Corn tax costs Americans $50

Corn tax costs Americans $50 (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Casual Banter] >> Off the Grid

Message

selfbnd411 -> Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:07:13 PM)
Gasoline? $3.50 headed to $4.50/gallon. Ground beef? $3/lb. Abandoning the free market by forcing people to use an economically and environmentally unsound fuel in order to score votes for the Republican Party in the corn belt? Priceless. ---- Study: Ethanol raises food costs CHICAGO (Reuters) -- Booming ethanol production may help lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil, but it has already increased the grocery bill for the average American by $47 since July, according to a study from Iowa State University. .... In February this year, corn futures at the Chicago Board of Trade hit a 10-year high of $4.37-1/4 a bushel, which prompted U.S. farmers to plant a record corn crop this spring, according to the Agriculture Department. With traders anticipating a large harvest this fall, corn prices have since fallen to $3.73. The $47 increase in food comes as ethanol plants produced 4.9 billion gallons in 2006. Ethanol plants are expected to use 27 percent of the U.S. corn crop to make 9.3 billion gallons in the marketing year that starts Sept. 1, according to estimates from the Agriculture Department. Solving the corn supply problem If ethanol production climbs to 30 billion gallons a year by 2012, food prices will have risen a total of $67, or 1.8 percent, the study found. Meat would cost 7 percent to 8.5 percent more, while egg prices would climb 13.5 percent. Corn prices would climb to $4.43 a bushel. http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/17/news/economy/bc.food.ethanol.prices.reut/index.htm?source=yahoo_quote

minnetar -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:09:35 PM)
The government gives the farmers a great deal of subsidies. Would this reduce the cost of those by being able to use it in alternative fuel sources? minnetar

popeye1250 -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:10:41 PM)
And the government says inflation is runnng at 2.4 %?

selfbnd411 -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:16:57 PM)
Nope, this doesn't generally affect the farm subsidies. Basically, farmers are making out like bandits because the government is artificially forcing higher than normal demand for the product by mandating the use of ethanol. Farm subsidies to the corn industry totalled $51 billion in 2005 according to the Environmental Working Group. In addition to guaranteeing a price floor, the government provides a bonus paid to farmers regardless of the price the corn sells at. http://www.ewg.org:16080/farm/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn

Vendaval -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:18:53 PM)
Could you please arrange those numbers into an easier to read format, say a couple of columns? [8\|]

Sanity -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:29:20 PM)
And you say that it's all the Republicans' fault, because they all want to "go green"? DARN them Republicans then. DARN THEM TO HECK, I say.

Real0ne -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:32:02 PM)
now there is one group of people i do not have a huge problem with making an wextra buck because the life of most farmers is work around the clock. in other words they put in some seriously long days for a pitance of what people working onoly 8 hours at gm for instance makes. plus not to forget they pay all theeir own insurances like any other proprietor. so i dont have a huge problem with an extra buck for them.

Real0ne -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:33:32 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Sanity And you say that it's all the Republicans' fault, because they all want to "go green"? DARN them Republicans then. DARN THEM TO HECK, I say. you mean they are ahead of ole tree hugger al? a farmers best friend? LOL

selfbnd411 -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:33:56 PM)
I decided it was easier to just leave the link up. [:D] Eric Bolling, a commodities trader who sits on the board of the New York Mercantile Exchange, has pointed out that over fifty percent of the United States' land mass would have to be turned into a single massive corn field in order to produce enough corn to meet just *half* of Bush's 35 million gallon ethanol mandate!

Real0ne -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:35:41 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: selfbnd411 I decided it was easier to just leave the link up. [:D] Eric Bolling, a commodities trader who sits on the board of the New York Mercantile Exchange, has pointed out that over fifty percent of the United States' land mass would have to be turned into a single massive corn field in order to produce enough corn to meet just *half* of Bush's 35 million gallon ethanol mandate! well that woudl be a dumb assed way to approach it anyway. hell just put burners in cars and burn th ecorn direct!

selfbnd411 -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:37:04 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Sanity And you say that it's all the Republicans' fault, because they all want to "go green"? DARN them Republicans then. DARN THEM TO HECK, I say. No, I say it's their fault because they're pushing thru an economically unsound program in order to score farm votes in critical midwestern states. And it's not just me saying that... http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2007/05/15/the-politics-of-ethanol.aspx

