Posted on 07/26/2012 5:53:19 PM PDT by Sir Napsalot
You might have to sit down for this one.
It’s mindboggling sometimes the lack of basic logic that eludes some (most?) members of this Administration. With his comments this week, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack is one of those members. He recently discussed the hardships that livestock producers are facing, including heat, drought and high corn prices as reasons they’re liquidating their herds.
So far he’s making sense.
To further illustrate how high corn prices are affecting livestock, and how volatile such prices can be, Secretary Vilsack said: “now producers have to decide if they want to take the risk of continuing to feed expensive corn to animals, when they can’t be sure what prices they’ll receive months down the road.”
Okay, got it. High corn prices equal high feed costs. We’re following you, Mr. Secretary.
But then Secretary Vilsack loses reality:
“This is not the time to take advantage of the drought to change the Renewable Fuel Standard.”
We agree with the Secretary the drought is contributing to corn prices that are absurdly high (nearly $8 a bushel, which are record levels), but it is not ALL because of the drought. It is also because Americans are using corn for fuel. Unfortunately, this bit of information does not phase the Secretary:
“The RFS is working. It helps reduce our dependence on foreign oil and provides jobs.”
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(Excerpt) Read more at heritageaction.com ...
Does it? Because it takes 1.3 gallons of oil to create just one gallon of ethanol. (Ref: Popular Mechanics: The Ethanol Fallacy) So if it takes more oil to produce ethanol then we’re not saving oil, we’re wasting it. That doesn’t reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It does create jobs, we’ll give him that, but at the expense of other jobs because we’re paying people to waste oil, essentially wasting money, so you tell me if that’s a worthwhile job.
So here’s the Secretary’s logic: it’s too expensive to raise livestock because feed prices are so high. Feed prices are high, in part, because of biofuels, but we absolutely shouldn’t give up on biofuels. So in his eyes, it’s better to not have food or livestock than to not have a boondoggle of a fuel source. Our future is in good hands.
Liberalism is a mental disease that rots out the brain.
This is just another classic example.
And there are people in Iowa who would still vote for this man.
This is the same Admin that gave 1.9 million to GW University for a program that will save them 1.7
The subsidies we have paid during the highest corn procucing years ware unbelievable. These midwestern folks were the hardest working, most honest people I ever met. Yet,the damn subsidies always led my old girl friend to drive out to dad’s farm to fill her gas tank.
He’s a;ways been an idiot
No one will ever be able to convince me that government subsidies that encourage burning food as a motor fuel is good economic policy.
The corn lobby gets what they pay for.
Has this guy ever had cow poop on his shoes, i.e., has he ever actually farmed?
Not only does it take more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than you get from using it as fuel, ethanol also reduces gas mileage roughly in proportion to the % of ethanol in the blend. Hence using a 10% ethanol/gasoline blend in your car reduces gas mileage by about 10% or more. Flex fuel vehicles that can run on an 85% ethanol/gasoline blend get abysmal mileage using E85. A few years ago the State of South Dakota quit using E85 in its flex fuel fleet because the low miles per gallon made operating the vehicles too expensive even though E85, thanks to subsidies and tax breaks, sells for almost 25 cents per gallon less than gasoline.
NO. Vilsack if from Pennsylvania and came to Iowa via Hollywood. His wife grew up in the county just north of mine, and she’s a townie apparently from the right Mt. Pleasant family.
Not sure either one can pour piss out of a boot, much less farm.
When the price of gas at the pump starts going up because of the direct cost of the ethanol, maybe we will get rid of this idiotic experiment.
The Ag Dept has been all over the place saying the drought is only going to raise food prices 3 or 4%. Hah!
The politicians and bureaucrats want people to become dependent on government subsidies and handouts, and view attempting to be self-sufficient as subversive.
We should have sent Roscoe Filburn to Congress, and shot Wickard.
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