Ethanol Subsidy Lives On

General Discussion
21

Read the post immediately preceding mine. I was being sarcastic.

"Seems to me Obama has increased the national debt as much as anyone who held that particular office. "

Actually, more than all previous presidents Washington through Reagan put together, and after two years he’s halfway to beating Bush’s eight year record.

22

What really grates on me is to see countless acres of corn being allowed to rot in the field. About 10 years ago there was 1 or 2 fields around here; now they’re as thick as flies on a carcass.

Corn requires a lot of water and very very few corn fields here are irrigated. That means the corn, which is lush and green now, will be fried to a crisp a month from now.
There are 2 fields south of me (about 250 acres in total) in which the corn was allowed to rot clean through last Xmas. It was just plowed under about 4 months ago and the current crop of corn is coming up thick and green. It too will be allowed to rot.

I would not lay the blame for boondoggles on one particular party. They’re both eyebrow deep in the subsidy game. While blaming the President maybe one should look at the Congressional voting records including your own Congressional representatives and Senators.

23

I think that the current president receives far too much blame for economic conditions. The markets respond to stimuli that are beyond the ability of the government to provide. Reagan gets tons of credit for the boom in the 80s. But I disagree. He happened to be president when the fruits of the last great industrial revolution became apparent. He didn’t stall the revolution, but he certainly did not cause it. OTOH, doing nothing is a sure prescription for losing an election. GHW Bush rightly claimed there was little to nothing he could do to stimulate the economy during his second election bid. His reward for honesty was removal from office. Ya gotta play the game.

24

Piter, better check you facts, that claim’s been proven false (regarding deficits).

Back on topic, a recent major study concludes that biofuel supports (such as ethanol here) should be banned world-wide in order to stop the rapid rise in food prices, among other things: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=scrap-biofuel-support-to-curb-food

25

“Piter, better check you facts, that claim’s been proven false (regarding deficits).”

Tex, check your facts. Repeat after me: DEFICIT and DEBT are two different things.

26

I don’t understand Piter. Current US debt as of 2010 is about about 13.6$T, $3.6T higher than it was in 2008, when it was 10.0 $T, In 2000 it was $5.6T. Comparing 2010 $ to 1950 $ is pretty easy way to exaggerate…

27

“Piter, better check you facts, that claim’s been proven false (regarding deficits).”

Sorry, thought I was being clear.

28

Piter, I cannot fully agree that deficit and debt are two different things.

29

You not click on “deficit” link, Grasshopper.

“A government’s deficit can be measured with or without including the interest it pays on its debt. The primary deficit is defined as the difference between current government spending and total current revenue from all types of taxes. The total deficit (which is often just called the ‘deficit’) is spending, plus interest payments on the debt, minus tax revenues.[1]”

Spending is not debt, interest on debt is not debt, certainly tax revenues are not debt, therefore deficit is not debt. Q.E.D.

If the deficit and the debt are not two different things, why do we have two different words to denote the same thing? And why do they have such vastly different values (see below)?

Is one included in the other? Hint: the deficit is about 1/10 of the debt. If so, which?

The deficit is how much money you need to earn, win, reallocate, steal or borrow because you’re short on rent this month. The debt is that huge credit card bill you’ve been carrying for the last few years. If you put your rent on your credit card (again) you’ve moved money from the deficit to the debt.

Deficit <> Debt.
Interest <> Debt.

30

Thanks for avoiding through your dictionarial diversions the problem with your original comment. Well done!

31

“Dictionarial diversions”?

I was talking about debt and you tried to make it seem as if I was talking about deficits. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Me: " ‘Seems to me Obama has increased the national debt as much as anyone who held that particular office.’

Actually, more than all previous presidents Washington through Reagan put together, and after two years he’s halfway to beating Bush’s eight year record."

You: “Piter, better check you facts, that claim’s been proven false (regarding deficits).”

Hence the pointing out that debt and deficit are not the same thing. It’s really pretty simple.

32

What about the fact that your original post appears to be incorrect?

33

piter_devries:

Me: " 'Seems to me Obama has increased the national debt as much as anyone who held that particular office.'
Almost....you were quoting me, so try once more.
34

“texases June 22 Report
What about the fact that your original post appears to be incorrect?”

If I was wrong, I was wrong. What about prove it?

" chaissos June 22 Report
piter_devries:

Me: " 'Seems to me Obama has increased the national debt as much as anyone who held that particular office.'

Almost…you were quoting me, so try once more. "

Good point. He’s increased the debt more per year than any other President.

35

No…George Bush increased the deficit more than anyone during his second term. He also had the luxury of putting the war debt aside as Emergency supplementals un paid for expenditures. This debt was then legitimately put in Obama’s budget which was the substantial part of his increase . He inherited the war debt that George avoided…and George still put up record numbers…5 trillion to the deficit. He then signed the bail out whose debt then also appeared on Obama’s budget.

This “more per year” BS was picked up from George’s hidden accounting. Rewriting history and avoiding responsibility was the favorite past time during Bush’s two terms…excuse me, Cheney’s two terms and continues today in hopes that believers can’t / won’t read the difference.

