Jul 05 2008
Enviros Hiding Truth About Oil And Food Prices, Starving The Poor
Supply and demand – the immutable law of economics. When supplies are larger than demand, consumers benefit. When supplies are less than demand – corporations and governments benefit (through taxes and the opportunity to control sectors of the economy). If you don’t trust mega-corps or government bureaucrats, not only are you sane you should be wary when the two combine forces to effect supply and demand.
Two things are elemental to humankind – eating and energy consumption (travel especially). And up until recently there economic ties between food and energy have been limited. But the move to use food products for fuel needs created a pressure on the supplies of food that would not be there if we kept food for eating and other energy sources for energy. By pushing the two largest ‘hungers’ of humanity onto a single resource, we allowed government and corporations to effect the supply by shifting the demand – thus creating price spikes and calls to take over the food and energy sectors of our economy.
Now we learn some are hiding the truth of these failed liberal policies (easily supported by corporations who will make huge profits from them) from we the people:
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% – far more than previously estimated – according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
The figure emphatically contradicts the US government’s claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.
In the face of 20 years of global cooling (not warming) why are we forcing starvation on the poorest of humankind? Has the pressure on our food supply lowered energy prices? Of course not – they have tripled since the Democrats took over Congress not even 2 short years ago.
The only ones to benefit from this debacle are those associated with biofuels, who are making a killing – but who also may be killing the most vulnerable among us. Personally, I don’t care how damning the data is to the fools who royally screwed up. Get the data out, figure out where we went wrong and undo the damage before it gets worse. My guess is this data is like the real Global temperature data we have experienced since the IPCC started screaming fire – it totally destroys their theories and credibility.
Again, why should people suffer starvation just to cover up the mistakes of egotists who had no business making the exaggerated claims they made on biofuels and global warming? Their egos are not more valuable than poor starving people in need of food.
And organic good production requires more land for food production.
You don’t put food in a gas tank as a policy. When you cause fuel prices to rise so dramatically the cost of everything is going to go up, EVERYTHING THAT WE CONSUME THAT IS TRANSPORTED. It is a really dumb policy and those who can least afford to cope, the poor, the middle class and the starving are on the loosing end of such a policy. THOSE WHO THE DEMS CLAME TO CARE ABOUT.
WORDS MEAN NOTHING, NOTHING!
You can see that the “battle defectors” are on full, when it contains quotes like “avoid embarrassing President George Bush”.
Most of the Democrat members of Congress have bet their gonads on bio-fuels and other alternatives. Even a certain Senator from Illinois ( his initials are Obama) has major ties to ethanol and has been linked to trying to keep out other bio-fuels with trade restrictions.
Frankly, the entire non-conservation side of the Democrat’s energy plan is going down the tubes.
AJ:
I farmed for years. I have some practical experience with this. The cost of wheat got so low a few years back that people just stopped producing it. The number of acres in production fell back to the early 20th century levels. And then there were shortages and then prices went up. That is how it works. For some reason people seem to think that food prices are always supposed to be down, that the market only goes one way.
I know that people are complaining about ethanol now, but ethanol has been around a long time. They were making ethanol when corn was low too. The thing that is driving up prices now is bad weather in the Midwest and high costs of production. And when diesel fuel prices are almost $5 a gallon, food is going to be higher. Higher oil prices means higher fertilizer prices and overall costs of production. That is the culprit.
The idea that if we just got rid of bio fuel food would be more plentiful or cheaper does not take into account the impact that even higher costs of production would have on prices. And if you got rid of ethanol and biofuels energy costs would go up.
Years ago when I started farming it was not unusual for a farmer to get 80 bushels to the acre yield. Now it is not unusual for them to get 200 bushels to the acre yield. The overall production levels are much higher than they used to be. EVen if some of it goes to ethanol. and the truth is urban sprawl and environmental regulations have cut into productive land use as well.
You can make ethanol and biodiesel out of almost anything. It does not have to be corn or soybeans, but whatever they make it out of someone will be complaining that the resouces should have been used to do something else.
The little boy in that picture is probably a penniless refugee. His family has no money, it would not matter how cheap that corn was they would still be depending on help to be fed. And what is more, that is not a new sight. We were seeing starving people years before ethanol was invented. Their problem is poverty.
