Matt Taibi—Rolling Stone magazine:

“The bank owns a 10 percent stake in the Chicago Climate Exchange, where the carbon credits will be traded. Moreover, Goldman owns a minority stake in Blue Source LLC, a Utah-based firm that sells carbon credits of the type that will be in great demand if the bill passes. Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, who is intimately involved with the planning of cap-and-trade, started up a company called Generation Investment Management with three former bigwigs from Goldman Sachs Asset Management, David Blood, Mark Ferguson and Peter Harris. Their business? Investing in carbon offsets. There’s also a $500 million Green Growth Fund set up by a Goldmanite to invest in green-tech … the list goes on and on. Goldman is ahead of the headlines again, just waiting for someone to make it rain in the right spot.”

Rank these from 1 (most important) to 7 (least important)::

- War within a country or among countries.

- Famine, which affects people directly and also affects international markets.

- Economic uncertainty caused by factors such as the collapse of a major industry, depletion of natural resources, or political change.

- Government economic policies, such as tariffs and other trade regulations, foreign aid, and interest rates.

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The ‘Vaso-Pressing’ effects constricting the life channel of the capital markets-the ‘Liquidity’, due to credit market squeeze in response to the US sub prime mortgage crisis, has eased since the Fed cut interest rates. The rate cut by 50 bps, has been something more than expected by the analysts and market participants alike. Global equity markets reacted sharply to this effect as they saw bulls running all the way with Dow Jones and other emerging markets reaching new highs.

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Hillary would transform our economy from carbon-based to clean and energy efficient, jumpstarting research and development through a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund and doubling investment in basic energy research. She would also spur the green building industry by funding the retrofitting and modernization of 20 million low-income homes and take concrete steps to reduce electricity consumption, including enacting strict appliance efficiency standards and phasing out incandescent light bulbs.

Recognizing that transportation accounts for 70 percent of U.S. oil consumption, Hillary would increase fuel efficiency standards to 55 miles per gallon by 2030, but would help automakers retool their production facilities through $20 billion in “Green Vehicle Bonds.”