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Strategies & Market Trends : The Financial Collapse of 2001 Unwinding -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Snowshoe who wrote (3455)	9/27/2019 12:30:49 PM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 13878

Just the teachers having a day off. Africans like to have fun :-)

To: Snowshoe who wrote (3455)	9/27/2019 12:47:27 PM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13878

Brazil’s Huge $25 Billion Oil Auction Clears Very Important Hurdle By Julianne Geiger - Sep 27, 2019, 3:00 AM CDT No ClimateStrike. We are Brazilians. We love oil as much as Alaskans... As of 2017, Republicans have attempted to allow drilling in ANWR almost fifty times, finally being successful with the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. ANWR comprises 19 million acres (7.7 million ha) of the north Alaskan coast. ... It passed both the Senate and House of Representatives on December 20, 2017. Brazil’s massive transfer-of-rights oil auction to be held on November 7 has cleared one hurdle as the Brazilian Congress approved on Thursday one section of a larger bill that determines the specifics of the $25 billion auction, Reuters reported. The remaining sections of the bill still need to be settled. The one section that was approved today deals with revenue sharing for the auction proceeds, but remaining elements of the bill will still need to be approved—for now the elements in the unapproved sections have yet to be agreed. The section that was approved will now become law. Brazil’s auction is expected to rake in 106 billion reais, or $25.5 billion for the government. The auction will seek to sell oil blocks in the presalt zone off the coast of Brazil that had originally been given to state-run Petrobras to take 5 billion barrels of oil from those fields. Now, international oil companies will be able to bid on the production rigs in this same area. Petrobras has already done a fair bit of exploring in the area, and Brazil is hoping that this will factor into getting a premium price for the transfer of rights in that acreage. Petrobras made it clear on Thursday in its updated strategic plan that it is committed to deepwater oil and gas projects, shedding its earlier persona as an energy company that would “evolve with society” through solar and wind projects as part of its Business and Management Plan. Petrobras Chief Executive Roberto Castello Branco has called other oil majors who are planning to diversify into renewables as mere “marketing ploys” Reuters reported. Brazil is home to billions in oil reserves, about 90% of which lie offshore in deep waters. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

To: Snowshoe who wrote (3455)	9/28/2019 2:13:14 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 13878

Soros moolah flowing freely... Financing the Fight against Climate Change Project Syndicate, December 10, 2009 “There’s gold in them thar climate protests!” It is now generally agreed that the developed countries will have to make a substantial financial contribution to enable the developing world to deal with climate change. Funds are needed to invest in new low-carbon energy sources, reforestation and protection of rain forests, land-use changes, and adaptation and mitigation. But there is no similar agreement on where the money will come from. The developed countries are reluctant to make additional financial commitments. They have just experienced a significant jump in their national debts, and they still need to stimulate their domestic economies. This colors their attitudes. It looks like they will be able to cobble together a “fast-start” fund of $10 billion a year for the next few years, but more does not fit into their national budgets. This is unlikely to satisfy the developing countries. I believe that this amount could be at least doubled and assured for a longer time span. Developed countries’ governments are laboring under the misapprehension that funding must come from their national budgets. But that is not the case. They have the money already. It is lying idle in their reserve accounts at the International Monetary Fund. Spending it would not add to any country’s fiscal deficit. All they need to do is to tap into it. In September 2009, the IMF distributed to its members $283 billion worth of Special Drawing Rights, an arcane financial instrument, but one that essentially constitutes additional foreign exchange. They can be used only by converting them into one of four currencies, at which point they begin to carry interest at those currencies’ combined treasury-bill rate. At present, the interest rate is less than 0.5%. Of the $283 billion worth of recently distributed SDRs, more than $150 billion went to the 15 largest developed economies. These SDRs will sit largely untouched in the reserve accounts of these countries, which don’t really need any additional reserves. I propose that the developed countries – in addition to establishing a fast-start fund of $10 billion a year – band together and lend $100 billion dollars worth of these SDRs for 25 years to a special green fund serving the developing world. The fund would jump-start forestry, land-use, and agricultural projects – areas that offer the greatest scope for reducing or mitigating carbon emissions, and that could produce substantial returns from carbon markets. The returns such projects could generate go beyond addressing carbon emissions. Returns from land-use projects, for example, could also include the potential to create more sustainable rural livelihoods, enable higher and more resilient agricultural yields, and generate rural employment. This is a simple and practical idea, and there is a precedent for it. The United Kingdom and France each recently lent $2 billion worth of SDRs to a special fund at the IMF to support concessionary lending to the poorest countries. At that point, the IMF assumed responsibility for the principal and interest on the SDRs. The same could be done in this case. I further propose that member countries agree to use the IMF’s gold reserves to guarantee the interest payments and repayment of the principal. The IMF owns a lot of gold – more than 100 million ounces – and it is on the books at historical cost. Thus, at current market prices, it is worth more than $100 billion over its book value. It has already been designated to be used for the benefit of the least developed countries. The proposed green fund would meet this requirement. This means that the developed countries that lend the SDRs would incur no interest expense and no responsibility for repayment. There are some serious technical problems involved in offsetting the interest income against the interest expense, particularly in the United States, but the net effect would be a wash. These technical difficulties stood in the way of previous attempts to put the SDRs to practical use, but they do not apply to the proposed green fund. There are three powerful arguments in favor of this proposal. First, the green fund could be self-financing or even profitable; very little of the IMF’s gold, if any, would actually be used. Second, the projects will earn a return only if developed countries cooperate in setting up the right type of carbon markets. Establishing a green fund would be an implicit pledge to do so by putting the gold reserves of the IMF at risk. Finally, this money would be available now, jump-starting carbon-saving projects. For all these reasons, the developing countries ought to embrace my proposal. The key point is that it is possible to increase substantially the amount available to fight global warming in the developing world by using the existing allocations of SDRs, with interest payments on them guaranteed by the IMF’s gold reserves. All that is lacking is the political will. The mere fact that tapping SDRs requires Congressional approval in the US ensures that nothing will happen without public pressure – including pressure from the developing countries. Yet it could make the difference between success and failure in Copenhagen. georgesoros.com