HOW BIOFUELS COULD STARVE THE POOR.

prospect.org ^ | April 25, 2008 | Ezra Klein

[paltz]

And you can take your constant harping about "ethanol subsidies" and stick it in your ear. I could care less whether ethanol is subsidized or not. The existence or lack of same of subsidies is simply irrelevant to the point I'm making, which is that crop price rises are not the biggest factor in food price rises.

If you're a real conservative you would care about Ethanol subsidies, because that's the only thing that's propping up the ethanol industry...The American Tax payer.... and the only people defending these subsidies are commies like Jake Caldwell over at Center for American Progress. if you're really a PhD chemist, you'd actually have some real numbers to show me.

[Wonder Warthog]

“...if you’re really a PhD chemist, you’d actually have some real numbers to show me.”

Try these:

http://www.ncga.com/ethanol/pdfs/2007/FoodCornPrices.pdf

Note particularly the information on page 9.

[Balding_Eagle]

You’re right, of course, and time will bear that out.

Meanwhile, you’re arguing in an enviroment similar to arguing the truth about ‘Global Warming’ in the MSM.

Those who disagree with you are simply running around, covering their ears, and shouting LA LA LA.

[paltz]

This just means you're really a lobbyist for the corn growers who have no shame in raping the taxpayers of America.

http://www.taxpayer.net/energy/raceforsubsidies.html

[paltz]

If a corn lobby study is all you have, that's pretty sad. The corn guys must pay you pretty well to believe the nonsense of Ethanol mandates. The National Tax Payers Union among others I've listed tabulate how much the mandates cost the tax payer

http://www.ntu.org/main/press_papers.php?PressID=855&org_name=NTU

[PjhCPA]

Exactly.

[Wonder Warthog]

"If a corn lobby study is all you have, that's pretty sad. The corn guys must pay you pretty well to believe the nonsense of Ethanol mandates."

Let me get this straight. You're saying that statistical data, NOT DERIVED by the lobbying organization, are false JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE QUOTED in an article by the lobbying organizaion??? If you are, then you are displaying an absolutely breathtaking degree of intellectual dishonesty.

The "corn lobby" pays me nothing. I'm not associated with farming of any sort (other than as a consumer of food).

[paltz]

Your "statistical data" doesn't mention how much money is taken from the taxpayers. Moreover, the nonsense idea that high fuel prices and speculation are causing high ethanol prices is complete bunk, b/c if you bothered reading the NTU report, you'd see Ethanol was still overpriced from raping the taxpayer in the mid 80's when oil crashed. I'm not the one being intellectually dishonest here, it's you who continue to fail mention the impact ethanol has had on the taxpayer in the past 30 years.

http://www.ntu.org/main/press_papers.php?PressID=855&org_name=NTU [SNIP]

It has not mattered when each time ethanol had a rationale, that rationale either became invalid or the product could not do what proponents claimed; it still surmounted every obstacle due to gigantic political clout. When oil prices crashed in a glut of oil in the mid-1980s, the tax subsidy kept ethanol in use for lead replacement. Ethanol was there when the feds claimed that oxygenation should be required for RFG [reformulated gasoline]. When its too-high RVP [Reid vapor pressure] hurt air quality goals, it was given a waiver. Now, after nearly three decades, the feds say we do not need oxygenation of RFG, but ethanol has won mandated sales increases that go on infinitum.[sic][35]

[Wonder Warthog]

"I'm not the one being intellectually dishonest here, it's you who continue to fail mention the impact ethanol has had on the taxpayer in the past 30 years."

Sorry, old boy, but you keep trying to change the subject. The subject is "does the use of corn to produce ethanol account for the recent rise in food prices". You've been everywhere but there. Try actually talking about the topic under discussion.

You've got one more shot to address the issue, and then you're going in my personal twit bin.

[paltz]

I've already addressed issue "does the use of corn to produce ethanol account for the recent rise in food prices"

And you're already in my Squish bin anyway, so why don't you go find a taxpayer who actually cares about what you have to say.