Deutsche Bank, Your Conscience is On Line One

So, Deutsche Bank reports that the increasing price of delivered electricity is prompting terrible consequences in “climate” policy leader the United Kingdom, such as moving one-quarter of households into fuel poverty (I have asked the author for a copy, which no story reporting on the report has provided).

They must be so proud. Keep reading.

The Financial Times’ coverage of this report has some nice charts including showing how this began in 2005. Which is when Europe’s policies to try and comply with its pet project, the Kyoto Protocol, came into effect. Take a look. It’s amazing.

Now, you should also know that Deutsche Bank is one of the biggest cheerleaders of these policies. They pimp for the movement.  I’ve noted they seem to have the German government on board in pushing for, ah, “new entrants” into the renewable energy scheme. The same kind Spain counted on before their own bubble went bust. Germany appears to be Spain, a year or two behind. I wonder if that means DB, too.

Worse, the global head of the Frankfurt-based bank’s Deutsche Asset Management Division gives interviews sounding like Al Gore on a bad day. That’s because “he is one of the most vocal proponents of climate change investing on Wall Street, arguing that going green makes sense not only from an ethical standpoint, but also from a financial standpoint.”

He should read his firm’s own reports. But, of course, DB is heavily invested in the stuff, being based in a country that has gone whole-hog on windmills and particularly solar panels — Germany has spent more to (chuckle) “jump-start” the latter alone in the past decade, according to EuroStat figures, than they spent to bail out Greece. Oh, and Portugal. And Ireland. Combined.

Talking one’s own book isn’t unheard of. It’s the moral preening and failure of DB and journalists to square the rhetorical and financial circles when doing that which I would address.

Oh, and before you think the consequences are some far-off European malady, last year, “Construction did not begin on a single new coal-fired power plant in the United States for the second straight year.” But binge-away on Euro-style green nonsense, we did! Leaving a certain someone who would prefer you invest in the more expensive greenie stuff they’re invested in to crow in the same story, “Coal is a dead man walkin'”. He could be describing the UK’s economy thanks to climate policies. I also recall something about our president claiming his objective to be seeing “electricity rates…necessarily skyrocket”. Swell.

We’ll see. High falutin’ firms like DB may spend a lot of money ensuring they’ve got access to policymakers, particularly those willing to push energy-scarcity (and, thereby, energy-poverty) policies. But things like — well, the above — have a funny way of earning consideration by the people the policymakers work for.