stoat1004

Majority of Americans Support Ethanol

On diverting 30% of the USA's corn crop....to my knowledge there are basically four uses for corn grown in the US.....the least of which is human consumption (almost negligable)....#1 Animal feed...this has been mentioned what has not been mentioned is what percentage of animal feed actually results in animals for human consumption a large percentage of that feed is for pet food...#2 Alcohol (not all of which is fuel grade some is food grade alcohol (Sky vodka anyone?)...#3 is corn sweeteners and corn starch.....ALL let me repeat ALL corn grown in the United States not used for the production of PET food contributes to the Human food chain....whether the starch is used for corn syrup, vodka, or ethanol....Now I am not an expert on world hunger but it seems to me to be quite a leap to talk about ethanol without talking about worldwide pet ownership...hmmm something tells me the more affluent china, india, and russia become the more pets their gonna keep (just a guess)....Commodity prices are result of monetary policy and demand issues (Ethanol playing a somewhat smaller role then critics claim)...I am seriously curious if Subsidy Eye is recommending that corn acreage be used for other crops or if corn grown be used for other products? I am also curious why subsidies for ethanol (which are a net tax gainer and not a "drain" on tax payers) are so honerious but the Oil depletion allowence...which is basically an accounting gimic which allows for write offs for Oil produced by treating it as an asset loss (which is several times larger then subsidies for ethanol) is not? The tariff on Brazilian ethanol equals the subsidy on domestic corn ethanol so that the U.S. tax payers do not subsidize Brazil (Ya'll are hearing the same talking heads I am who want to remove that)....If anyone doubts the tax benefit of mandates and subsidies just take a look at the plants built and employees hired....these are manufacturing jobs (remember those?).....anyway as I have said corn based ethanol is good for America not the Globe....Global issues are debated by the WTO and the UN....Our congress, president, and citizens should concern themselves with a somewhat smaller picture. As far as Carbon and CO2 go...something tells me Peak Oil and the indebtiness of the World's largest producer (US :) is going to take care of alot of that.