Want a stimulus? Stop corn based ethanol!

[edhopper]

I just went to the supermarket and eggs were $2.50/doz! A year ago they went for $1.20. Producing corn based ethanol has driven up the price of grains and feed (for the chickens who lay the eggs) and I don't see lower prices at the gas pump because of it.
Now bio fuels and grain based ethanol are good ideas. But corn is a bad crop to use for it.
The big check we get from this so called package will probably go to higher food cost. End the subsidy for corn ethanol and use the money for something important, like the S-Chip program.
Oh yes, the bread from my little neighborhood bakery, that used to cost $1 is now $1.70.

[wuushew]

1. kick

:kick:

[NNN0LHI]

2. I have been posting this was going to happen but no one seemed concerned

I don't get it? I think a lot of people are invested in the ethanol scam.

Don

[Selatius]

3. The use of corn for fuel is driving up the cost of everything else that uses corn (see corn starch)

Any food that uses corn starch will see higher prices as a result. Get rid of the subsidies. Of course, that means fighting agri-corps like ADM and Monsanto.

[aikoaiko]

4. I'm hoping that the increase price in corn makes sugar relatively more affordable

and they put sugar back in cokes.

[wuushew]

5. Unlikely unless the U.S. drops sugar tarriffs

n/t

[cascadiance]

13. WTO actually has ruled on the reverse in Mexico...

They forced Mexico to drop its tariffs against imports that didn't have cane sugar (aka HFCS-based soft drinks that were "dumped" into the Mexico market below cost because of our industry subsidies). Of course the WTO thinks that their tariffs were anti-competitive but that our subsidizing corn products like HFCS to the point of creating trade imbalances with exports that are below cost (at U.S. taxpayer expense no less) isn't anti-competitive. This is precisely why we need to drop NAFTA, etc.

http://www.farmfutures.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=CD26BEDECA4A4946A1283CC7786AEB5A&nm=News&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=62FC0F2306964438AF6AB46F7F7B76F1

Hope Mexico continues to make cane-sugar based Coke. Love picking up those cases of Mexican coke these days at Costco instead. Still a means to get the REAL "Real Coke" from before the late 70's when the HFCS madness started!

[hunter]

6. Can't have that.

High Fructose Corn Syrup keeps us fat and happy.

[edhopper]

9. It's too big a topic for this thread,

but Google "High Fructose Corn Syrup". It's not just a sugar substitute or regular Corn Syrup. It's a manufactured product (ADM) that is harmful to the body and is one of the causes of the obesity epidemic we have.

[SammyWinstonJack]

7. How many really understand this? That it is driving up the cost of food?

Probably not many. :shrug:

[mahina]

8. No joke!

[louis-t]

10. You want corn prices to go down?

Stop eating so much damn popcorn, get the food makers to stop putting so much corn syrup in everything. This country probably consumes a stadium full of popcorn every year (a lot of it wasted, no one could eat the amount in some movie house serving sizes) and the corn syrup we consume would fill a small lake. Corn syrup surely contributes to obesity and soaring diabetes rates.
edit for clarity.

[Two Americas]

12. small effect

Popcorn is a teeny tiny fraction of overall corn production, as is sweet corn. Most corn goes into animal feed.

Row crops are heavily subsidized and most of the money goes to the very largest players. Fruit and vegetable production is still dominated by indepedent small growers and they have little political clout.

Food, by the way is a matter of public welfare similar to air and water, not merely another industrial product or consumer gadget or trinket, and cropland is a public resource.

One more point - consumer choice is a very poor mechanism for effecting progressive public agricultural policies.

[louis-t]

22. But hasn't corn production increased dramatically?

Farmers around here are growing it everywhere. Some have plowed up their lawns and planted more. I would expect soybean prices to go up, as bean crops are being replaced with corn.

[Two Americas]

23. that is my understanding, yes

I was looking at the stats on corn just the other day.

