During the 1990s low crude oil prices destroyed the domestic oil market. Small producers went broke, exploration disappeared and US oil production sagged. After driving out all the small guys’ speculators and OPEC drove up market prices and laughed all the way to the bank.
The same thing has happened to agriculture in the US only it took much longer. The inflated value of the dollar destroyed exports and cheap domestic commodity prices drove millions off the farms. Currently the American farmer is a 65 year old man that's barely made it through the hard times or a corporation. The average age of an individual farmer is 55 and over 30% are 65 or older. The consolidation of food production in the US has been tremendous since the last "good" farming years came to a close with the grain embargo of 1979. Much like the oil companies the big boys are now calling the shots and the bottom line is PROFIT. The consumer is just now starting to pay for 30 years of the world’s cheapest food prices.
As for who benefits from ethanol: Every dollar the US sends over seas is lost. Members of OPEC buy German cars, Japanese electronics and Korean appliances or Soviet Military Surplus - none of it comes back to the US.
If the same money was paid to US farmers they'll buy Polaris 4 wheelers, John Deere or AGCO equipment, Gateway computers and big AMERICAN made pickups and trucks. Millions of hourly jobs are created to build that stuff and those workers have money in their pockets to buy their own durable goods.
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Today's Featured Article - 12-Volt Conversions for 4-Cylinder Ford 2000 & 4000 Tractors - by Tommy Duvall. After two summers of having to park my old 1964 model 4000 gas 4 cyl. on a hill just in case the 6 volt system, for whatever reason, would not crank her, I decided to try the 12 volt conversion. After some research of convert or not, I decided to go ahead, the main reason being that this tractor was a working tractor, not a show tractor (yet). I did keep everything I replaced for the day I do want to restore her to showroom condition.
... [Read Article]
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1964 I-H 140 tractor with cultivators and sidedresser. Starts and runs good. Asking 2650. CALL RON AT 502-319-1952
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