Posted on 03/03/2017 1:54:47 PM PST by ProgressingAmerica
I laughed out loud when I came across this one. Stuart Chase, the man who coined the term "New Deal" and was an adviser to Franklin Roosevelt, bemoaned the "destruction of goods" in his book titled "The Challenge of Waste". Here is the full paragraph: (page 22-23)
DESTRUCTION OF GOODS
Even when the industrial plant is running, we find that enormous quantities of the output never reach the consumer at all by reason of defects in the distribution and market mechanism. In a period of so-called "over-production," we see night riders burning tobacco and cotton, corn used as fuel, milk dumped into rivers by the thousands of gallons, one-half of the potato crop rotting in the ground, carloads of watermelons floating down the Potomac, boat loads of bananas in the waters of New York harbor, textiles and machinery "dumped" in foreign markets at a fraction of the price the domestic consumer is forced to pay, sugar and coffee crops wantonly destroyed.
Given the state of progressivism today and the continual pace of "progress", I have little doubt that in our time, Chase would be fully on-board with the modern ethanol mandate due to all of the power it gives government. Still, to see this back then is quite humorous.
Good. End Freeloading Farm Freebies.
Good. End Freeloading Farm Freebies.
Amen. The ethanol subsidy program is one of the best examples of government ineptitude. Makes food more expensive, makes gas more expensive, it is bad for engines, and does nothing to help the environment.
I am still hopeful that Trump will phase this program out in 3 years. The congress critters are so stuck on the teat of ethanol that there is little hope they will do the right thing.
Part of the Fundamentals of Government.
If it doesn’t work, subsidize it.
Yeh...I recall the overwhelming press coverage about the food riots in Mexico when because of corn in your tank, they coudn’t afford their fajitas or sumtin down there....Riots for corn prices cuz we use it 4 our cars, and get 20 percent less mpg...
Yes, it’s very dumb to burn your food as there is not any positive benefit.
Still alive?
There is plenty of corn to go around. If you stop using it for ethanol, what will you do with the overproduction? This is not the kind of corn people eat, you know. It’s the kind of corn used for corn meal, high-fructose corn syrup (an essential ingredient in soft drinks), animal feed, carpet, shoe polish and other industrial commodities in addition to ethanol.
And you do know that ethanol producers only use the starch portion of the kernel – the rest of the kernel is returned as a concentrated protein feed for livestock. Every bushel of corn used for ethanol already yields both fuel AND food. Distillers grains (the high-protein by-product) is in high demand, especially for cattle feeding. You like beef, you should like ethanol.
Go pick up a bushel of field corn then and let us all know how you like it. Just don’t distill it to make whiskey because that’s ethanol.
It’s been known for a long time that there were better crops to make fuel from than corn. It’s very inefficient, given all the energy that goes into raising maize. But it’s what they grow in the corn belt, so that’s what the government decided to subsidize.
I’ve always thought this was a dumb idea, but if FDR’s guy is against it, I may have to take another look.
every gallon of ethanol,
is two-thirds of a gallon of petroleum,
we don’t need to buy from the middle east.
what about that don’t people get.
People had better educations back then.............
Okay, first off a gallon of ninety percent gasoline and ten percent ethanol will give you at least eight percent LESS mileage than a gallon of pure gasoline, meaning you can travel nearly the same distance on the nine tenths of a gallon of gasoline WITHOUT the one tenth of a gallon of ethanol. That would seem to make the whole idea mathematically absurd.
I can tell you what I don’t get. I have run my own tests over and over and always have gotten approximately eight percent lower mileage on ten percent ethanol compared to pure gasoline. That means you can go nearly the same distance on the nine tenths of a gallon of pure gasoline WITHOUT the one tenth of a gallon of ethanol. To me that means that whatever other factors you quote mean nothing, it still doesn’t make sense to add ethanol to gasoline. What you said about every gallon of ethanol meaning two thirds of a gallon of petroleum we don’t need to buy from the middle East seems to me to be made up out of whole cloth.
Yep, a waste of good corn liquor.
Burning food is a crime.
So you’re saying that crony-capitalist welfare-queen farmers would continue to “overproduce” corn if the EPA didn’t mandate the use of highly inefficient ethanol in fuel?
Ethanol has 60% of the BTUs of gasoline, so you get 40% less miles per gallon with it, and it destroys engines.
But as long as it’s money in your pocket, too bad, right?
Screw everybody else.
Ethanol has 60% of the BTUs of gasoline, so theoretically a 10% ethanol blend will give you 4% less gas mileage.
I’m not doubting that you get 8% less, I am just stating that the BEST you are going to do is 4% less, and since ethanol does not burn as well as gasoline it’s no surprise it’s even worse than that.
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