Sanity -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:40:50 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Real0ne now there is one group of people i do not have a huge problem with making an wextra buck because the life of most farmers is work around the clock. in other words they put in some seriously long days for a pitance of what people working onoly 8 hours at gm for instance makes. plus not to forget they pay all theeir own insurances like any other proprietor. so i dont have a huge problem with an extra buck for them. That's true. Farming is a real hard way to try to make a buck, and this will really do them some good. DARN those Republicans!!!

selfbnd411 -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:41:23 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Real0ne now there is one group of people i do not have a huge problem with making an wextra buck because the life of most farmers is work around the clock. You got that right...Most farms are owned by corporations, and corporations, not being human, do work around the clock. "Owners of the largest 20 percent of farms received nearly 90 percent of the $165 billion in taxpayers’ money over the past decade. The real winners were the big grain-buying firms, which made billions by buying up cut-rate grain and turning it into dubious “value-added” goods such as high-fructose corn syrup and ethanol. Large meat-packers also thrived, turning cheap, taxpayer-subsidized corn and soy into food for animals that don’t even naturally eat grains. As a result, beef, poultry and pork markets became highly profitable. Meanwhile, U.S. farms failed by the millions. Since 1950, the number of U.S. farms has plunged from around 5.5 million to just over 2 million." http://www.motherearthnews.com/Livestock-and-Farming/2007-06-01/How-Farm-Policy-Affects-Us-All.aspx

Sanity -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:44:11 PM)
Higher commodities prices will help small farmers the most. Darn Republicans...

Real0ne -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:52:40 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Sanity Higher commodities prices will help small farmers the most. Darn Republicans... well exactly it will help to bring the little guy up too. of course if those corporations didnt exist the little guy would not benifit any more than they did farming 50 years ago, but it makes a case once again for the facist state.

selfbnd411 -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 6:59:42 PM)
More interesting facts...I was wrong that most farms are corporate. They are not. But...most farm production comes from large scale family or corporate owned farms that are essentially million dollar operations: Farm production by sales: (2005) Low scale farms--Sales of $0-$99,000--6.6% of US Ag production (1/3 below $10k, 1/3 at $50k, 1/3 at $100k) Medium scale farms--Sales of $100,000-$249,000: 12.3% Large scale farms---Sales of over $500,000: 44.7% Nonfamily farms--Not owner operated, sales concentrated in the $10,000-$50,000 range: 13.7% Source: USDA http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/EIB12/EIB12c.pdf

Sanity -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 7:27:13 PM)
Four acres is worth about a million dollars in SW Idaho, so that's not a very big farm. And if you want to talk about earnings, a "large family farm" that brings in a million dollars a year has to pay everyone in the family as well as all their hired help and their suppliers, and there are a ton of them. Who puts more back into the local economy than farmers do? When you look at the big picture, a million isn't that much in farming, especially when considering all the benefits they bring a community.

selfbnd411 -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 7:29:12 PM)
Per the USDA, the average farm size is 400+ acres ;-)

Sanity -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 7:32:24 PM)
Commodities prices have been down so long that family farms have been suffering. They have to have large farms in order to make it economical, as the large size makes it more efficient. It's a matter of survival, and if we want to eat we need successful farmers. Would you like to see that outsourced to China too? One benefit from that scenario is that we could blame it on Bush. Right?

minnetar -> RE: Corn tax costs Americans $50 (5/17/2007 7:37:08 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: selfbnd411 More interesting facts...I was wrong that most farms are corporate. They are not. But...most farm production comes from large scale family or corporate owned farms that are essentially million dollar operations: Farm production by sales: (2005) Low scale farms--Sales of $0-$99,000--6.6% of US Ag production (1/3 below $10k, 1/3 at $50k, 1/3 at $100k) Medium scale farms--Sales of $100,000-$249,000: 12.3% Large scale farms---Sales of over $500,000: 44.7% Nonfamily farms--Not owner operated, sales concentrated in the $10,000-$50,000 range: 13.7% Source: USDA http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/EIB12/EIB12c.pdf lol going to have to tell my father his farm is low scale that he got from grandma minnetar

Page: [1] 2 next > >>

Collarchat.com © 2025

Terms of Service

0.03125