Old Rick

Whatever Happened to Those Ethanol Companies?

Ethanol was a way to back door farm subsidies in the wake of WTO rulings on farm subsidies. The big proponents were the corn state Senators (who were loaded up with ADM $$$) of whom BHO was one. BTW, Ethanol provides only 2/3 the BTU of gasoline so a 100% ethanol burner would get only 2/3 the fuel efficiency of a gas engine OF THE SAME COMPRESSION RATIO. Ethanol starts to pay off when the engine CR gets to about 14-15 to 1 (from the current 8.5-1 for 87 octane gasoline autos). Lots of Top fuelers and Funny Cars burned ethanol in the 50s & 60s. As with GDP and unemployment rates, the government stats guys have jiggered the way ethanol fuel efficiency is measured to pervert the truth.


On Nov 24 02:13 PM Augustus wrote:

> It is nonsense to say that Bush was an ethanol promoter. Bush was
> in favor of Drill, Baby, Drill. Whatever was done to increase ethanol
> production was done to placate the greenie nutters who became the
> OBangye accolytes.

Expecting a Sell-Off: 35 Ways to Protect for Less

Wouldn't the simplest strategy be to purchase slightly in the money puts on SPY or QQQ or (if you feel real lucky) QLD puts for say October09? It eliminates a lot of commissions and note that individual stocks can still go up even if "The Market" declines.

The Market Bubble Is About to Pop

Fred said: "Stocks have dramatically underperformed their long-term average. In fact, the years from 1997 to 2007 may have been the worst ever in real terms."

What? This is completely wrong. "
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That time frame is wrong, but move it out a year or 2 and it is dead on:
S&P 1/1/99 1225
S&P 1/1/09 890

Looks negative to me. In fact the last 12 years have been negative in real terms.

The Market Bubble Is About to Pop

One thing I think Stephen missed that further supports his commodities theme is the prospect of high/hyper inflation due to the loosest (and foolhardiest) fiscal and monetary policies I have seen in my 40 year investing career. If we get even 5-7% inflation (highly likely) in the 2012 timeframe, there will be few investments that will be stores of value other than foreign stocks (in countries where they avoided the siren call of easy money) and commodities. Bernanke is on a high wire without a safety net. Unfortunately, we are all riding on his shoulders, and they are not as broad as Paul Volker's.