| Re: A budget cut I like (politics) |
Subject: Re: A budget cut I like (politics) by Ultraman on 2011/2/21 3:35:18 Ahh Joe, your pushing my buttons now!  You have to understand that the govt is going to subsidise farming. It can be through ethenol or just in subsidy payments to help prop up the price of corn. The govt has declaired that we need an oxygenator in our fuels to help reach the clean air standards. Where is that going to come from if you take ethenol out of the picture? You have a production and distribution infra structure set up and in place and that has taken 30 years to bring about. Nobody is arguing that it is the most efficiant fuel to produce, it isn't but it is something we can do to help reduce dependency on foreign oil and keep the air clean. I have been in the Ag business all my life and until ethenol came around farmers were dependent on the govt tit to make their profits every year. The only farmers who were stand alone were the ones growing seed corn for the big seed companies, and their weren't to many of those. We have taught the rest of the world how to farm and exports are not going to be enough to keep this big wheel rolling. In the past we had feeding cattle, exports and the fructose industry as the main uses for corn. Each year as our production increased through genetics and other methods we had larger and larger carryovers. This led to the basic economics of supply and demand. Too much corn and too low of prices. So in steps the govt to keep farmers from going broke. We are 3 to 5 years away from 300 bu averages on an acre of irrigated corn. The modern corn plant has a 6 to 700 bu potential if you could get it enough energy and food. Ethenol is not driving up the price of food, number 2 yellow is not used in a lot of food production. It feeds cattle but all they do is feed them the mash which they like better anyway. Nothing lost there. On top of all that 6 billion is chump change to those jerks up in the beltway who can throw a trillion away on a health care bill that is already a huge mess. No, ethenol is ok for the short run and 10 years from now we will be using other crops to make the squeeze. In the meantime farmers are enjoying a market that has the govt not directly making payment to them to keep them going. Which even at its worst was far under what other countries are paying their farmers. That's all for now, rants over! |
