31October

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

Cetin,
About 20,000 people who recently got laid off care.
Please get a job and move out of your mom's basement.
Stop spamming and try a life.


On Aug 04 10:04 AM reboot wrote:

> dow 14,000 soon? looks like no one cares about recession anymore
>
>
> good articles 4 slow news day www.iamned.com

Ethanol Driving Pump, Narrowing of Refining Margin

Why is there a witch hunt against ethanol? It is locally grown, instead coming of from Venezuela or the Middle East. It creates a stable market for sorghum, corn, cane, and sugar beets, all while saving the local family farms. There is MORE than enough ariable land in the USA to meet all conceivable demand. The idea that we cannot supply enough corn is a MYTH. Corn would not be going to fuel instead of food if our dumb government would stop subsidizing farmers to NOT farm, because now farmers have quit planting corn -- which means the proces will rise further. Why arre there any subsidies at all - was not the ethanol mandate enough? Ethanol as fuel was done 10X more aggressively by Brazil (which grows its own food supplies and oil) and Sweden (which does not), and it was successful in both those countries. The ethanol mix reduces the amount of petrol in a gallon, thus slightly reducing overall petroleum demand, thus slightly moving the demand curve down, thus minutely REDUCING prices form what they might have been with pure oil. The only reason it is not working here is because of government intereference. Ethanol, although not as efficient in the car as petrol, is a great idea. The only real problem is that the government will not allow the market to settle on a profitable and stable supply. Cotton Mather would be proud of the fashonable attacks on ethanol. But it is an interfering Congress and counter-productive subsidies that hurt the world.

Sorry Greens, Fossil Fuels Are Here to Stay

I, too, am a fossil fuel investor. But there is one detail left out, one incorrect assumption, and one ridiculous statement put into the piece. The US oil companies get tax subsidies, which two presidential candidates have promised to cut. That risk should be factored in. Shale oil is expensive and hideously damaging to extract. Therefore, it is only a good backup for other sources [just like alternative fuels] and the writer should not assume it will be a profitable solution. Finally, the comments about wind were just wrong. I have been to the wind fields in the American West and the German North. At no point do they "spin at warp speed" to kill millions of birds. [In extreme wind conditions, birds hunker down anyway.] "The most recent report from Germany put wind energy as available only 16 percent of the time." Again, incorrect. When I was in Hamburg, they produced 16% of the time, 24 hours per day, as opposed to 30% production, 11 hours a day for solar. Guess who wins. But the point is moot: Fossil fuels do rule the foreseeable future.