How government polices starve the world and feed inflation

Another stupid knee jerk policy by our government. If they really want to free us from foreign oil extortion they would allow the development of the oil and coal we have and break up the illegal OPEC cartel. Instead they put in place a policy that drives up food prices so that the poor of the world will starve. They are making food reserves so low that any major crop failure will bring major famine. Add to that the fact that it is not environmentally friendly to use food for fuel and the impact this will have on the cost of everything and it is lunacy.

Ethanol policy threatens to starve the world

Corn that traded around $2 a bushel just two years ago is now well over $5 a bushel. The impact ripples through the food chain of milk, butter, eggs, flour, pasta and everything else, because dairy cattle, beef cattle, poultry and swine depend on the corn for their feed. When chicken feed doesn’t cost chicken feed anymore, then neither does anything else.Other grains, like wheat, are also at record highs because farmers are planting less wheat and more corn, thanks to the ethanol incentives. Less supply, plus more world demand, means higher prices for wheat products, too, from flour to bread to pasta.

Full-scale food riots may arise in some parts of the world, as more and more grain is diverted into fuel production.

The Earth Policy Institute reports that ethanol-related food protests occurred last year in Mexico, Italy, Pakistan and Indonesia. A price-driven stampede killed three and injured 31 at a supermarket in China.

“We are witnessing the beginning of one of the great tragedies of history,” the EPI proclaimed in January. “The United States, in a misguided effort to reduce its oil insecurity by converting grain into fuel for cars, is generating global food insecurity on a scale never seen before.”