PirateP

Now There's An Ethanol Glut?! I Thought We Couldn't Make Enough

You mention 50 cents less per gallon than gasoline, but neglect to mention the price per unit of energy.

Ethanol has a much lower energy output than gasoline (about 1/3) so it would require 3 gallons of ethanol to go the same distance 1 gallon of gasoline will take you. If you then take the perspective of price per amount of energy, ethanol is almost 3 times as expensive as gasoline.

That's why the oil companies don't want to increase the percentage of ethanol in gas, it decreases the quality of gas and makes it more expensive to make your car go.

Now There's An Ethanol Glut?! I Thought We Couldn't Make Enough

You mention 50 cents less per gallon than gasoline, but neglect to mention the price per unit of energy.

Ethanol has a much lower energy output than gasoline (about 1/3) so it would require 3 gallons of ethanol to go the same distance 1 gallon of gasoline will take you. If you then take the perspective of price per amount of energy, ethanol is almost 3 times as expensive as gasoline.

That's why the oil companies don't want to increase the percentage of ethanol in gas, it decreases the quality of gas and makes it more expensive to make your car go.

The Inevitable Collapse of China's Banks

This argument seems largely based on the assumption that China is just like the Soviet Union, hence the reference to Kornai. It's a mistake to make this analogy due to the increasingly market-driven nature of the Chinese economy. Many of the problems from the soviet union came from shortages of fundamental infrastructure, like food production and distribution. Infrastructure seems to becoming less of a problem, not more, for China as its economy grows since the government seems to understand that its growth depends on such infrastructure. Compare China's infrastructure to that of India, a democracy, where almost any analyst can tell you that the infrastructure requires much more investment to continue to produce growth. See economist article.