Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Government screwups, making food and gasoline expensive edition

Both the Republicans and Democrats can take the blame for this.  Not quite half of this year's corn crop will go to making ethanol for gasoline.
For 2012, if ethanol production were to occur at 2011 levels, then net corn production would drop to 5.8 billion bushels, the lowest since at least 1993. Without the ethanol mandate this year, US corn production would be at an all time high.
The data are stark (this year's harvest looks to be sharply down, due to the drought):


So the price of food goes up, screwing the poor.  The price of gasoline goes up (corn ethanol is a lot more expensive that gasoline, hello), screwing the poor.  The only thing you can say in favor of the GOP's pandering to the farm states here is that at least the GOP doesn't pretend to be in favor of the poor.

Your Fed.Leviathan, screwing your life up.  Is it too much to ask them to stop screwing over the poorest in our society in the interest of pandering to a few swing state votes? 

But hey, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will change everything! [rolls eyes]

5 comments:

Dirk said...

This doesn't just screw the poor. It can take a middle-class family that's just getting by on the single income they're able to obtain, who have already cut expenses to the bone and then some, and push them over the edge into no longer being able to make ends meet.

Anonymous said...

Dirk that is the change Obama wants, the destruction of the middle class so we can all be dependent on the government and vote democrat forever. Although where the money is going to come from I have no idea to fund this new socialist Utopia. Dems usually don't think too far ahead on real problems.
However if we think we have it bad consider this, without an excess of food to export and higher prices if there was any lots of people in the third world dependent on cheap American grain are going to starve to death by the millions. I know the Dems won't give a damn about them.

Ken said...

However if we think we have it bad consider this, without an excess of food to export and higher prices if there was any lots of people in the third world dependent on cheap American grain are going to starve to death by the millions.

Think of how much some will make when we spend another few hundred billion dollars and another few thousand lives to liberate them from the unrest that just all of a sudden started.

Brad_in_IL said...

BP,

The data are stark

Boy oh boy am I glad to see use "data" properly -- in the plural. Drives me totally bat-crap zany nutso when the word "data" is incorrectly used in the singular. Hats off to you, sir. Hats off.

Brad

Borepatch said...

Brad, it's all part of being a full service blog! ;-)