Freedom Is Solution...Not Corn

Rush had an interesting discussion with a caller defending Ethanol production. Although Rush brought up the argument that if the industry was not being subsidized, it would not have taken off at all. The whole idea of burning our food is due to the Global Warming Hoax.

However, the caller did attempt to defend his opinion that the price of corn is not going up due to increased demand. He argued that there is plenty of corn. The problem is with transportation costs. Rush does link to an article on the Sacbee website titled, Ethanol: How the promise dwindled.

In this article there is no mention of transportation costs. Perhaps that is due to a bias in the writer. I have no doubt transportation costs have gone up. But the article says,"

"There was a point in time when you had $3 corn and $4 ethanol; now you have $6 corn and $2 ethanol," said Rick Eastman, who built the state's first big ethanol plant in Goshen and is now a consultant to Pacific Ethanol.

Am I really to believe transportation costs have doubled the price of corn? This is a bit tough to swallow. The reason stated is "by too much supply, too-expensive corn and too many increases in plant construction costs."

Now I am sure "too-expensive corn" would include transportation costs. So even if the caller was right, so what? The point is this. We are making bad energy policies based upon a hoax. We do not need to burn our food. A simple drilling rig and a pipeline of fresh crude from Alaska would blow out corn in a Free-Market.

Walter Williams points out

"Ethanol is so costly that it wouldn't make it in a free market. That's why Congress has enacted major ethanol subsidies, about $1.05 to $1.38 a gallon, which is no less than a tax on consumers. In fact, there's a double tax -- one in the form of ethanol subsidies and another in the form of handouts to corn farmers to the tune of $9.5 billion in 2005 alone."

Problem? Government.

Solution? Freedom.

It really is that simple.