E15 to E85 coming to a pump near you!

Farmers don't have to give anything away, just as they didn't have to give it away in the thousands of years of agricultural history prior to the advent of ethanol. Turning food into fuel certainly isn't feeding anyone, is it?

It's corn, industrial corn to be precise and we are in a modern, capitalist economy, not an ancient barter system.. The problem here is as its always been, money. These starving people are starving because they are poor and most morons out there think the US already gives too much foreign aid.

That might make it easier for you to sleep at night but I doubt it would cut much ice with the kid in the photo, if he isn't already dead. This whole thing is just as vile as anything big oil has ever done. You are right about it coming down to money though. Why settle for the profit in growing food when there is a killing to be made in diverting land and crops for motor fuel?

Grow up kid.

The problem is not that there's a shortage of food in the world, it's that there is a shortage of will on the part of governments to get food to those in need. Think how many people the money it takes to build one F22 fighter could feed.

Gracis amigo.

wait, so now it's the government's job to feed its people?

Gov't tit, anyone?

Then sell all your shit and start feeding people.

I haven't been a kid for a long time, and I wish my means were such that selling everything I have would make any difference whatsoever in this situation. As it is, I feed as many people as I am able.

I never disputed people would do whatever makes them the most money, just that this particular vile option wouldn't exist if we had never started turning food into gas. There doesn't seem to be much support for it beyond those who stand to profit, and those who benefit from their lobbying efforts.

How much more corn would be available for donation to NGO's if over a quarter of the total harvest wasn't being diverted to make fuel? How much more would they be able to buy if prices weren't inflated by this diversion? How many dead kids is ethanol worth? Just ballpark it to the nearest thousand.

You tell me. If prices fell below production costs because the RFM ended, how much extra corn would there be? An old truism is that the cure for high prices is high prices. Whith remotely cooperative weather corn prices will soon be low enough to be worrisome for producers. Given current production costs $4 corn is break even for many areas and many economists have been predicting that price by harvest this fall.

Actually, probably less than you would expect, depending on what the prices did and how much the charities were willing to pay for the corn. If the price drops too far, growers will switch to more profitable crops, which nobody with a hint of capitalism in his blood will fault them for.

Besides, what those people need isn't food. They need assistance/understanding to figure out how to make their own. If you just give them a bunch of food without helping them become self sufficient, you run the risk of a population boom over there. Then when the gravy train eventually stops, many more people will be available to starve.

d

This is dumb, poorly thought out.

They need infrastructure and peace. It's not even about education. They didn't magically lose their ability to survive.

In a place with severely limited resources, you're more likely to experience numerous wars over the limited resources available. You can't reliably fix that with either food donations, infrastructure or education. That will pretty much always happen in such places. One could argue that the wars there are beneficial to help limit the population growth, much like the lack of food itself does. That can't really be fixed by throwing food or money at the problem. The people need to figure out how to sustainably survive on the available limited resources on their own.

What the fuck did you think I meant? Highways and internet?

Peace isn't just going to suddenly break out just because the people have food. They're going to want their neighbors resources so their group can expand. This has pretty much been happening since the beginning of time. There are infact still wars over resources occurring today.

Are you stupid? Go find where I suggested they need food donations. Go on. Go find it.

You said they need infrastructure and peace. These two things are as close to mutually exclusive as can be in an area of scarce resources. One village builds some infrastructure, the next one over will go to war with them to take it. That was pretty much the point of what I'm saying. It doesn't matter if you give them food or infrastructure or if they make it themselves, their neighbors will still try to take it.

That's the dumbest fucking thing anybody has ever said on the internet. The implications of your statement are that we are all better off simply not existing, or, at best, not striving to improve anything, ever. The level of stupidity this rises to is so astounding, there is literally no word for it in any human language, in use or dead. The closest thing I could possibly think of, in terms of sheer stupidity, all involve artificially intelligent chainsaws with a homicidal streak.


Thank you, sir, for the laughs.

Please, by all means, educate me on how you plan to make folks in another country coexist with eachother when you distribute stuff? Do you send the military to try to keep the peace while trying to force the residents to behave in a cohesive, civilized society?

I'll be waiting to hear how you plan to do that. How's that been working for the US in afghanistan? Iraq? We can't force people to behave the way we want to or force democracy on them if they don't want it.

That is funny, really, being unable to recognize the differences between a (reasonably) cohesive society (us) and these places full of individual villages or tribes that have no interest in it.