If he belives that jacking up food prices just before the election will benefit him that's just a misjudgment, but if he knows that skyrocketing food, on top of skyrocketing energy will doom his reelection he has to be doing it deliberately.
Examiner Editorial: To protect ethanol, Obama seeks to inflate meat prices | WashingtonExaminer.com
Obama's move only harms American consumers while protecting a corrupt federal program.
A drought is currently driving down corn production. The shortage of feed is forcing livestock producers to slaughter animals early, putting downward pressure on meat prices in the short run and guaranteeing shortages and higher prices next year. But nature is not the biggest factor in this crisis -- the government is. Specifically, the federal government's ethanol mandate, which requires that 13.2 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol be produced in 2012.
Thanks to the ethanol mandate, more than 40 percent of the nation's corn crop now goes into the production of a useless fuel that hardly anyone would buy if the government didn't require it. That's up from just 17 percent in 2005, before the mandate went into effect. Only 36 percent of the corn crop now goes for feed, and 24 percent goes for food.
To recap, government is driving up the cost of food, animal feed and gasoline, and Obama's solution is to drive up meat prices as well.
Instead of letting producers sell their meat on the open market at lower cost, the government will buy up that food causing prices to rise out of the means of most average people.
Examiner Editorial: To protect ethanol, Obama seeks to inflate meat prices | WashingtonExaminer.com
Obama's move only harms American consumers while protecting a corrupt federal program.
A drought is currently driving down corn production. The shortage of feed is forcing livestock producers to slaughter animals early, putting downward pressure on meat prices in the short run and guaranteeing shortages and higher prices next year. But nature is not the biggest factor in this crisis -- the government is. Specifically, the federal government's ethanol mandate, which requires that 13.2 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol be produced in 2012.
Thanks to the ethanol mandate, more than 40 percent of the nation's corn crop now goes into the production of a useless fuel that hardly anyone would buy if the government didn't require it. That's up from just 17 percent in 2005, before the mandate went into effect. Only 36 percent of the corn crop now goes for feed, and 24 percent goes for food.
To recap, government is driving up the cost of food, animal feed and gasoline, and Obama's solution is to drive up meat prices as well.
Instead of letting producers sell their meat on the open market at lower cost, the government will buy up that food causing prices to rise out of the means of most average people.