Beer in the Headlights

Yes, Al Gore can be blamed for the high prices of food.

Will Media Remember Gore's 1994 Tie-breaking Vote Mandating Ethanol?

In a move that enraged midwestern senators, Louisiana Democratic Sen. Bennett Johnston tried Wednesday to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from mandating the use of ethanol in reformulated gasoline. The Senate narrowly killed the measure, voting to table it by a margin of 51 to 50. With the vote tied, Vice President Al Gore had to come in and cast the deciding vote.

Bah. It'll be good for all of us, right? Lower fuel costs, cleaner air and money in the pockets of Midwestern farmers - what could go wrong?

One factor being blamed for the price hikes is the use of government subsidies to promote the use of corn for ethanol production. An estimated 30% of America’s corn crop now goes to fuel, not food.

30% isn't chump change. That's a lot of acreage converted from food production to fuel production. And since the price of corn has gone up some farmers have switched crops from wheat to corn. That's caused the price of wheat to rise.

“It takes around 400 pounds of corn to make 25 gallons of ethanol,” Mr. Senauer, also an applied economics professor at Minnesota, said. “It’s not going to be a very good diet but that’s roughly enough to keep an adult person alive for a year.”

Corn is also used for livestock feed. If the price of livestock production increases, so does the price of the final product; shrink-wrapped meat in your grocer's displays.

One thing that has never ceased to astound me is the left's complete misunderstanding and/or disregard for basic micro- and macro-economic principles. When the supply of a commodity becomes scarcer, then the price of that commodity rises. Simple. It's fact, law and undeniable.

A leftist's usual response to such a rise in prices for basic necessities is to suggest or implement price controls. Price controls cause further scarcity by artificially depressing the price of a commodity. Shortages ensue.

Remember the notorious bread lines in the former Soviet Union? Those are a prime example of state-planned and mandated management of an economy.

In order to appease the eco-morons and their statist cohorts the world's poor are now facing very tough times. The prices of corn, wheat and rice have all skyrocketed due to a government mandated scam and vote buying scheme.

Thanks, Al. Now just take your Oscar and your Nobel Prize and leave us all alone.