Economic effects of our ethanol policy..

[IRGuy]

Good article explaining how our adding ethanol to gasoline is effecting our national (and the worldwide) economy...

http://www.thestreet.com/_htmlbtb/newsa ... 62089.html

Capt Pat/Mike.. I posted this in the ethanol forum as well. I am posting it here because it isn't related to engine operation or tank failures, but is about economics, and I thought should be of broad interest. Please delete if you do not think it should stay here.

[ed c.]

I see the artical left out one of the most important items for investors, With more land going under the plow that will also increase the cost per acre if investors want to enlarge their holdings, but like all true economists they forget an item and their whole system goes kaput. It looks like the farmers should be eating high on the hog this year.

[Bruce]

And when less land is used for other crops because they won't bring in nearly as much money as corn, we will be more dependant on foreign food producers like for instance China who puts chemicals in it's products and Mexico who's use of banned pesticides and e-coli contamination from the pickers who crap where they work won't harm anyone.

Isn't NAFTA just wonderful? Just think of the glorious things that the trade highway from Mexico to Canada will bring to us.

With all due respect to my brother who has had 4 meetings with Bush jr at the White House and his insistance that Jr's not a dumb as he seems, his stance on the amnesty bill and this other stuff sorta makes me think otherwise.

Count your euro's, I mean dollars for now.

WOLVERINES!

[Sean B]

Regarding the issue of releasing the US from dependence on foreign oil: anybody see the documentary currently running on cable, "Who killed the Electric Car?" I saw this one a while back and it made a lot more sense to me than that other thing from the Goracle.

Basiclly the message was that the damned thing worked, well. While surely it is not for everyone, it found a decent-sized market and could have had a significant impact on our overall use of petrol. It started as an intended empty gesture to placate the environuts, but its eventual success ended up scaring the crap out of the auto and oil compaines.

So the car compaines, led by GM, got scared and pulled them all out of the market - even after people offered GM cash to buy them - and destroyed them all. Then the Fed shifted their eco-safe policy mandates and research $$ to hydrogen-fueled autos (which will ultimately prove to be non-viable, the hidden goal that the electric car failed to achieve), and of course to the ethanol fuel folly. So it seems that the use ethanol has it roots, at least partly, in the (unintended) success of the electric auto.

Just another example of big biz and corrupt gov organizing to separate the people from their cash, protect the status quo, and lead the country as a whole to act stupidly.

It's worth a watch - it was an education for me. I'd get an electric car to drive back and forth to the office if it worked well, especially if it meant lower fuel prices at the dock.

[dougl33]

It kills me how every article you read about ethanol leaves out the fact that the price for a gallon of ethanol is kept artificially "low" by government subsidies. Its bad enough that it takes more oil to produce ethanol, that you get worse mileage, and more emmisions. Could you imagine if this shit cost an additional $1+ per gallon to boot?

Its a bad idea that gets worse the deeper you dig.

[In Memory Walter K]

It's got to be the reason someone important gets killed, or it becomes recognized as a carcinogen before the politicians turn on it. Till then no politician in either party that wants Indiana's, Iowa's, Illinois', Iowa's or Kansas' votes in the Electrol college will say a bad word about Maybe if we're lucky, Bush's boat in Kennebunkport has fiberglass tanks. Walter