Posted by paul on April 28, 2008 at 08:50:43 from (66.44.132.218):
In Reply to: Re: ethanol bashing posted by phillip d on April 28, 2008 at 08:03:30:
The only problem is that you are making a simple conclusion from a complex thing.
It isn't so much that food costs too much now.....
It's that food was too cheap back then.
Farming was dying. Starting in the 1960s the govt had cheap food policies, and paid farmers subsidies to _keep_ it that way.
Now everyone is up in arms over the govt subsidies - 60% of which are food stamp type programs; and 20% of the land payment programs are for wildlife habitat type of programs.
So, we farmers do something about it, and create a market for our surplus grains..... We are drowing in our surplus grains......
At the same time, USA consumers put our ecconomy in the dumpster.
At the same time, other govts have a stronger ecconomy, and are willing to buy more grains.
Speculators - the big Funds who try to invest money for millions of people - don't have any good places to put their money. Bonds, stocks, housing, etc are all poor - low return rates.
So these speculators are jumping on the grain, oil, steel, copper markets, and buying them as an investment. They are creating their own inflation in these areas (just like the housing market was the previous 5 years..... Scary isn't it?).
Ethanol really has not shifted all that much land use around. It has created an investment monster, as speculators who don't understand keep buying grains.
But the physical available grains - ethanol has not done very much at all to change what is available or used. Real small actual difference.
If you study all the data and all the studies - not just those who dislike ethanol for their own goals - and not just those who like ethanol for their own goals.... But look at the whole, complete picture:
Ethanol has saved us from a grain disaster this year. We have more corn available because of the ethanol speculation, and this has saved the world from a very rude wakeup call.
Several good studies that don't get the national press are saying ethanol has saved up to 50 cents a gallon on our fuel prices.
Who is right? Probably 50 cents is a bit optimistic, and the gloom & doom folks saying ethanol is the end of civilization are also a bit off.....
You do make some good points, and you are correct on some things. I - and hopefully others - don't want to bash you.
Are you looking at the big picture?
What woulda happened without ethanol - we are exporting a record amount of grain this year, in _addition_ to the ethanol use. These exports have really saved our country from a terrible ecconoimic balance of trade that would put us deeper in.
If ethanol was using up so very much grain: How come we can still export record aomunts of grains?
We need to look at the big picture. I agree ethanol from corn will not be the answer long term.
Ethanol from fiber looks even worse - right now.
But both of those can help a little, and I think at this time the positives are heavily outweighing the negatives.
Without ethanol, agriculture in the USA would have imploded and we would be importing most of our food now, as well as our energy. This crazy spike in grain prices is abnormal world ecconomic issues. The 10-12 cent boost ethanol actually gives to corn prices made a big difference through the 1980s & 90s - keeping farmers in business.
The govt is dictating how to farm, drainage, fert usage, livestock raising, etc. The environmental cost of your food has really shot up the past decade. Farmers are being crushed by these costs. You, who eat the food, either pay these added costs, or farmers stop raising feed & food. Takes a while to catch up, but these costs will be passed on. No free lunch.
We need to look at the big picture, all of it, before we draw conclusions.
What is frustrating is the simple view, the small clip that draws conclusions that are not true. Ethanol is a very minor thing in the big picutre - so many other, bigger issues are influencing feed/food prices.
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