Corn-fed Obama
Same old, same old.
Posted in: Barack Obama
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- I Thought Everyone Was Backing Away From Corn-Based Ethanol « Beltway Snark
- Barack Obama in the tank for ethanol [Karl] « No Compromise When it Comes to Being Right!
- Obama’s Vice-Presidential Running Mate–Al Gore? « Pronk Palisades
- President Obama Is Very Wrong on Ethanol–Yes He Can Raise Your Food and Gas Prices–Videos « Pronk Palisades
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The poor are the ones who will suffer greatly under this plan. Hey, socialists, aren’t you supposed to be after yourselves…err…the rich? I thought you loved the poor? Oh, only their votes…I see.
Daschle was shilling hard for Obama last night on FNC. Maybe Obama will have the same sort of outcome in his presidential bid that Daschle had in his last senate bid.
Since ethanol is distilled from corn and corn is stored in a crib…should Dohbama’s shirt read “Iowa Is My Crib.”
Don’t these idiots know (or care) what using corn in our gas tanks is doing to the price of almost everything else we eat? And now with the flood damage to the midwest corn crops, how will we be able to afford to eat at all? Maybe we need to start drinking ethanol. How many miles per gallon can I get?
Corn… ears… Obama…
(Insert your own joke.)
too bad we cant actually use the corn for food for the hungry, instead of having to use it to make a fuel source that consumes more energy to create that it generates.
Welcome to liberal logic.
Abstractmind,
More of those unintended secondary effects…
A racket is right.
abstractmind, it is never the intention of a liberal to be logical nor generous.
Whoo-Hooo.
I beat this site by 2 minutes posting the link to al-NYT’s story on Obama, ethanol and ADM on the Li’l Kim thread.
Granted, to format an entirely new thread probably took more than two minutes, so I didn’t really find it first, and I certainly didn’t beat Protein Wisdom.
Ethanol from sugar cane makes sense, ethanol from corn, far more energy intensive to make, which directly removed animal feed and a grain consumed by humans from the market, doesn’t.
Lift the tax on imported cane ethanol from South America, and give the cane farmers of Florida, Louisiana and Texas a shot at increasing sugar production for ethanol generation.
He reminds me of the scarecrow in “The Wizard of Oz.” He’s obviously playing part of wizard but he’s more like the cowardly lion.
Budweiser. Ethanol produced from rice and malted barley, and flavored with just a touch of Idaho grown hops.
Maybe being a tool of Big Ethanol is why Obama has breathalyzers on the brain.
U-Tube.
I wonder if the Obamessiah’s bloom is coming off for big media.
Are the MSM losing that shiver and tingle in their thighs?
al-NYT running a story that shows the Obamunist as a tool of Big Corn?
If you drink a gallon of white lightning and can still walk even one mile, you’ve got my vote.
America has always made me proud by being the Bread Basket of the world. Shame on Obama for pushing one of the leading foods for poor nations into our gas tank.
We could drill for oil for ourselves if we weren’t so busy crying “global warming” but we can’t feed hungry people with platitudes.
30 and wight,
Agreed. I posted something on the other thread where our liberal friends
took an online crapposted this morning..we’ll see how that settles. It’s a call for them to do something other than eat arugula and talk down to us “little people”.I was just surprised to see the NY Times actually print something like this about Obama.
ETHANOL is so heavily subsidised that if the Federal Welfare program was dropped, it would be twice the cost of gasoline.
The E 85 fuel also yields 1/3 less mpg than regular gasoline. It is neither cost effective or an intelligent alternative.
Obama supports bogus programs because the facts get in the way of his agenda.
Handouts for Corporate Farmers buys votes. There are no little people in Agribusiness.
Drill Now, build refineries or be dependent on Foreign Oil, watch our economy tank and see food prices that you won’t believe.
Obama is selling America a bill of goods!
Most Iowans know that ethanol is a wasteful, politically connected elite welfare scam for some farmers to become rich while some politicians can claim some altna-energy bona fides. Please have mercy on the common Iowan as the backlash begins.
Here in Kalifornia, we have our own former elected official pushing ethanol, but he is a republican so he may not endorse Obama. Pacific Ethanol, his company, is a great company to lose your investment in, as they try very hard to become profitable. But without the subsidies it may not make it. I love corn, but mainly to eat. Oh when will the sheeple wake up?
