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Adinnieken on 02 November 2012
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Chris Hu said:
Adinnieken said:
NolSinkler said:
Kasz216 said:
Farm subsidies.

Not only would it save us all kinds of money.

Food would become cheaper.


That's the stupidest thing I've read today.  Yes, it would save money.  No, food would become more expensive.  Have you studied economics at all??

Technically it just diverts the costs.  It diverts the cost from being an individual cost to be a common cost. 

Gas prices, for instance, increased because the farm subsidy for corn ethanol had been eliminated.  This was done in part because the fear/belief that it was diverting farming from food corn production to fuel corn production and it resulted directly in food price increases,and in part because Republicans wanted the increased use of ethanol, mandated by the Obama administration, to be as painful as possible and force the fed to alter the mandate as well as increase drilling permits for oil.

With the subsidy in place, fuel was cheaper, making life easier for everyone in terms of buying gasoline, but everyone paid a fraction bit more in taxes.  Eliminating the subsidy resulted in increased fuel prices, impacting the less fortunate of society more than the more affluent.  It did nothing for fuel prices, and because of the drought, prices will definitely increase next year. 

The problem with subsidies is that the age of the mom and pop farm is dying.  Corporate farms are the norm now and subsidizing corporate farms isn't really desirable.  The subsidies were intended to help mom and pop farms through tough times, as well as increase food production in the US.  

I think we should get rid of ethanol.  At least the 10% mandate in regular gasoline.  Ethanol does pretty much nothing to reduce polution it does make gasoline less fuel efficient and its harmful to engines.  Also more oil is consumed in making it on fuel and fertilizers then actual Ethanol is gained.

Grain ethanol is not efficient, but there are other types of ethanol that are.  Beet or Sugarcane-based ethanol actually produce more ethanol at a significantly lower cost.  According to the US government, 50% less cost.

So you don't think possibly trying to improve the efficiency of an internal combustion engine would be a good idea, but getting rid of ethanol is?  The trade off of using less oil is a 4% loss in MPG.  The issue with engines is the interaction with ethanol and the plastics used in engines, typically found in the intake manifold and fuel system.  Modern engines are designed to handle a certain amount of exposure to ethanol, though not all engines are compatible with E85 or E90 (Brazil).  Parts and computer calibration can all be modified or adjusted to compensate for the ethanol.  However, 10% ethanol won't damage an engine.

There isn't an endless supply of oil.  We either need to figure out a solution to our oil consumption or we will face the reality that one day we won't have any to fuel our cars with.  Burying our heads in the sand and saying we don't have a problem isn't going to stop us from heading toward a cliff we can't avoid running off of.  We can either begin dealing with the increased costs of alternatives now, rather than wait for another 10-20 years before the cost of everything that uses petroleum becomes either non-existent or so expensive that it becomes unaffordable.