« counting unhatched chicks | Main | Denmark claim of the day »
fatty snacks!
From today's WSJ (gated but a free preview is available) : "With Corn Prices Rising, Pigs Switch to Fatty Snacks".
This is a convoluted one, but I'll give it a try. The US seeks "energy independence". Our government has decided corn based ethanol is the way to go and subsidizes gasoline made from it to the tune of around $0.50 per gallon. However, BRAZILIAN corn ethanol is NOT the way to go and we have placed a goodly sized tariff thereon. Thus the price of corn in the US is off the hook as the kids like to say. Commercial farmers, who like to fatten their charges as quickly and cheaply as possible and traditionally use 30-60 percent corn diets for their pigs and cows have turned to another, now cheaper, proven form of quick fattening: JUNK FOOD!! Cheese curls, tater tots, cookies, candy bars and french fries are now on the menu for our future food. Pig farmer / comedian Alfred Smith says of the practice "I've heard no complaints".
Posted by Kevin Grier on May 21, 2007 at 10:08 AM in Current Affairs, Economics | Permalink
Comments
Brazilian ethanol comes from sugar cane.
Posted by: dsVasques at May 21, 2007 11:42:54 AM
couple things that make this even worse than it seems:
As dsVazques points out, ethanol from Brazil is sugar cane based. Why aren't we exploring sugar ethanol? Because the sugar lobby and ADM have conspired to hold US sugar prices far above the market clearing rate. This unholy alliance is the reason that we use high fructose corn syrup in everything instead of sugar (thus ADM's involvment). So we block Brazillian ethanol with a tariff on its importation, we subsidize corn based ethanol, we keep the price of sugar artificially inflated in the US thereby causing both a substitution effect to corn in the form of HFC and simultaneously eliminating the economics of homegrown sugar going into ethanol (because of course we only subsidize corn ethanol).
The solution is simple, but completely out of the question. Eliminate the corn ethanol subsidy, eliminate the tariff on ethanol, eliminate price supports and tariffs on sugar. Anyone think this will happen?
Posted by: joe at May 21, 2007 1:26:00 PM
Joe,
Of course you are 100% correct, which makes me wonder: why haven't environmentalists on the Left made hay out of this?
Posted by: Christina at May 21, 2007 1:39:57 PM
50 Cent's new album, or the fitted Oakland A's hat I just bought at Lidz, or possibly making tons of money from government subsidies of corn and using it to buy low-riding hydraulic convertibles, would be off the hook, but not the high price of corn (it means cool, not unnaturally expensive). Maybe say the price of corn is wack.
I agree with the analysis, by the way. Does this have any adverse effect on the meat coming out of the pigs?
Posted by: Kevin at May 21, 2007 2:13:17 PM
@Kevin:
'Off the hook' can also be used to mean 'out of control'. I think that sense of the phrase is what's intended in this posting.
Posted by: rdc at May 21, 2007 3:40:20 PM
Seems it wasn't that long ago that some people were laughing at how Soviet farmers were feeding bread to
their cattle.
Posted by: Ronald Brak at May 21, 2007 9:53:47 PM
how do farmers have so much political power?
while they might receive financial protection from the government, they aren't particulary wealthy. they are small in number. urban and surban populations vastly outnumber this country's farmers and their rural supporters.
this country would be in much better financial and enviromental shape if we imported more food goods. damn the farmer.
Posted by: thehova at May 21, 2007 11:26:54 PM
If you dont think left-wing environmentalists are making hay out of this, you arent reading any left-wing environmentalist blogs. They are extremely unhappy with the corn-ethanol ADM subsidy. See Tom Philpots old posts on http://gristmill.grist.org/
for a good example. Of course, he is an organic farmer, so he might be biased. I have also seen a veryh good NYT editorial lately about the impact of the Corn Subsidies on our diet. Cant remember the link.
Posted by: Darin London at May 23, 2007 12:13:41 PM
大家好，我是臺灣人，從臺灣一個人搬家來到美國，環境很陌生，感覺很孤單。以前在臺灣幾家知名的徵信社工作過，我是一個優秀的徵信工作者，希望早點找到適合自己的工作。希望通過貴站，認識更多的朋友。
Posted by: 謝文豪 at Apr 2, 2008 4:22:05 AM
aion gold
aion money
cheap aion gold
cheap aion money
buy aion gold
Mabinogi online gold
Mabinogi gold
buy Mabinogi gold
cheap Mabinogi gold
Mabinogi money
2moons dil
2moons gold
buy 2moons dil
2moons dil
cheap 2moons dil
flyff gold
flyff penya
flyff money
buy flyff penya
cheap flyff penya
cheap flyff gold
Dofus kamas
buy Dofus kamas
cheap kamas
Dofus kama
Dofus gold
Dofus money
Knight online gold
Knight Gold
Knight Noah
Knight online Noah
Posted by: aion at Jul 14, 2009 4:08:46 AM