And the bottom line is high oil costs. If the price of oil went down then the price of other commodities would almost certainly follow suit. But a lot of people who do not and have not farmed seem to think that if we just got rid of ethanol corn and other feed grains would be cheap again. Not for long they would not, not with these oil prices.
I should have mentioned that the increased growth in Asian economies has also lead to increased demand for food. Fewer people are subsisting farming and more people are going to the cities to work and they have money, they are buying food. For years these people just lived on next to nothing. Those days are gone.
Neo:
Bio fuels are bipartisan. Very much so.
I guess my point is that a decade ago when corn was cheap and oil was $30 a barrel, you could see pictures of hungry children just like the one AJ posted. So who was to blame then?
One other thing that is worth mentioning, making ethanol out of corn does not destroy its food value. The by product is fed to cattle, there is no waste. It is still used to produce food.
Ethanol from corn is just bad policy. Terrye is correct that oil prices influence grain prices but so does taking corn from feeding people, cattle, hogs, and using it for ethanol.
My father in law is a retired farmer and everyone in farm country owns or had a chance to own ethanol “stock”. It has payed well.
W. was right again when he pushed ethanol from grass technology. There are millions of idle acres sitting in set aside programs being subsidized by guess who? You and me and these acres could be planted to grasses mowed 2 or 3 times a year after spring rains and would still provide the habitat and runoff protection desired. No need to replant thus saving the costs of fuel and seed. By-product still able to be fed.
I don’t understand why this has not advanced. If inmates in prison can make alcohol from bread, yeast and fruits and young men experiment with grape, pear, dandelion wine why not alcohol from grass cuttings.
I suspect the Democratic congress and Senate and their envronmental terrorist friends would find something wrong with this but they don’t seemed so concerned with starving human beings and bankrupting the auto, airline, tourist industry and causing food prices to escalate hurting the poor not yet on their welfare programs.
Seems they want this country in peril but when the day comes, the American people wake up and realize the extent that they put it there, is a day they will live to regret, Hopefully!
AJ, saw this on “Freerepublic” thought you would want to see this.
Russians close to carrying out ‘perfect murder’ when they poisoned Alexander Litvinenko
07/05/2008 8:58:04 PM PDT · by george76 · 1 replies · 8+ views
The Sunday Telegraph ^ | 05/07/2008 | Sean Rayment
Russian agents came close to carrying out the perfect assassination on British soil when they killed Alexander Litvinenko… Security sources have disclosed that the former Russian spy would have died within hours had the poisoned tea he was given been served hot. Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who had become a critic of the government of Russia’s then president, Vladimir Putin… Security sources say that during the meeting Litvinenko took just a few sips of the tea but left the remainder of the cup because it was cold. “If Litvinenko had drunk all the tea he would have been dead…
AJ… I’m sure you realize that the pathetic kid pic is from a “Doctors without Borders” article from 2003 that has absolutely nothing to do with biofuels.
I imagine he is mercifully dead by now…..
We consume 140 billion gallons of liquid fuel in this country per year. Last year ethanol contributed roughly 8 billion of that total, nothing to sneeze at. This is 8 billion we DIDN’T buy from OPEC producing countries. Please know that I don’t believe in anthropogenic warming, and I am a proponent of drilling ANWR, the coasts, coal liquification, and any other replacement for foreign oil. Ethanol is a replacement for foreign oil, and as such it puts downward pressure on prices. I wonder if the study has been done as to where gas prices would be without the supply increase due to ethanol?
In two years, projections are for some 12 billion gallons of ethanol. I admit that there are problems, among them increased pressure on corn prices, soil depletion, runoff, water usage, and more, but the $4 per gallon we pay at the pump doesn’t begin to express the true cost of gasoline either. (protecting the flow from the Middle East, etc.).
Cellulosic ethanol plants are being built now (google the word COSKATA). Cellulosic ethanol will be produced from wood chips, and industrial waste, thus there should be no upward pressure on food prices. If we were to eliminate the 54 cent tariff on imported ethanol, then we could increase the supply from other, sugar producing countries. I don’t know about you, but I would rather buy fuel from the people who invented the thong bikini than from those who brought us the suicide bomb belt.
