) simple questions:
*What have you done,
*What are you doing, and
*What will you do going forward to address the Global Warming That’s Here And Worse Than The Models Predicted?
The great unwashed merely want A FRACTION of the comforts which Warmalista Alarmacysts take for granted (improved diets, on-demand energy, above subsistence living, etc.), yet satisfying those desires will have a deleterious affect on Mother Gaia.
The BURNING (heh!) question? What can be done that won’t involve compromising a lifestyle of Brie, Chablis, & Wheat Grass Tea?
John “Heinz 57” Kerry. What a knucklehead. From the long tradition of politicians marrying large fortunes. The guy’s a walking, talking fraud. And he’s not even remotely Irish.
Tereza is a god damned Hapsburg!
This is a worldwide Ponzi scheme that would make THE Madoff and cryptocurrency scams blush.