The current fuel crisis has a single word source “Democrats”
“Pay more in taxes, so government will pretend to control the weather” — Who is stupid enough to buy into that?
olsantaroy 21, see my comment on see-dubya’s main story on the Kim Jong Il Obama endorsement, it’s post #98. Weez in for a rough ride.
This poor old fool just can’t help himself.
I do not blame the beautiful state of Iowa for ethanol. I thank them for being a leader in feeding the poor people of the world. I am in AWE of the incredible corn fields in that state. Always thought Illinois grew corn till I took a drive thru Iowa, made our corn look pitiful. But Illinois still is a provider of great food for people.
txvet2,
No. No, I don’t believe he can.
#24 & #26, maybe McCain is off the mark but I still think that technology will provide answers somewhere down the road. To borrow a phrase of dialog from the past from our beloved Scotty, “Captain, I canna change the laws a physics!” There is only so much power in a gallon of gas. Mileage depends on how much mass the engine has to move. It surprised me that the radical little Smart Car only gets in the 40s mpg. I expected upwards towards 60 mpg. The laws of physics are not mocked. Mass takes gas. Simple. But I’d rather be in my old ‘79 Buick LeSabre, I used to own, in a bang-bang with an SUV than a Smart Car, or Aveo or some such little fart. Mileage mandates mean nothing. You can only get so much out of a gallon. All mandates are going to get us is more horrendously technically complex vehicles that NO one can work on outside of the factory. Technology is great, when it works right…but when the lights start blinking and the engine quits…or the lights go out…
A friend of the family’s is a past president of a VERY large supermarket chain, whose PhD thesis was on supermarket produce. When we were at the same dinner table 2 years ago I asked him about ethanol from corn. This was when gas was $2 and people weren’t nearly as serious about energy. I opined it was a bad idea as it wasn’t cost efficient and it caused the price of corn to go up which especially hurt those living in the third world. He didn’t think ethanol was economically feasible until gas got to about $10 a gallon.
I remember Dole in 1996 pushing ethanol in a mindless way. McCain really is a better candidate than Dole. In McCain I can see the person behind the policy thinking it out. Even when we disagree with him, McCain has his reasons. Conservatives are highly thoughtful and pragmatic. We’ll analyze to determine what works and what doesn’t.
Oh and this million dollar plus executive, he’s a rich white man, a greedy evil Republican. After he retired, he founded a highly successful charity which provides whatever teachers need for free. Over the years he’s been responsible for supplying millions of dollars in free supplies to teachers. In his late seventies, he works 10 hour days, 5 days a week and half days on Saturday, often in the warehouse working and running around. He has more capacity for work than most half his age. Liberals, put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Paul-Cincy, God has indeed blessed your friend. May he live longer and prosper more so, so he can continue to help others. That’s the real purpose of prosperity. That would really tic off the libs.
So I guess we won’t be hearing about a windfall profits tax on agribusiness?
Floyd,
I completely agree; however, McCain seems to think that there aren’t folks already working to develop alternatives. He’s putting his liberals tendencies on display here… to throw money at something and hope for a solution. The incentives for developing alternative fuel is already there but taking taxpayers’ money and using it as some sort of giveaway, showcases his ignorance on the subject matter.
30 pcs of silver, point well stated! You’re right on.
I think it is getting about time that we plan a national strike day … not just the truckers or some other segment of the work force … rather the whole American public should just say enough is enough and stay home on a national day of protest against this crap …
DL,
If only we could get those libs to see both sides of the coin….
We need to let our system of capitalism work the way it was intended to work. Letting old fashioned yankee ingenuity do its stuff…oh, but, wait. That would mean the guvmint would have to keep its nose out of it…a novel idea!
Obambi is so controlled by the Move0n crowd he has to say anything but oil or nuclear.
I’m so tired of hearing that “Obama means Change.” What, exactly, has he proposed to do differently than everyone before him?
Same crap, prettier bedpan.
They would tax the other side of the coin to subsidize ethanol and madrassas. Allah be Praised.
But this ethanol is nothing but one big scam.
