Here is a commentary near and dear to our heart. Available at:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/greenberg021312.php3
Quoting from Greenbergs article: “Congress finally did something right. Or rather it did nothing at all, which was just the right thing to do in these wasteful circumstances. It let the ethanol tax credit expire after 30 years. . . .
” The ethanol subsidy turned out to be a great boondoggle but an awful idea: a massive, long-term handout that was worse than useless. It was actively destructive, raising food prices around the world by driving up the price of corn, distorting the free market, and diverting a perfectly good foodstuff into an increasingly unneeded source of fuel. . . .”
Of course proponents of ethanol try to make the case that somehow devoting so much grade A farm land to ethanol production doesn’t adversely affect food prices. We of course find that untenable (un-tillable 🙂
Greenberg states that: “By raising corn prices, the ethanol lobby hurt meat and poultry producers, food companies, the food stamp program and shoppers in general.”
And Greenberg goes on to warn:
“But the ethanol lobby isn’t through with us yet. Now it wants the government to further subsidize the manufacture and distribution of the pumps, tanks and other gizmos needed to make gasoline with higher and higher concentrations of the grain-based fuel. These people need to be stopped before they do even more damage.”
If you are in love with alcohol in your car, consider removing any onerous impediments on the production of natural gas (main component methane), which we have in abundance. It can be converted to methanol more efficiently than corn to ethanol and does not impact food prices, indeed would mitigate to lowering them further.
Of course mandates are subsidies in another form. We believe that a market driven “dual fuel capable” decision by car manufacturers to market such vehicles, or from offerings by after market entrepreneurs, would drive all that needs to be done in the area of alternative vehicle fuels.
* By the way . . . the slogan used to title this post was coined at least a decade ago, by one of the founders of Veritas.