Corn ethanol has pretty much reached its peak, but the cellulosic variety shows great promise to replace a lot of the crude we consume in the future, and give the OPECKERS some competition. In the end we may thank corn ethanol for jump-starting the industry.
I realize ethanol has been the darling of the tree-hugging left for some time, but there’s plenty there to love for those of us on the right, in that every drop is a drop we don’t have to buy from those who want to kill us. Surely there is a way to drill for more domestic oil while pursuing policies that lend themselves to providing a viable competitor to crude, I mean, we walked on the moon didn’t we?
dhunter:
My Senator is Lugar, he has been pushing ethanol from corn for decades. Not far from here they just opened a bio diesel plant that has been under construction for years. If they shut that place down not only will the investment be lost, but the fuel it is producing will have to be replaced with oil. And that is the problem.
We can make ethanol out of sugar beets, but then people would complain about the price of sugar. We can make it out of grass, but then people would complain that land would be put to better use if it was growing corn or whatever.
But the problem is, the corn is ours, the oil is not. Until that basic problem is addressed you are going to have to deal with the costs of energy one way or another.
And I am serious. You will have shortages if you just shut off the ethanol and biodiesel. People will not be able to produce food with high energy costs without passing those costs along. Farmers are no different from any other business in that respect.
A farmer friend of mine is paying over $5 for diesel fuel. If corn falls back to 2002 prices he will not grow it. He is not growing it this year anyway because the river got out and took his land. He is growing soybeans because it is too late to put out corn. That has as much to do with the current price of corn as ethanol does. Indiana farmers have lost 19% of their corn crop this year.
I should mention that Lugar like Grassley is a Republican. Ethanol is not just for lefties.
Terrye, same Lugar that went all squishy on the surge just when the tide was turning?
Ethanol has it’s place, but I simply ask why not use the highly erodable set aside acres for a grass based ethanol technology instead of row crops used for primarily feeding people, cattle, hogs thus people.
The system has been corrupted by the same government that wants to control your healthcare.
The set aside acres are largely corporate owned due to the fact the government pays huge subsidies, our tax dollars, to leave them in grass and do basically nothing other than minimal weed control.
A new technology using grass for ethanol would leave row crops for food and make use of the now unused set aside acres. Grass does not reguire new plantings each harvest and could be harvested multiple times per year.
We should be importing cheap ethanol from Brazil but again the government has gamed the system by susidizing ethanol from corn and taxing the hell out of cheaper imports to prop up their house of cards. Thus opening the market now would idle existing plants and harm farmers gleefully collecting huge per bushel payments plus government susidies. Government gets involved in business and we all loose.
The oil industry is also a prime example as the execs said to the pompous asses in D.C. they do not have free markets they are restricted on supply (drilling), exploration, and refining capacity by the same arrogant asses that forced them before their parade of clowns and traitors. The problem is in D.C. not the business models or oil companies . The question is when will America care enough to educate itself rather than listen to the asses pontificate and make excuses for dreadful policies.
And where are the Republican spokesmen, leaders?
I suspect you are very much misreading the environuts if you
think they will admit that corn produced ethanol is their fault and
isn’t necessary anyways because of global cooling.
The true agenda of environuts is not to clean up the air or preserve
the present climate – it is to shut down human progress and end the
dominance by homo sapiens in their beautiful natural world.
Engineering an energy crisis is just a means to that end. Getting
the West guilty about Africa ( a continent that refuses to do anything
to help itself – see Zimbabwe ) is the environuts fight back against
a first attempt to do something that they had pretended to ask for
but wasn’t really what they wanted. They don’t want us to grow
biofuels, not even if we can produce biofuels from algae or wood
cellulose as science is promising we can soon do, letting corn
based products make great tex-mex and ethanol distillation make
great spirits, you wait they’ll be against any biofuels from any source.
The proof was in their sacred Kyoto treaty, the use of nuclear energy
to displace carbon dioxide emissions was specifically ruled out.
That proved we were watching the birth of a new crazed religious
cult and nothing to do with reliable and plentiful energy.
Environutalism is just another kool aid drinking cult that needs to be
defeated – not encouraged.
Of course I knew that, but Republicans don’t control either house of Congress.