Gasoline prices are up because the price of ethanol is up…?

[Pseudomind]

This just sounds strange to me.

What is the primary source for ethanol manufacturing/ I have heard corn, but I have also heard that corn is about the worst source to use.

If it is corn, then it would seem the price of food with also go up even more, perhaps this is why General Mills is raising cereal prices?

Oddly the GDP is not going up, but every bill I have has gone up to include utilities, taxes, and property taxes, vehicle registration costs etc..

Of course my pay has not gone up.

:smt013

 

[JediJD]

There is a lot of support for the argument that E15 is a handout to big Ag. Under the guise of "ecobusiness" and "reducing the influence of middle eastern oil" we are trading the relatively efficient process that keeps gasoline at or near the price of bottled water and replacing it with a much less efficient derivative of an important food supply (close to $6/gal all in). Making it worse, the eco argument is a fraud. Most studies seem to show that it takes more energy and water to create Ethanol at industrial levels than it saves (although small biofuel manufacturing makes a little bit of economic sense). The problems are two fold...first, getting the raw materials into a processing facility efficiently and second, Ethanol is a function of distillation that requires steam (rather than bore you with details...just follow the dots of the amount of water and energy that might be required to do this). Without the same set of government interventions that Republicans have railed against in the health care sector, this stupid plan wouldn't even be in play...but with broad support from both parties (and lots of campaign donations) the fraud is perpetuated. The landscape is littered with failed government funded eco projects (including a $18m boondoggle within twenty miles of my home. Private sector small function results have shown some success.

I think the solution is to re-elect incumbents...not.

 

[Weave]

I'm in the food industry, more specifically the pork segment. The prices of our raw materials are dramatically impacted by the corn segment as it is a large portion of the feed chain. I receive many reports from the USDA as well as the commodity wire which has some insightful information regarding where the market is headed and driving factors. Around 2-3 weeks ago right when the Dow went over 11K for the first time in a while, the USDA announced that they are going to revise the annual corn crop yield and call the number down. So what went from a near excess position quickly turned into a shortage situation. Ethanol is wreaking havoc on food prices across the board...Has anyone seen the price of bacon lately? As little as two weeks ago bellies (raw material for bacon) were trading over $1.50/lb which is double the average trading price....They have since come off a little but you can be sure that bacon is pretty pricey these days! I'm sure there are other factors impacting the prices too