[All] BIG things happening all over the place. Gren update

[Lanteigne]

Big news happening all over. 
Here is a summery. 
The accountant who blew the whistle on Bernie Madoff’s scheme is blowing the whistle again with a new report attacking GE’s accounting practices.This is bigger than Enron and WorldCom combined,” he wrote. “In fact, GE’s $38 Billion in accounting fraud amounts to over 40% of GE’s market capitalization, making it far more serious than either the Enron or WorldCom accounting frauds.”
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/madoff-whistleblower-claims-ge-committing-accounting-fraud-131211577.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw
GE is on the verge of insolvency. https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/GE-On-The-Verge-of-Insolvency-Claims-Whistleblower-Report.html
You may wonder how this influences environmental issues. Well, this will directly impact investors, insurance, institutions, sovereignty funds and the predictable funding of many programs and institutions including environmental groups, government agencies etc.. This is the kind of huge issue which may result in further tax cuts or cuts to programs and services impacting environmental issues, so we really have to ramp up our approach to promote environmental protection measures as a means to avoid costs and avoid further fiscal risks to our community. With that said, here's the next big story.
A landowner has been notifying his neighbors that he intends to apply for permits to extract gravel from a 200-acre lot he owns along Witmer Road, a township road south of Petersburg. If this project goes through this single gravel pit project may pose a risk for up to 7% of the Waterloo's Regional water supply. The issue is in the very early planning phase. The Region is still waiting to hear for more information. Here is the link to the news coverage. 
https://www.therecord.com/news-story/9543961-wilmot-residents-say-proposed-gravel-pit-could-threaten-drinking-water/
There is great report released by Green Infrastructure Ontario about the need to expand green spaces in the Greater Horseshoe area.  As the population grows so to does the need for green space, particularly on large tracts of land.  The full report is online here:https://greeninfrastructureontario.org/app/uploads/2019/06/StateofParks_Report-Final.pdf

On page 5 of that report there is an illustration speaking of Ecosystem Services, which outlines the fiscal worth of the natural asset being kept in place. These are the kind of monetary numbers  that can move the hearts and minds of politicians. The ideas used here are things we can certainly apply to Hidden Valley,  especially page 7 which features a chart with various park types, which was something I never really gave thought to. It outlines the framework of funding options available for each type of park based on ownership and function. So which model would work best for an area like Hidden Valley and which funding model would work best for our Region or City's ability to fund it in order optimize our chances of success? The fact this location is in the area of wells and the intake makes protecting this area paramount. Especially in light of the next news story here. 
Microcystis cyanobacteria aka Blue Green Algae is rapidly spreading in Lake Erie. Here is the August 15th report featuring Nasa images which now shows that the bloom has reached Point Pelee. They provide the forecast for Aug. 18th as well. Link here: https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/hab/lakeerie_bulletins/bulletin_current.pdf?utm_content=buffercc6db&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

The current bloom now covers about 620 square miles which is an area larger than Houston, Texas. Researchers forecast that this year’s bloom will be one of the more severe in recent years. https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/algae-bloom-lake-erie-poses-major-health-threat?utm_source=Social%20Media&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=20190815_LakeErieAlgae
We really need to value our local potable water and tuck those numbers into our reports. 
Now the last story is very interesting. The Koch brothers are divesting from Canada's Oil Sands. They have just sold off it's upstream leases and abandoned their licences. They sold thousands of hectares of lands in the oil sands to a calgary firm called Cavalier Energy Inc., a subsidiary of the Riddell family-controlled Paramount Resources Ltd., in a transaction that occurred in June.https://vancouversun.com/commodities/energy/billionaire-koch-brothers-dump-canadas-oilsands-leases-as-foreign-exodus-continues/wcm/08572f33-e77b-438c-8770-07258acfcaee


