By Michael Pento

In 1953, the United States enjoyed a robust 28% of GDP that was derived from manufacturing. Now it is barely 11% of total output. Gosh, are we becoming smart! Why pollute our own environment, deplete our natural resources and work hard when you don't have to?

 And why produce tangible wealth when you can manufacture fake assets, trade them and count it as economic growth? To that end, Barack Obama is taking our smoke-and-mirrors economy to new heights with his proposed cap and trade system. Earlier this week, our own Chip Hanlon wrote a brilliant piece over at Red County on the topic.

Just think of all those new government jobs that will be created under Obama's cap and trade system! First, we'll need to hire G-men to go around and assess the amount of carbon each company should be allowed to emit. Then we'll need a regulated exchange to ensure the trading of such credits is done accurately. We'll also have to hire carbon police to ensure there aren't any counterfeit credits running around diluting the value of this new valuable commodity.

What a boon this will be to the accounting industry as well! An army of pencil pusher will need to learn how to recalculate book value based on excess credits; after all, soon these "assets" will be bolstering the balance sheet of a company near you (maybe herein lies the way to recapitalize the banks!).

Hey, just think how easy it will be to increase profit. A company could just shut down its production facility and sell its superfluous carbon credits. Imagine how high GDP will soar if we just close down what manufacturing we have left in this country and sell our credits to some poor country that has made the mistake of over-producing-they'll go broke purchasing our unused credits! Whheeeee, we'll all be rich!

Then-and here's the best part-we can trade credit default swaps and futures contracts on carbon credits. Investors could get wealthy by betting on how fast a company will go belly up after it receives a new contract and must increase carbon belching production!

Who cares if our trade deficit soars and the dollar weakens? Just think how strong the GDP print will be. I think we could use carbon credits as an alternative currency. Don't you think Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will feel a lot better about his Treasury holdings if he knows they are backed by carbon credits?

You see how easy it is to solve problems once government gets involved?