posted July 9, 2008
I came across some information concerning the result of our Congress forcing bio-fuels on us. Bio-fuels have forced food prices up 75% worldwide. This report was put out by the World Bank and yet you probably have not seen a lot of comment about this report.
These policies created by Democrats (like Obama and Gore) and Republicans (like Corker and Alexander) are causing starvation around the world. We are all paying more for everything because our Congress thinks they can save the world by making gas out of food.
Government has changed the supply and demand rules and we can see the results all around us. The great leaders we elected should be able to see their results and be willing to change the policy but they will not accept that they are wrong.
This is another reason not to trust government to help you since they do not have the wisdom to understand simple economics.
Bruce Caldwell
Signal Mountain
sarmatt25@comcast.net
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Mr. Caldwell:
Indeed, this is the case. In Haiti people are eating cookies made partially of dirt because corn is unaffordable, even the cheapest white corn.
Right here in the Scenic City, lawnmower repair shops are reporting a spike in business because ethanol is mucking-up plastic parts, so expect the same thing to start rearing its head in the family car.
Plus all the mileage you're losing, makes no sense at all, this ethanol. One area supplier still features real, old-fashioned dino-fuel, not Frankenstein bio-fuel.
John R. Smickle
Chattanooga
jsbottomfeeder@juno.com
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Mr. Caldwell brings up a critical issue on bio-fuels as the main reason that food costs are rising. On July 4, the Guardian published that 755 food increase findings of a senior economist in a World Bank report that has been "embargoed." The Guardian reported "Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush." While it is true that both parties have been hoodwinked by the ethanol scam, there is a large degree of blame to go to the top. Corn state politicians of every political stripe have been bribed (campaign donations) by Archers Danials Midland, Monsanto, Cargill, Bunge to name a few in the Food Chain Gang, who are profiting the most from the food to fuel sham. Condescension to corn state voters is to be expected in our corrupted political process.
However, it was George Bush who in 2001, displayed his fealty to the FCG, by tapping Chuck Conner--then president of an ADM front group called the Corn Refiners Association--as his "special assistant to the president for agriculture, trade and food assistance," and who became deputy secretary of agriculture in 2005. It was a Republican dominated Congress that passed that Energy Policy Act of 2005 and a mere 12% of senators voted nay from both parties. Our leadership had been fully assimilated by the Food Chain Gang. It is also Bush's USFDA that has been reduced to junk science in claiming that the food price increase is only 3% attributable to ethanol.
Archer Danials Midland's then-CEO Dwayne Andreas began exercising his considerable power over politicians in the U.S. in the late 60s and early 70s. Andreas was a notorious double dealer in politics, funding Nixon’s Watergate plumbers, and illegally donating a huge sum to Hubert Humphrey, Nixon's rival in the 1968 election. His political connections enabled him to subsequently be the architect of our obesity plague, tariffs on sugar cane, the $.51/gallon subsidy for ethanol that we all pay for, and ultimately our current food to fuel dilemma and global starvation increases. ADM hoodwinked Carter during the 70s oil crisis and set these wheels in motion with that ethanol subsidy. ADM and the rest of the FCG have profited mightily since. The more money they make off this corruption of politics, the more they rot it from the top.
Mr. Caldwell and I perhaps agree on most aspects of the implications of the ethanol scam for world food supplies. But while he wishes to blame government for the problem, I am inclined to believe the "free market," our corporate overlords, have been given entirely too much power over our government and politicians. The legal bribes used by the Food Chain Gang have subverted democracy and government by and for the people. The politicization of science in our government under the current regime, has also led to a disastrous and deadly, truth deficit and a severe propaganda plague.
There is plenty of blame to go around. While most environmentalists who have researched the issues, oppose both corn ethanol and ethanol from forests and vital crop residues, there is also Gang Green, those who have their own funding incongruities, who have also drank of the corn flavored kool-aid. It is refreshing to now see so many Republicans and some Democrats in congress, expressing their buyer's remorse over the ethanol boondoggle, but pride is a hard thing to swallow with mouths full of high fructose corn syrup, and money stuffed suit coats in an election cycle.
Nations in the European Union are backing away from the mandates for ethanol, now that the truth is coming out. Will our politicians be likewise able to do the honorable thing and admit they were wrong and reverse this travesty?
Americans are responsible for the kind of government we have created and recently allowed to be corrupted to such an extent. Our apathy and willing ignorance have allowed corporations like ADM and Monsanto to exert more power over our leaders than we now have. The ethanol lobby, King Corn, is every bit as powerful now as King CONG (coal, oil, nuke, gas) has been in the last decades in developing policy for us. King corn/Food Chain Gang and King CONG are reaping huge profits, subsidies, and legislative largesse by their servants, our politicians.
If you love high food prices, ethanol contaminated gas that wreaks machines, salmonella in your food, e-coli and chemicals in your water, frankenfoods, and the other by-products of corporate control, do nothing. If these things bother you in the least, help take back America from King Corn and King COAL. There is an election coming. Help your favorite politician become honest and accountable to the American people and the world.
Denny Haldeman
Soddy Daisy
dennyh@bellsouth.net
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Mr. Caldwell,
While I don't typically share your viewpoints, I agree with you on this one. I've actually seen several reports on this issue on CNN (which may surprise you, given the common belief, one that I agree with for the most part, that it's a more liberal network). Bio-fuels, specifically Ethanol, have been reported as causing food shortages and as being at least partially responsible for escalating food prices around the world.
Personally, I think the motive behind Ethanol was a good one, but it certainly doesn't seem to have been thought through completely, and this has had horrible ramifications. Doing nothing about our energy crisis is a catastrophe as well, so I hope that this failure doesn't stop public support for the search for alternative fuels. We need to continue the search, but we need to learn from this, to be more careful, and we need to get it right.
I just wanted to let you know that this Ethanol disaster is being covered by at least some of the media. Hopefully, it will be resolved as soon as possible.
John Stegall
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Mr. Caldwell may very well criticize Democrats for the increased use of ethanol in fuel but it took the signature of one George W. Bush for the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to be passed. Check out Wikipedia for a concise summary of this.
For once I agreed with the president on this one and am encouraged as well by Sen. Alexander's call for work on par with the Manhattan Project to get the U.S. independent of foreign fuel. Sure, there are going to be pains associated with doing this, but it has to be done. Ethanol is but one fuel alternative and corn just happens to be the primary source presently. You can thank Jack Daniels Distillery for this. I would also point out that ethanol can be obtained from other sources, most notably switchgrass and even kudzu.
We have been complacent for way too long on this issue. Real change will require some sacrifice. I doubt that many like Mr. Caldwell are willing to do so. I have a six-year-old son and if higher food prices means he can drive an electric car or automobile using some other alternative fuel source, I will gladly pay the higher cost.
John Mitchell
Soddy Daisy
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