But the article did surprise me. I thought Daschle died long ago. He looks dead.
There could be a way to make alcohol fuel economically. But, corn isn’t it. One can only grow one crop of corn a year. I’ve heard switch grass as one possibility. Three or more crops of grass can be grown during a season.
Personally, I’d just rather drill for oil.
AN,
Hilarious! I needed the laugh, thanks!
FYI … they like to throw the Brazil thing out there … Brazil is using sugar cane to make ethanol … not corn … and now they are cutting down massive parts of the rain forest in order to plant sugar cane in order to be able to keep producing enough ethanol … that will have an affect on the entire earth environment … but the libs don’t seem to care about that fact …
Just thought you’d all like to know “the rest of the story” … to quote Paul Harvey …
old trooper, I was so shocked I could hardly eat my $199 a pound corn flakes.
Obama hardly votes, yet he voted to extend tariffs on cheap sugarcane derived ethanol – which isn’t in the food chain the way corn is.
Can I say it? You may groan… they can’t see the rainforest for …well never mind – it’s weak but it’s Monday.
It cost more to make ethanol than it is to drill for more oil. guess we know where the liberals minds are.
BAN the use of ANY food from being used as fuel. To allow it will ultimately pitch the energy hungry rich, (USA, Europe, China, etc.), against the starving poor. We will buy the food right out of the mouths of the poor in order to keep our cars going. Food is just about the cheapest thing in the budget of anyone living in the developed world. In the third world, food is sometimes the ONLY thing they can afford to buy .. and their buying power for it is shrinking every day thanks to this liberal policy. I think ethanol / bio-fuel / carbon trading may be all be part of a hidden liberal agenda that is actually INTENDED TO STARVE the third world and keep them dependent on us. Kinda like globalized welfare…
Our farm produces corn and soy beans, so I have an interest in the outcome. We and our neighbors are not corporate farmers. We are just trying to cope with higher prices as is everyone else. It takes $1,000 to fill a tractor tank for example.
If food prices had not surged in the past two years, Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp would need to dust off their Farm Aid show because in today’s energy driven economy, $2.00 corn won’t pay the bills.
Ethanol is not driving the price of grain up. Increasing demand from now richer third world countries combined with occasional disasters and political problems makes the world’s crops more expensive.
Ethanol contributes to the price hike, but without it grain would still be more expensive than it has been. The Omaha World Herald estimated ethanol has lowered the price of gas by up to $.30 a gallon.
Corn is merely a way station on the way toward more efficient alternative fuel. Switch grass and even stuff from land fills will help fuel our cars within a few years.
Most of the distillate byproducts feed livestock, and researchers are developing by products which will feed people.
Dr. Norman Borlaug fathered the Green Revolution and he said it bought the world about thirty years. We need another green revolution, and we need to extract our own energy from the ground as we conserve.
Maybe the plan is to have us all starve, then we won’t need as much oil or ethanol. Problem solved!
One third of the US corn crop goes into fuel tanks right now to supply the 10% ethanol mandate, (currently in jeopardy due to low yields). What happens when that mandate goes to 30%? Or 50% Even if it’s not an edible crop being grown for fuel – it DISPLACES farm land that would have grown a food crop. Keep it up and we’ll become a rich version of Zimbabwe who went from a net food exporter to a net food importer in only a matter of years.
Or maybe to cause food riots so the “People’s Government” can step in and save the day.
I’m so sick of the quote “We can’t just drill our way out of this..” Well, years ago when we first started talking about it, it would have made today much better. It also would have meant less petro-dollars in the pocket of terrorist countries. That is the liberal for you, all hope and promises but no action.
When the food crisis hits, I’ll be hunting liberals for dinner. They taste (and act) just like chicken.
.. maybe a little if you add an awful lot of oregano and hold your nose.
Well quite a few of the tree huggers want to reduce the population. They do seem to prefer the Malaria parasites transmitted by female Anopheles mosquitoes to the people of Africa and Asia.
DDT rocks.
Thanks 30 pcs of silver , I have always enjoyed my warped sense of humor myself.
As I wrote, danceswithdashounds, corn is an alternative fuel way station. Farmers were experimenting with private ethanol plants during the beginning of the farm depression of the late seventies and eighties.
