Like eveybody else, Ole Pecoz sure likes bein' right!!!

...but here is one instance in which there is no pleasure!! A couple of months ago, I pointed out that this stupid vote-chasin' "corn for ethanol" program was going to create inflation and turmoil. It takes a gallon of carbon fuel to turn a bushel of corn into a gallon of ethanol. It makes no sense -- but it does drive up the price of corn, wheat, rice and other food staples. Here's part of an article in todays NY Times:

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April 15, 2008

News Analysis

Fuel Choices, Food Crises and Finger-Pointing

By ANDREW MARTIN

The idea of turning farms into fuel plants seemed, for a time, like one of the answers to high global oil prices and supply worries. That strategy seemed to reach a high point last year when Congress mandated a fivefold increase in the use of biofuels.

But now a reaction is building against policies in the United States and Europe to promote ethanol and similar fuels, with political leaders from poor countries contending that these fuels are driving up food prices and starving poor people. Biofuels are fast becoming a new flash point in global diplomacy, putting pressure on Western politicians to reconsider their policies, even as they argue that biofuels are only one factor in the seemingly inexorable rise in food prices.

In some countries, the higher prices are leading to riots, political instability and growing worries about feeding the poorest people. Food riots contributed to the dismissal of Haiti’s prime minister last week, and leaders in some other countries are nervously trying to calm anxious consumers.

At a weekend conference in Washington, finance ministers and central bankers of seven leading industrial nations called for urgent action to deal with the price spikes, and several of them demanded a reconsideration of biofuel policies adopted recently in the West.

Many specialists in food policy consider government mandates for biofuels to be ill advised, agreeing that the diversion of crops like corn into fuel production has contributed to the higher prices. But other factors have played big roles, including droughts that have limited output and rapid global economic growth that has created higher demand for food.

That growth, much faster over the last four years than the historical norm, is lifting millions of people out of destitution and giving them access to better diets. But farmers are having trouble keeping up with the surge in demand.

While there is agreement that the growth of biofuels has contributed to higher food prices, the amount is disputed.

Work by the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington suggests that biofuel production accounts for a quarter to a third of the recent increase in global commodity prices. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations predicted late last year that biofuel production, assuming that current mandates continue, would increase food costs by 10 to 15 percent. [.......]

In the last six months, I have watched the price of eggs (chickens eat corn folks, not worms), bread, meat, tortillas, milk and all such related products rise by 30-50% in my local market. Sure enough, some of it is related to the price of gasoline and trucking costs --- but these high increases aren't on every aisle, they are limited to those products that depend on the price of grain and grain products.... Hold one Pardners' it's gonna get worse --- and ugly!!