The farmers are going to be more and more tempted to put in corn to take advantage of the price bubble, but I would be very surprised if the farmers don't get screwed in the long run while Wall Street makes a huge killing. And yes it is already affecting soy and beans as well. Bad all around I think.

[LSK]

28. ok, and corn syrup?????

Care to address that?

[Sanctified]

15. I am not positive but I think they use a different type of corn for popcorn than they use for

animal feed.

[Two Americas]

24. correct n/t

...

[Two Americas]

11. very dangerous

Turning Wall Street and the big energy corporations loose on our already beleaguered farm land and last surviving cooperative rural agricultural communities is one of the most dangerous things to happen in recent times.

The most important reason we need energy to begin with is to get food to people. With suburban sprawl and development, as well as with political policies that subsidize corporate agri-business and unfair trade arrangements, it is already becoming more and more difficult and expensive to get food to people. Since control over our food supply is now being concentrated in fewer and fewer corporate hands, those big players are driving prices to farmers down, and prices to consumers up.

Burning the crops to sustain a wasteful and destructive automobile oriented suburban pattern with its insatiable demand for energy is backwards.

Burning down suburbia and converting it to farm land would make more sense than burning farm products to support suburbia and Wall Street and the big energy corporations.

Energy is needed first and foremost to get food to people. Burning food to keep suburbia going a little while longer is no doubt a clear warning sign of a civilization that has gone insane and is in danger of collapsing. We are trading being able to keep driving SUVs to our heart's content for accessibility to food.

Burning food - is that the last act in the drama?

[Aptastik]

14. This would never happen for one simple reason

Iowa. No politician would ever vote against ethanol subsidies because they might one day run for president and they'd almost definitely lose Iowa. Want to see the subsidies stop? Strip Iowa of the first-in-the-nation caucus and they would drop like panties on fleet week.

[Owl]

16. k&r

[Johonny]

17. I guess I'm a little confused

There's a lot of the corn not used to eat. Wouldn't a smart company (country) make ethanol out of that part of the corn?

[Two Americas]

25. some false assumptions

In suburbia the concept of "waste" seems real, and it seems clever to not "waste" things, but on the farm there is no waste.

Also, either ethanol "works" - that is it makes an impact on the need for fuel - or it does not. If it does work, we would need to put most of the farmland in the country into fuel production. If it doesn't work - which I think is the case - why do it? Why subsidize it? Either way we have a negative impact on food prices, depletion of nutrients from the land, a whipsaw effect on farmers that will cause us to lose more of them, no significant impact on fuel needs, all of this for the sake of windfall profits by investors "positioned" to "leverage" the "opportunity." It also opens the door to giving access for Wall Street and energy companies to the previously off-limits public resource of farm land. Experience shows that once they get their foot in the door, the exploitation and destruction of the public resource is almost a dead certainty.

[KG]

18. ethanol fuel is a red-herring.

[Chemical Bill]

19. While I agree that there are better crops for ethanol...

how much of the price increase of eggs is attributable to the rise in transportation (fuel) costs? I think you are being too simplistic here.

Besides, lower gas prices are not the most desirable outcome for me. I'm happy that at least some of the fuel in my tank comes from the good old US of A. In my diesel I can run 100% American made biodiesel for 9 months of the year, and right now it's running on 60% biodiesel and only 40% of the devil's tea. This means that I'm less invested in the carnage in the Middle East than I would be if I only used petroleum.

Someone already mentioned that most corn in the US goes to meat production, so let me just ask: Are you are promoting vegetarianism as well?

Bill

[OneBlueSky]

20. agreed . . . kicked and recommended . . . n/t

.

[Zynx]

21. This has been one of the most disasterous policies in the last several

decades. I want Congress to stop giving Iowa a handjob and realize what it has done.

[Rosie1223]

26. Ethanol Subsidies:

in 2006:
$2.5 Billion to Blenders
$0.9 Billion to Farmers for corn used to make ethanol.

Total: $3.4 Billion.

War in Iraq -- $488,770,000,000 and counting.

[LSK]

27. How about stopping HFCS???

Plenty of corn for feed then...