What difference does it make who gets the ethanol subsidy? The money flows downhill. The point is that without the mandates and without the subsidies we would not be burning food.
Mandates first— We needed mandates to get oxygenators in
gas to clean up the air in cities and it has worked.
And it has added to supply and ethanol is
less than gas.
You use the term burning food, well farmers have increased
the output of corn to cover ethanol production as well as
extra for imports. There is no shortage, just the prices
driven up by speculators. And about the trickle down,
hasn’t helped farmers this last year.Most farmers sold and
delivered at 4 bucks or less; and ethanol, cereal, guys had bins full for normal years run. All the extra money,
about 2 bucks has been made since by speculators
bidding up options. That does affect small guys who
didn’t or can’t buy huge amounts at harvest
So it boils down to that 1/3 of the raises
the CBOT corn price has mostly went into pockets of
speculators. Corn that ethanol plant has stored that
they got for 4 bucks, they are not going to sell it for
the 6 bucks it is now and shut down the plant.
Elevators with some stored will get high price as
customer needs are filled.But if a food mfg makes levels of money like cereal guys, over 200 dollars a bushel,
the difference in last 6 months would make it($3 more)
203 dollars. So if food went up 20% as some buyers
experience, that had to come from middlemen energy
expenses, greed, etc, but it sure ain’t the fault of the
extra 3 dollars of which speculators got 2. It is used as an excuse by middlemen.
We want gov to take away the 50some cents of tax
credit that big oil gets for adding ethanol and when
prices stay up 5-6 bucks what will you blame then.
You shut off that 450 barrels a day of ethanol in
the energy mix and then you will really what
the speculating will do to prices. If you stopped
ethanol Monday, the excuse it gives will have oil speculated to 140 bucks a barrel, by Wed.