George left the US the same way he left Texas as a governor, a financial mess. Be wary of those who use cutting taxes as the only major item they seem ever have on their election platform agenda as a solution to all financial woes, but NEVER cut overall expenditures in practice.

36

SMH. Do I have to go through this again? DEFICIT and DEBT are NOT the same thing, even though they both start with a “D”.

You wrote: “George still put up record numbers…5 trillion to the deficit.”

The homeless man preaching to the pigeons in the park shakes his head ruefully when he hears you say this.

Bush increased the national DEBT by 4.9 trillion dollars over 8 years. Not the DEFICIT.

Obama has increased the DEBT by about 2 trillion in about 2 years.

37

Well, using our corn for ethanol is one of the dumbest things Bush did, along with many other stupid issues. Of course, Cheney, our real Pres. was worse.

38

Piter is correct. Deficit and debt are not the same thing. They are related in that if you keep running deficits, you will run up the debt which the current adminstration certainly has. Ethanol is expensive, burns dirty, doesn’t reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and is starving the 3rd world by driving up food prices. If Iowa didn’t have the first primary, it would have been gone long ago. That should be the first cut the politicians make as a condition for raising the debt ceiling. Cars can run quite well on Natural Gas and we have plenty of it. The price has never been lower. We need to start converting our cars to run on it right now and tell the Saudis to go to you know where.

39

Sorry I’m new on here and just trying to catch up.

  • The $.45/gal blenders credit actually goes to the refineries (Big Oil) not the ethanol companies.
  • Ethanol sells for $.40/gal less than gasoline.
  • Cars were originally designed to run on alcohol (ethanol). It was later converted to gasoline because it was cheap, we had a lot of it, and someone wanted to help the oil guys out.
  • It doesn’t burn dirtier; it’s cleaning out the crap the gasoline leaves in your car.
    -You have to consider the source. Oklahoma (oil), Texas (oil) and California (coastal - cheap imports) will have a different opinion than someone from the Midwest (corn).
    -I think it’s 30% of the corn that goes to Ethanol, not 40%. About 1/3 of that is returned as food. Ethanol uses the starch from the corn, the part that has little food value.
  • One of the main reasons our food prices are increasing is because of oil and that for years we have been sending our $ to other countries, now they can afford more expensive food - ours.
  • Studies that have looked at the cost of the food content are pennies vs. the other (fuel) costs that have dramatically increased costs of everything.
  • Years ago there wasn’t a market for corn and nobody cared. Farmers were paid by us taxpayers not to grow corn. Later they found many non-food uses for their over abundance of crops. Now farmers have the opportunity to contribute a significant amount to our economy and tax base. Farmers will spend most of their money updating farm equipment and buying other tangible products, which circulates many times through our economy here in the United States.
    -Where does the profit for foreign oil go?
    -Although sugar cane is a great source of ethanol it has a short storage span, I think it’s 8 weeks? Corn is stable and stores easily for many months or years.
    -Suddenly converting from gasoline/ethanol to all natural gas is not realistic. We need multiple options.
    -Using corn for ethanol is a starting point and has almost reached its peak as far as production capacity. Ethanol made from cellulose and algae are more efficient but not up to a commercial level yet. They will take up the extra capacity needed in the future.
    -If we abandon the growth of ethanol, these better methods will never materialize and we will slide back to depending and fighting for foreign oil.
  • Why not have an import tax on cheap products? China is abusing our trade agreements and already laughing at us all the way to the bank.
    -Where does the profit for foreign oil go?
  • We taxpayers have given Big Oil $100 - $200 billion in welfare for
    DECADES (which is one of the most profitable industries in the world),
    probably the most profitable that is still supported by government welfare.
  • Then add another $100+ billion /year for all of the military expense
    spent to leverage our control in the Big Oil countries.
  • Why is eliminating Big Oil subsidies considered raising their taxes but
    ethanol subsidies are handouts?
  • What price should we put on all the innocent lives we have sacrificed
    protecting the control of Big Oil in foreign countries? No one has been killed over ethanol.
    The Renewable Fuels Association (ethanol) told Tim Pawlenty they were
    okay with cutting the subsidies for ethanol, as long as they cut them for
    Big Oil as well.
  • That’s what we should be talking about here, why does Big Oil continue to
    live on welfare?
    -You can make fun of our agriculture states as much as you want but soon
    we will become one of the most critical assets of this country.
40

So much info, so many myths.

So here are the main problems with corn-based ethanol: It is an extremely bad way to make fuel for vehicles because of the HUGE use of food. Food that the world desparately needs, the number of underfed people world-wide has skyrocketed now that food for poor people around the world is being priced out of their reach. As one study concluded, fuel from food is a crime against humanity. It really is that simple.

And corn-based ethanol is no “bridge” to anything. A still is a still, no new technology is being used. The same thing happened years ago: a corn-ethanol boom, followed by a bust when folks discovered how wasteful it was.