Ethanol - It's what's for Dinner

Brother Dan has healthier sensitivities than I typically do... mostly. I would typically not get mega-political on this blog, as I try to keep it reserved for more purely spiritually-oriented stuff. Nonetheless, after careful consideration, I just can't keep my mouth shut on this topic.

For years, I have heard a few of the better conservative pundits speaking occasionally about Ethanol and its disastrous impact on our economy here in the US. But mostly folks are just beaten down when they oppose anything designed or intended to "help mother earth." And much has been written for the past couple years regarding the Law of Unintended Consequences as it applies to this and other topics. And the problems with Ethanol of the Corn variety are well-known, so I will just bullet-point them:

• Corn-Based US Ethanol is subsidized, and therefore promotes inefficiencies and waste
• Corn-Based Ethanol is a protected product, which promotes artificial constraints, inefficiency, and market manipulation
• Corn-Based US Ethanol is less efficient than your standard Gasoline, requiring a vehicle to use more of it to attain similar mileage as one would get from run-of-the-mill gasoline. So, while the per-gallon emissions might be slightly lower, the aggregate emissions per mile traveled are higher.
• Corn-Based Ethanol is production-intensive and its distribution channels are immature. Thus, more costly to introduce into the marketplace.
• Corn-Based Ethanol is inferior to Sugar-Based Ethanol, more expensive, and dirtier.
  
• Corn-Based Ethanol as a federal content mandate, therefore the demand is artificial. Consumers would never choose Ethanol independent of these mandates.
• Corn-Based Ethanol is big money and there are many less-than-altruistic players who are making and stand to make tons of money. This has corrupted the core responsibility of our representatives... doing the will of the people, rather than special interest. Additionally, Big-Corn will strive to reduce and/or eliminate alternative and potentially more promising alternatives.
• The promise of Corn-Based Ethanol windfall profits is encouraging a shift away from producing other staple foods.
  
• Corn-Based Ethanol is driving up the cost of all foods, including one could imagine, Twinkies.
  

And it is this final couple points I would like to harp on.

Now, I am a capitalist at heart. I love stories of people who do well for themselves, make a ton of cash, consume expensive things, start/expand their empires and hire more folks. I love it for these most obvious benefits. Yet, however dead-set on the merits of free enterprise (and no I do not mean I support a wide-open completely-unregulated laissez faire) and its litany of fruits for the rest of us, I must say the Ethanol Scam... which is what it is... has NOTHING to do with free marketplace principles. Rather, it is a perfect example of the darkest corners of government policy co-opting by self-interested operators. It is what we get when we embrace laissez faire's twin sister: Marxism. This is the system where the very few know best what policies the dregs would enact if they were wiser and actually knew what was good for them.

And for all of the unintended consequences of the feel-gooders... the "those who are part of the solution"... the "those who do something... anything with well-intentioned hearts a-bleating," and all the hyping of the beneficiaries of this most ill-conceived of scams... I just know deep in my heart that none of them, in particular Al "the Goracle" Gore, GreenPeace, MoveOn, the Sierra Clubbers, the Michael Mores of the world, the Alec "the idiot" Baldwins and their ilk. None of them will be called to task. And, to be fair, let's not forget Newt G, George W Bush, and the rest of the Republican scumbags who have caved into the pressure-profiteers and the "do-gooders"... not one of them will ever confess or be called to account for contributing to this:


Though I am not sure the motives driving ethanol mandates are anything but pure self-interest for the Big-Corn industry and their surrogates in the government (ie. Lugar and Harkin, to name a few), it is often said it is "better to do something than nothing." And, likewise, "if you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem." What this boils down to is a juvenile motive that instructs it is better to take action, any action, than to leave "it" be. And this is pure rubbish. Let this be a lesson to those among us who felt pride in promoting this most insidious scam. It is our vote... it is our fingerprint. Next time we should stop and think ahead. Next time we should be content to sit on our hands until an actual and viable alternative comes along.

There is blood on the hands of those whose best-intentions born of Luxury Politics cost other human beings their very lives. And for those who are profiting from this scam... there is likely a special and very warm place in hell. So enjoy your wealth and don't worry about the little people... they'll manage to adapt or die... but they live far away where you needn't pass them on the road. Let them eat Ethanol.