There are companies who have been involved with bid rigging, corruption, collusion, air barrels and pipeline schemes to rig oil prices and to create a false demand for the need to build new pipes. I'm working with regulators at the NEB and other agencies exposing how it was done and where the money went. It was and still is all on the public record and it is getting results. My view, if you want to save the environment get up to speed on tax evasion, tax justice and economics. You can't be an effective environmentalist without that today. It is not a separate issue. Economics and environment are the same thing and the same folks are involved and the culture that exploited both is being observed and they will be held accountable. 
Gwyn Morgan of Encana shaped natural gas and fracking, worked as the adviser to both Christie Clark and PM Stephen Harper.  At EPIC he worked with Bruce Carson and John Findley and all these guys landed in scandals. Findley was with the In and Out scandal. Carson had his prostitute girlfriend in charge of water projects on First Nations and Morgan was CEO of SNC Lavalin during the scandal years. Doug Findley's wife Minister Diane Findley was Harper's procurement person and she hired SNC Lavalin in spite of the World Bank Blacklisting of the firm.  Gwyn Morgan was also Canada's lead director at HSBC. Look at the mess happening with HSBC right now. We know for a fact this involved Canadians hiding their money offshore. https://www.icij.org/investigations/swiss-leaks/ex-hsbc-swiss-banker-pleads-guilty-in-1-8-billion-french-tax-case/
Tax evasion was how they made money from all the pipelines and air barrels. Money was sent offshore to earn interest elsewhere. Bid rigging by construction firms on projects allowed them to get grants upon approval and the money went offshore and to other areas. 
The pipeline approvals with Harper lacked sunset clause for completion of projects and the longer they dragged things out the more money they could make so it didn't matter if they violated Indigenous law, or put rare species at risk or did shoddy work because they stood to profit from the delay not the oil. 
Meanwhile oil majors like Imperial were buying up all the space on Enbridge's pipeline, locking out smaller firms from being able to ship out their product. Companies like Devon Energy lost millions and left. The oil majors rigged oil prices to show big volumes of rented pipeline space when in reality, they were air barrels. Majors bought the space and didn't use it because it had the appearances of being used. This gave the appearance of demand which sold their stock better and because they rented so much space they were given a deep discount on the Royalties they paid to Alberta. When Alberta finally looked at the actual volumes shipped they realized they were loosing $80 million dollars a day. https://business.financialpost.com/commodities/alberta-eyes-crackdown-on-air-barrels-as-revenue-losses-hit-80m-a-day
The booked space on Enbridge pipelines gave the impression new pipes were needed to manage oil volumes when in actual fact the systems they have currently have was simply under used and under insured. 
The reason GE is collapsing economically is based mainly on their oil and gas investments
In 2016 an OXFAM  report titled, Broken At The Top exposed the fact that GE, Walmart, Apple and other Us firms had $1.4tn in tax havens. That is more than the GDP of Spain, Mexico or Australia.https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/apple-microsoft-walmart-other-us-companies-hoarding-1-4tn-tax-havens-says-oxfam-1554974
Meanwhile Canada has been losing up to $50 Billion to tax evasion annually. It's mainly by paying CEO's in shares because it drops corporate taxes by 50%. The CEO's work like ISDAs: International Swaps and Derivative Assocations and they've been rigging market values by buying their own shorts and cashing in. That is what GE is guilty of. I have seen many other firms doing the same thing. Oil and pipeline companies do it a lot. They "borrow" shares and sell it high. When it looses money they buy the shares cheap and replace what they took pocketing the difference. Every time a bad news story comes out and stocks drop they profit basically. So behaving badly and fostering social discord or issues where stocks drop rewards them basically. There is no incentive for good behavior when behaving badly makes so much money. It is fundamentally pretty evil stuff. https://rosslandtelegraph.com/news/column-hill-wealth-inequality-and-tax-loopholes

So that's the nuts and bolts of how it works. Rest assured system change is coming and from an economic perspective, I'm actually optimistic about it because when the tax loops are closed, the tax evasion funds are recovered we're going to see a heck of a lot of money flowing in. Let's use it for the good. 
Lulu :0) 







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