Investing these days has become quite tricky, even treacherous!

There are bad investments all around us on a daily basis. The government seems to have a pretty good handle on bad investments as of late. They are spending $3.6 trillion dollars in the near future on programs we can only hope will help. Oh, by the way, that comes to about $25,573 dollars for each of our 139 million taxpayers. That’s ok. Just put it on my bill, or better yet put it on my kids’ bill.

Citigroup, for those who do not know, is the nation’s largest banking institution. Chances are if you have a credit card or a mortgage, Citigroup is playing a part. Citigroup has been touted as the world’s worst investment.

Former Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, made a terrible investment on behalf John Q Public. He purchased 7.8% stake in Citigroup for $25 billion dollars. Then he added guarantee’s against 90% of future losses on $301 billion dollars in assets. Subsequently, we (taxpayer) injected another $20 billion dollars. So, for paying for about 100% of the market value for Citi, we got less than 1/10th of a company that was worth 1/5th of our investment.

Pretty good deal, eh?

That $45 billion dollar stake has a market value of just over ONE billion today. And, it’s about to get worse. The Treasury Department has agreed to convert $25 billion of its preferred stock investment into common stock at Citi. This means the taxpayer’s stake will rise to near 40% of Citigroup.

It’s just another example of why these insolvent banks should be nationalized or FDIC Mandated, pre-packaged chapter 11, government funded reorganization.

Two years ago, the G8 Gleneagles Summit that was held in Scotland had one requirement for the World Bank: to come up with a roadmap to help attract and accelerate investments in clean energy, especially those for the developing world, in tight cooperation, of curse, with other financial institutions from all over the world.

Within this framework, for Clean Energy Investment, the diverse investments are needed to primarily:

• Help increase access to energy, especially in the Sub-Saharan African area;
• Make transition to a low carbon economy more rapid
• Secure adaptability to variations in climate and weather conditions and change.

Based on the framework for Energy Investment, the power sector alone needs approximately $165 billion only for such investment, for this decade. The cruel reality is that of the $165 billion needed, only about half of is being financed. In addition to that sum, other tens of billions of US $ are as well required yearly, so as to cover for the incremental costs, needed for the transition to a low carbon economy.

The Action Plan drew for the Energy Investment Framework came up with an update of the work to be undertaken to a certain date, together with all actions carefully sought by the World Bank Group, so as to support what the Energy Investment Framework has started.

On the other hand, the change to a low carbon use, is going to require a long-term framework, an equitable global regulatory plan, so as to ensure the reduction of the greenhouse emissions. This plan turn first rich, developed countries, that are supposed to show leadership, by helping those countries in course of development, in exchange for the worldwide benefit of a greener, cleared environment and growth.

This framework is also supposed to provide the necessary certainty so as to help and stimulate research and development, especially for transformational technologies, and last, but not least, the same framework will allow carbon markets to flourish and bring increased financial benefits to those countries in course of development, those benefits reaching as much as $100 billion, only within a few decades.

According to the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), these financial benefits have the right incentive towards addressing imminent climate change, especially in developing countries.