As we get closer to spring and the farmers start to get out in the fields, I think we all need to ask ourselves why are we using 40% of America’s corn crop to produce a highly inefficient fuel product? As many of you may have noticed, food prices are going up at a pretty rapid clip, (corn has more than doubled in price in the last 6 months). If you think that it is bad here, how would you like to be in an impoverished nation that is dependent upon US crops for the meager food that they can afford. It may not sound like a big deal, but the damage that “food for fuel” poses is very real.
If you stop to think at all the different food products that have corn in them, it is no wonder to see food prices of all types going through the roof at our grocery stores. I think it is absolutely ridiculous that we are using 40% of the nations corn crop for ethanol which only stands to account for 2% of our fuel usage. And for anyone to think that ethanol is a means by which we can wean ourselves off oil, think again. Do the math, 40% of corn crop only accounts for 2% of fuel. The only thing that this is doing is driving up food prices around the world, and of course the impoverished are again taking the biggest hit.
I decided to listen to NPR for a while the other day, and before my ears started to bleed they were talking to farmers about how great business was. These morons were discussing the trifecta of goodness that has led to increased crop prices for farmers (overseas crop failure, ethanol mandates & a weakened dollar). Nice huh? What they failed to mention was the fact that the government, in its infinite wisdom, is simply creating another asset bubble like they did with housing by falsely inflating crop prices with government mandates which falsely inflates land prices, and here we go again…
As it stands our federal government is looking to spend around $30 billion to oil companies in exchange for blending 69 billion gallons of ethanol with their gas. Ethanol can not be produced at a price with which it would be in any way competitive in the free market. Ethanol actually uses more energy to produce per gallon than a gallon of ethanol contains. Not to mention the overwhelming amount of water that it takes to produce. It has been said, the net effect of ethanol, is like using 3 gallons of gasoline to produce 4 gallons of ethanol. This is absolutely ridiculous and makes absolutely no sense!!
I think it is high time that we make it clear to the politicians that they better get a backbone and get off the subsidy kick for inefficient products that really only serve to hurt the world and our country.
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