This is being enabled by a senile Joe Biden and thousands of bureaucrats buried in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy (DOE), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and scores of other agencies.

The US Treasury, SEC, and the Federal Reserve have even joined in by regulating loans to the oil and gas industry, as well as requiring financial disclosures about climate change and other ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) metrics.

The World Bank (controlled by the US) is being encouraged to deny loans to industries that involve carbon-based development and to steer financing toward projects approved by the climate mavens. This is called the all of government approach, in which every agency gets involved in pushing the climate agenda, even if its not the primary job of that agency. The pressure never stops.

In short, the climate change debate could not be more relevant to investors. Those calling the shots in the Green New Deal (what I call the Green New Scam) will decide which industries win or lose, which projects get financed (or not), which initiatives are subsidised by the government or left to wither on the vine, and which companies will feel the regulatory heat if they dont get with Bidens programs. Climate change is not a sideshow. Nothing is more relevant to markets, investors, and asset allocators today.

Yes, the climate has always changed

Lets get one thing cleared up before we go further. The climate does change. It always has.

During the Medieval Warm Period (9501250 AD), the Vikings had farms and settlements in Greenland. Today, those settle...

Is the Australian superannuation system designed to fund your retirement or fund managers lifestyles?

Its a trick question, of course. The correct answer is that it doesnt matter what a government policy is designed to do. It always does the opposite anyway a phenomenon that economists call the Cobra Effect.

As the story goes, the British Government in Delhi decided to get rid of cobras by offering a bounty for cobra skins. The result was a vast increase in the cobra breeding industry

Even the British Government eventually figured out what was going on and closed the subsidy program. And so, the cobra breeders, no doubt caught up in a frenzy of animal rights environmentalism, freed their stock back into its natural habitat, causing a flood of cobras on the streets of Delhi.

Thus, the government programs intention to reduce the number of cobras resulted in a cobra plague. And so itll be for the superannuation industry too, Ive always said.

Now, Id just like to mention that the sound of a hissing cobra once caused me to be so petrified that I couldnt even manage to wet my pants.

That is probably how the superannuation industry is feeling right now too. You see, the super industry forgot that the Baby Boomer generation would eventually like its money backbut somebody at the regulator just reminded them.

Super funds slammed over failure to plan for Boomer retirement wave, reports The Australian Financial Review. This is despite the law requiring them to help members plan for their super withdrawals to fund retirement.

Yes, according to the regulators tasked with making sure the super industry follows the rules, the super industry is not following the rules.

You and I might think this requires the regulators to experience some form of accountability for not doing their job. But thats just not how the Cobra Effect works. Its always the man on the street who gets bitten on the bum by the consequences of government policies.

Now Im sure it comes as a complete shock to people in the finance industry that people might want their money back at some point.

Then again, fund managers from Bernie Madoff to the UKs superstar stock-picker Neil Woodford have always struggled with the concept. Not to mention banks, like those which failed in the US this year when depositors wanted their money back.

So, Australias superannuation industry probably thought their gravy train of compulsory savings they kept safely out of our reach would go on forever.

But, yes, people will eventually withdraw money from a retirement savings systemif they can.

The trouble is that, when it comes to super, this implies selling the assets in the fundand that means fewer assets under management for the fundiesand that means fewer fees for fundies

Uh oh

But it gets worse. The premise of the super system is that its many savers an...