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<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Bipartisanship is when the Evil Party
and the Stupid Party get together and do something that is Stupid and
Evil" - (after <b>Tom Woods</b>)<em><i></i><br>
</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>“Everything about ethanol is good,
good, good.”</em> – <strong>Senator Chuck Grassley, Iowa</strong></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>“This is not just hype — it’s
dangerous, delusional bullshit. Ethanol doesn’t burn cleaner than
gasoline, nor is it cheaper. Our current ethanol production represents
only 3.5 percent of our gasoline consumption — yet it consumes twenty
percent of the entire U.S. corn crop, causing the price of corn to
double in the last two years and raising the threat of hunger in the
Third World.”</em> – <strong>Jeff Goodell<br>
</strong></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>(its a higher percentage today
than when Goodell spoke out)<br>
</strong></p>
<img src="cid:part1.03050907.00080603@pigs.ag" alt=""><br>
Article by Jim Quinn, for Zero Hedge.<br>
(<a
href="http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-how-many-senators-does-it-take-screw-taxpayer">Full
article here</a>)<br>
<br>
When bipartisanship breaks out in Washington DC, check to make sure
your wallet is still in your pocket. Every time you fill up your car
this winter you are participating in the biggest taxpayer swindle in
history. Forcing consumers to use domestically produced ethanol is one
of the single biggest boondoggles ever committed by the corrupt
brainless twits in Washington DC. Ethanol prices have soared 30% in the
last year as the supplies of corn have plunged. Only a policy created
in Washington DC could drive up the prices of gasoline and food, with
the added benefits of costing the American taxpayer billions in tax
subsidies and killing people in 3rd world countries.<br>
<br>
The grand lame duck Congress tax compromise extended a 45-cent
incentive to ethanol refiners for each gallon of the fuel blended with
gasoline and renewed a 54-cent tariff on Brazilian imports. The
extension of these subsidies, besides costing American taxpayers $6
billion per year, has the added benefit of driving up food costs across
the globe, causing food riots in Tunisia, and resulting in the starving
of poor peasants throughout the world. This taxpayer boondoggle is a
real feather in the cap of that fiscally conservative curmudgeon
Senator Charley Grassley. He was joined in this noble effort by another
fiscal conservative, presidential hopeful John Thune. It seems these
guys hate wasteful spending, except when it benefits their states. The
bipartisanship in this effort was truly touching, as Democrats Kent
Conrad and Tom Harkin also brought home the pork for their states.<br>
<br>
...This year, the US will harvest approximately 12.5 million bushels of
corn. More than 42% will be used to feed livestock in the US, another
40% will be used to produce government mandated ethanol fuel, 2% will
be used for food products, and 16% is exported to other countries.
Ending stocks are down 963 million bushels from last year. The
stocks-to-use ratio is projected at 5.5%, the lowest since 1995/96 when
it dropped to 5.0%. As you can see in the chart below, poor developing
countries are most dependent on imports of corn from the US. Food as a
percentage of income for peasants in developing countries in Africa and
Southeast Asia exceeds 50%. When the price of corn rises 75% in one
year, poor people starve...<br>
<br>
The amount of grain needed to fill the tank of an SUV with ethanol just
once can feed one person for an entire year. The average income of the
owners of the world’s 940 million automobiles is at least ten times
larger than that of the world’s 2 billion hungriest people. In the
competition between cars and hungry people for the world’s harvest, the
car is destined to win. In March 2008, a report commissioned by the
Coalition for Balanced Food and Fuel Policy estimated that the
bio-fuels mandates passed by Congress cost the U.S. economy more than
$100 billion from 2006 to 2009. The report declared that <em>“The
policy favoring ethanol and other bio-fuels over food uses of grains
and other crops acts as a regressive tax on the poor.”</em> A 2008
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (O.E.C.D.) issued
its report on bio-fuels that concluded: <em>“Further development and
expansion of the bio-fuels sector will contribute to higher food prices
over the medium term and to food insecurity for the most vulnerable
population groups in developing countries.”</em> These forecasts are
coming to fruition today...<br>
<br>
(<a
href="http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-how-many-senators-does-it-take-screw-taxpayer">Full
article here</a>)<br>
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