Carbon market chaos strikes again
Posted on March 19th, 2010
What a surprise: The free-market-that-is-not-free leaps from one scandal to the next. In a real free market where salesmen sell something real, and buyers buy something they want, people can’t get away with cheating, or not for long.
幾咁驚奇：在不自由的自由市場，醜聞從一單跳至另一單。在一個真正的自由市場，推銷員銷售實在的東西，和買家購買他們想要的東西，人們無法從作弊逃脫，或不會長久。
If someone sold you a bulk carrier of coal, and it turned up empty, you’d notice.
如果有人賣給你一散貨船的煤炭，它變成空的，你會注意到。
But, if someone sold you two million Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs) that were worthless, how could you tell? They are “certified”. They are real “certificates”, and as long as you believe they exist, perhaps they do? Welcome to the world of fiat currencies, where confidence doesn’t just make or break a market; it’s its sole underwriter.
但是如果有人賣給你二百萬的排放減量核證（CERs），那是毫無價值的，你能怎麼講？它們是“核證”的，它們是真正的“證書”，和只要你相信它們存在，也許它們存在？歡迎來到許可貨幣的世界，在那裡信心並不僅造就或打破一個市場：它是它的唯一承包商。
Times Online reports on the Chaos in the carbon market over recycled permits.
泰晤士報在線報導在回收許可證上的碳市場混亂。
The Hungarian Government, the cheeky sods, figured out that if CERs were issued by the UN (and not the EU), they could use them to write off the obligations of some Hungarian companies, and then, apparently, sell them again, so others could use them to write off their obligations, too. 匈牙利政府那無恥的討厭鬼，計算出如果CERs的發放是由聯合國（而不是歐盟），他們能利用這些註銷一些匈牙利公司的還款，和然後表面地，再次出售它們，而其他人亦可以用它們來註銷他們的還款。
It’s like reselling a three-course meal after it’s been eaten.
就像倒賣一頓三餸套餐後，在它已被吃後。
When confronted, the Hungarian Government claimed the used CERs were only sold to non-European investors. (So that makes it alright then? Someone outside Europe wasted money?)
當面對，匈牙利政府宣稱CERs的使用，是只出售給非歐洲投資者。 （因此它就攪掂麼？歐洲以外有人浪費錢嗎？）
Except that, as things do in a “free” market, the used CERs turned up in the EU market anyway, and eventually someone noticed.
除此，由於事情在“自由”市場做出，使用的CERs無論如何在歐盟市場出現，和最終有人注意到。
“BlueNext and Nord Pool, the French and Nordic exchanges, suspended trading in
certificates of emission reduction (CERs) when it emerged that some had been
illegally reused.”
“法國和北歐交易所的BlueNext和北池，當浮現一些被非法重用時，暫停排放減量核證（CERs）的交易。”
The value of the CERs promptly fell from €12 per tonne of carbon to less than €1.
CERs的價值迅速從每噸碳€12跌到不足€1。
“The European commission will suspend the surrendering of
allowances, CERs and
ERUs, it said today.”
“歐洲委員會將暫停交出津貼，CERs和排減單位，它今天說。”
Things are tough for the fledgeling carbon currency market. First the individual governments issued too many permits, creating a glut and crash. Then the top two auditors of the European system were busted, one after the other, and suspended for irregularities. Then Europol discovered that some traders had found a way to collect taxes on behalf of the government, and keep the money for themselves. The fraud may have cost taxpayers about seven billion dollars, and in some markets amounted to 90% of the volume. (See CBC Canada.)
The unfixable unfree market
Hopeful souls imagine that they can improve the regulations or auditing, or close the loopholes, but that’s just the problem: In a fake market based on an unmeasurable, unverifiable thing like the motivations of Third World businessmen, the market itself is the loophole. The only way to close the loophole is to close the market.
Hat tip to Colin in the UK.
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/03/carbon-market-chaos-strikes-again/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JoNova+%28JoNova%29
歐洲碳交易市場的詐騙瘟疫
碳貨幣作為全球貨幣
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