When the powers that be decided we needed to supplement our fuel supply corn was a natural choice. At that time we had a surplus of corn, and some businesses sold corn burning furnaces because the grain was so cheap.
According to a Nebraska economist, the average farmer was earning less per hour than a McDonalds counter person. Ethanol was would supplement our fuel supply and to help the rural economy.
A greater than expected demand for energy and food caught the government and business off guard. No one expected such high prices. The market will not support much more ethanol production under current conditions. Too many other buyers are competing for the corn.
A variety of cheaper replacements for corn will soon be used. Several proposed ethanol plants will not be built because the price of corn is too high . The market will dictate, that corn be phased out if nothing else does.
Little of the distillation process is wasted. Many of the by products feed livestock, and researchers are working on making human food too.
Ethanol is not the problem. it is exacerbating the problem. Get rid of all ethanol production, and you would see a temporary emotion- caused drop in farm comodities, but the price would rise again.
Prices will fall eventually. They always have. If ideal growing conditions give us a better than expected crop, grain will become less expensive. But baring economic disaster, prices will not return to 2005 levels for the next few years. Only a new green revolution, massive drilling, mining, conservation, and nuclear plants will do that.
Until then, raise a garden and book heating fuel early.
Oh boy! Just what we all needed No more of those artery clogging sirlion steaks that Obama says we don’t deserve; no, no, we will all now eat food ‘by product’ – and LIKE IT comrade!
Once Obama figures out the recipe for Soylent Green the DNC will be all set for a landslide in November.
Storm Chaser: Ethanol is not a credible answer for a fuel source.
Aloha guy, I served with the Tropic Lightning Division and know that cornflakes were not a big deal.
Obama is offering trouble for America, not solutions.
I raise beef and bison in Montana now that I am retired. Obama would kill me with taxes. As he will kill you if you allow him to get elected.
Think about our food priced in a few years when all these ethanol plants are completed and put into service.
I do not know how much of our crops we will use, but I do know Iowa expects to import corn and Minnesota will use most of their corn also.
Corn is our staple crop; 2 years ago it was $2.00/bushel last week it topped $8.00 and then dropped to just below $8.00. As farmers start to grow more corn the production of other crops (soy beans, wheat, alfalfa) will decrease and those prices will increase as well.
Corn is used to feed beef and milk cows, chickens and eggs, pork and yes humans.
Our food prices will go thru the roof.
Ethenol does not save oil (we use as many BTU of oil to make ethonal as ethonal gives back) We do not save pollution. We decrease fuel economy.
I have heard, but not yet verified, that communities with ethonal plants are starting to have problems with the water table (production uses a lot of water).
We gain nothing by making and using ethonal but consider its total cost!!!!
To be fair, their argument is that we use domestic power from other sources such as nuke or coal or gas instead of oil to produce the ethanol as a domestic fuel for transportation. What gets totally lost in their ‘equation’ is that the original energy collected from the sun by the corn is virtually tossed out is this ‘exchange process’! IF we had allowed capitalism to continue exploring and drilling over the last 20 odd years we would have had plenty of domestic energy already in the form of transportation fuel and have it on an almost one for one basis rather than WASTING almost that whole amount of energy to convert the solar energy in the corn. But, in addition to that, we’d have that fuel PLUS the energy of that corn that it BEST utilized as food for us and animals – as Nature’s God intended it to be used.
Does anyone really believe that farmers weren’t already getting a lot of government support before the ethanol mandate? Does anyone believe that huge agri-businesses like ADM aren’t the ones reaping the lion’s share of this ethanol
mandateswindle?The ethanol question has been muddied by conflicting “research”. The Omaha World Herald explained that ethanol production does not use as much energy as some studies have shown, especially considering the corn would have been grown whether or not it went to fuel cars. As the process becomes more efficient, energy and financial costs fall.
A Danish company has just announced it is building an enzyme plant in Blair, Nebraska. That a foreign company would risk money on an expensive plant taking several years to build implies they know ethanol is a permanent fixture.
When the plant is built, it will sell the enzyme to other ethanol plants. Its product, combined with sunlight speeds and enhances the fermentation process. Nothing will be wasted. By products will feed livestock and people. Maybe as high prices force livestock producers to cut back or leave the business, the by products will be converted to fake steak.
