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Earl Aagaard’s opinions about everything that interests him. Og also enjoys gardening, travel, reading, woodbutchery, and lots of other stuff.

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IN AN AGE OF “BAILOUTS”, WHAT’S ONE MORE…..BUT ETHANOL?!?

Remember…...the federal government has a tariff on imported sugar in order to protect the cane farmers in Florida (and the campaign contributions they supply to incumbents in Congress).
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Furthermore, the replacement for cheap sugar from the Caribbean is high-fructose corn syrup, produced by (perhaps) the MOST subsidized agricultural corporations in the United States - corn farmers like ARCHER DANIELS MIDLAND (ADM). This stupid policy (not stupid for the Congress-critters, of course, who get massive campaign contributions from corn producers) not only costs the taxpayers billions of dollars, distorts the market, and feeds the epidemics of diabetes and obesity, it is also an environmental disaster, creating a massive DEAD ZONE off the coast of Louisiana, where excess nitrogen fertilizer stimulates algal blooms than then die and suck the oxygen out of the water column. AND, to top it all off, 15% of Iowa’s carbon dioxide emissions are being spewed into the air by the state’s ethanol plants.

Add to all this another dose of political insanity….Congress has decreed that ethanol will be added to all U.S. motor fuels, so the price of corn has zoomed, and poor people world-wide are suffering. But, this isn’t enough pain…...corn prices have now become quite volatile, and since making the ethanol is a mandate (and cheap Brazilian ethanol has been slapped with a tariff to protect ADM and other giant corporations from the competition, as well as to ensure the continued flow of campaign funds), the ethanol-making plants have been having financial difficulties.
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Can you, dear reader, not imagine a solution to this problem? How about getting out of the business of distorting the price signals to farmers, drivers, and others and eliminate the tariffs and mandates? Ha! Common citizens don’t have the perspective (or the bias produced by campaign contributions) to see the more “realistic” way to fix this impossible situation…..wait for it:
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RIGHT!! The government is going to provide a “bailout” (that’s YOUR money and mine, taken at the point of a gun by the IRS) to the ethanol producers.
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You think I’m kidding, right? You think I got this from THE ONION, don’t you?

Au contraire, as they say in the land of cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Sadly, it’s only too true…...READ IT ALL HERE

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/23 at 08:40 PM

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