Wow, have you seen the Price of corn!!!

[dieseltech09]

Academy in Edmond has deer corn for $8.something a bag.

 

[Clay]

I blame corn prices on fracking

 

[inactive]

don't the rising corn prices from ethanol consumption actually reduce the corn subsidy?

I think the subsidy is based on acres planted, and part is paid when you declare planting and the rest paid at harvest. And the subsidies are decided in the "farm" bills that are passed periodically by Congress. Given that, I doubt the price and use of the corn harvested plays much into the subsidy; I doubt the government has the ability to be that dynamic in setting it. This is just speculation though, I certainly could be off here.

 

[LightningCrash]

I blame corn prices on fracking

brilliant!

 

[HiredHand]

The tax credit for ethanol expired at the beginning of this year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/b...-federal-tax-credit-for-ethanol-expires.html#

 

[Shadowrider]

The tax credit for ethanol expired at the beginning of this year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/b...-federal-tax-credit-for-ethanol-expires.html#

Well yes, but.......

After a flirtation with reason last spring, the Obama EPA has signed off on the absurd, abysmal Renewable Fuel Standard established under Bush a couple of years ago—ensuring that farmers will continue to devote vast swaths of land to GHG-intensive corn, of which huge portion will ultimately be set aflame to power cars—but not before being transformed into liquid fuel in an energy-intensive process.

Tom's a liberal. Here is Aaron Smith, writing a couple of days ago for the conservative American Enterprise Institute:

Deficit hawks, environmentalists, and food processors are celebrating the expiration of the ethanol tax credit. This corporate handout gave $0.45 to ethanol producers for every gallon they produced and cost taxpayers $6 billion in 2011. So why did the powerful corn ethanol lobby let it expire without an apparent fight? The answer lies in legislation known as the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which creates government-guaranteed demand that keeps corn prices high and generates massive farm profits. Removing the tax credit but keeping the RFS is like scraping a little frosting from the ethanol-boondoggle cake.

The RFS mandates that at least 37 percent of the 2011-12 corn crop be converted to ethanol and blended with the gasoline that powers our cars…[As a result] the current price of corn on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is about $6.50 per bushel—almost triple the pre-mandate level.

As the Congressional Budget Office wrote back in 2010, "In the future, the scheduled increase in mandated volumes would require biofuels to be produced in amounts that are probably beyond what the market would produce even if the effects of the tax credits were included." [Italics mine.] In other words, the mandates have grown so large that the tax credits barely made a difference anymore. Demand for ethanol is driven by the mandates, not by the tax credit. When you take away the tax credit, nothing happens: Demand stays high because the law says so, corn prices go up accordingly, and corn farmers stay rich. The subsidies were a nice little fillip on top of that, but at this point it's basically chump change.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/01/ethanol-subsidies-not-gone-just-hidden-little-better

 

[Hobbes]

It's not just corn. Soybeans are hurting too.

The worst widespread drought since 1956.

The Mississippi river is so low now that it's not navigable at Vicksburg and salt water is beginning to infiltrate the river.


http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/16/us/us-drought/index.html


Lots of ranchers are selling off their cattle right now so stock the freezer because when it's gone beef prices will soar.

 

[LightningCrash]

It's not just corn. Soybeans are hurting too.

The worst widespread drought since 1956.

The Mississippi river is so low now that it's not navigable at Vicksburg and salt water is beginning to infiltrate the river.


http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/16/us/us-drought/index.html


Lots of ranchers are selling off their cattle right now so stock the freezer because when it's gone beef prices will soar.

them climatologists is full of lies and wizardry! theys just trying to take all our money!

 

[HiredHand]

Well yes, but.......

There's always more than one way to skin a cat.

 

[farmerbyron]

them climatologists is full of lies and wizardry! theys just trying to take all our money!

It was drier and hotter in the 30s and the 50s and certainly many, many times before accurate records were taken.