A more promising product is algae. Another company is nearly ready to start production with in a few years. Their reps claim they can make gasoline for a dollar a gallon. My guess is algae by products will also find their way to our dinner plates.
None of these alternative fuels will replace oil or coal any time soon, if ever, but they are like hamburger helper. They stretch the supply. Today, we are trading a somewhat more expensive food for slightly cheaper gasoline.
Iowa’s governor Culver says he wants to turn the state into the Saudi Arabia of alternative energy, and this includes wind power. I think corn is becoming too expensive for it to happen, but his goal is that every kernel of corn Iowa farmers grow stays in Iowa.
He also fails to account for crop damage as during the floods or a much more serious large scale cyclical drought which is overdue to strike the corn belt. What happens if competing interests lay claim to what is assumed to be a steady supply of corn, and there isn’t enough for everyone?
Robert J. Samuelson of the Washington Post wrote that Jeffry Rubin of CIBC World Markets guesses we are near the halfway point of a steady march toward $7.00 gasoline by 2012. He doesn’t mention natural gas who’s price is higher than normal for this time of year. Next winter could be interesting.
Besides the economic threats, we face potential enemies like Russia and Venezualia who’s new wealth will let them become more provocative than they have been.
Rubin says we while we cannot drill our way out of our troubles, we must expand domestic oil production to augment our oil supply and lessen price strains, even if it means taking oil from Central Park.( My words)We also need every bit of alternative energy we can process.
Once prices fall, and they eventually will, we need a price floor which would activate a tariff to keep energy prices high enough so Americans would not again be deluded into thinking we have permanently returned to cheap energy.
Yes, farmers have gotten government support out the wazzoo for generations. It is why we still have grain farmers. There is no free lunch. Someone has to pay. Years of a cheap food policy which subjected farmers to spying, complex regulations and paper work, kept many in business, though as an economist told me, most were earning less per hour than if they had worked at McDonalds. And that was with government subsidies.
One of the intents of ethanol, as I wrote before, was to take farmers off the dole. It was a winner for everyone. Ethanol would eat some of the excess supply of corn while recycling carbon and stretching our oil supply. Higher farm prices meant fewer tax dollars to subsidize farmers.
However, the world changed. The West is losing its status as the major driver of food and energy prices. As Elvis sang “we are caught in a trap.” If we import Brazilian suger based ethanol, we risk further destruction to the rain forests which might influence our weather. We are being reduced to choosing between fuel and food.
There are few good short term choices. Every year, more third world people want and can afford to buy what we have. The world must find more energy and raise more food every year to supply well-armed people who will fight if they get hungry or can’t heat their homes.
Complain all you want about ethanol. We are stuck with it. We are stuck with expensive food and fuel, inflation, near recession, and maybe Obama with the hapless Democratic leadership. A few words on this message board or letters to the editor will change little for the next four to six years.
Welcome to the new world. Lord help us all.
Burning food in cars raises the price of food. As rich countries keep pushing the price up to use food as fuel – the less the poor will be able afford it and they WILL starve to death. We are buying food right out of their mouths. It’s morally wrong.
As I wrote earlier, the market dictates which business will live and which will die, even with government interference. Plans for a new ethanol plant in Wahoo, Nebraska have been suspended because corn is too expensive. It is not the only one. Some plants did not survive the drawing board.
Burning fuel in cars raises the price of food, but not all that much.It also helps lower the price of gasoline a bit. Greater world -wide demand is the main driver. Commodity prices will fall eventually, but until they do, some poor people will starve, ethanol or not. I agree it is morally wrong, but the market place has no feelings.
No it does not and neither do liberals who tout themselves as the bastions of morality. But here they are endorsing an elitist mandate whereby rich countries like the USA, burning 1/3 of their corn crop in automobiles in order to preclude the, now, very slim chance of an oil spill off the coast of FL or CA etc., — while some children in Afghanistan are eating grass and onion skins from garbage dumps because their village can now only afford 1/2 of the amount of grain it used to buy thus leaving ~somebody~ to starve to death.
And I should add, the ‘market place’ you are citing here is NOT a free ‘market place’ because it is subsidized and mandated by liberal government.