Ethanol And Flooding Too Much For Farmers To Cope With

June 23, 2008, 10:43PM
Floods give more fuel to critics of ethanol
As corn prices climb, Texas governor is expected to urge EPA to amend rules

By BRETT CLANTON
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

NOTE: Below is only an excerpt, but you can read the whole article by clicking the link above.

"Already under siege from many sides, the U.S. ethanol industry is facing further pressures as recent Midwest flooding pushes corn prices to new highs and federal regulators weigh calls to reduce required use of the fuel.

One of the people calling for that is Gov. Rick Perry, who has scheduled a news conference on the subject today in Washington. Fearing the effects of high corn prices on the state's cattle and poultry industries, he has called on the federal government to suspend or reduce its mandate setting minimum levels of ethanol in the nation's fuel supply.

He is expected to urge the Environmental Protection Agency to amend the ethanol requirement this year, citing its damaging impact on Texas' economy. An EPA comment period on the proposal formally ended Monday.

Agency spokeswoman Cathy Milbourn said it's too early in the process to speculate about what action the EPA may take.

A reduced mandate could shrink the market for ethanol at a time that the rising price of corn, the main ingredient of most U.S.-produced ethanol, and other higher operating costs have made ethanol more expensive to produce.

Some producers have shut down operations or halted new projects."
_____________________________________________________________

All of these are continued signs pointing to acceptance of future prices of all food products to go up in price. The media usually helps fuel such panics instead of trying to actually inform people about stuff (isn't THAT a concept, actually INFORM people?).

The problem is people are too damn busy trying to figure out how to pay bills in this world of a 12 second attention span. See back in the 30s-early 60s, people wanted to be informed. They even took time to read papers, usually back to front, they trusted the news anchors. But today, people have no time for anything, so to take time to be informed, just is not going to happen.

The result, which started in the 60s, is sensationalism of news reporting to "capture" attention. You saw women (mind you at first only beauty queen blondes with big breasts with the advent of color TV) becoming new anchors. Anything to catch and keep the attention.

They struggled as more and more households had to become "DINKS" (dual income no kids) in the 80s. Now it is the norm. The media has come to understand their position as more of another advertising media than anything else.

This is why you started hearing about "Gas experts/analysts (although none ever came forward, hmmm interesting) predict gas prices to reach as much as $4 by the beginning of summer!" If you watched any news channel, this statement or some form of it was stated at least 3 times a week as one of the news top items from January through April.

The human mind actually starts to form habits or acceptance of things after about 31 days of repetition. So by March of this year, although not a single damned person I know of was happy about the rising gas price, they all "accepted that it is going to be that way" come the summer.

I have news for you people. Even if some miracle happened, and gas could be sold for $1.25 a gallon, it never will happen because you have been "conditioned" to accept the $4.oo a gallon price!

The gas companies have ALL had RECORD SETTING HIGH PROFIT QUARTERS for the last 3-4 quarters. That is a year's time. So can you now explain to me, since none of us are really using any less gas, we are all still going to work if we have it, the supply of gas coming into the country has neither increased or decreased, ethanol has solved nothing (it is only 3% of the US overall usuage), and supposedly since the refineries are hurting because oil has reached record high costs of $130 a barrel...HOW DO THESE COMPANIES CONTINUE TO INCREASE RECORD HIGH PROFITS 4 QUARTERS IN A ROW?

Well, for one you have been conditioned to accept high gas prices. So regardless of all the factors, they can charge high gas prices. And if any of you have been paying attention, they have been trying to manipulate your mind to accept some more as they have been saying that "gas prices could reach as high as $6 a gallon during the July-August travel time".

I know I got a little off topic here. But I think that this is important. The media's role versus their responsibility has been more than blurred. And now is the tool to the business man. For example, one of the first things you are taught as a new business is to hold a "Press Release" to try and get your name out in any form of news media you can. This "Press Release" is nothing more than an oversighted advertisement disguised as a news story about a new company in your area. Think about it.