Monday, July 16, 2007

More Ethanol Stupidity




I am not supposed to call the ethanol lobby "Raca", but I will say their actions are not brilliant. The latest casualty in the corn-fuel madness? Ice Cream. Yep, our favorite dessert is likely going to cost more... why? The cost of corn is skyrocketing as more and more is being used for ethanol instead of feeding cattle. If you remember 2nd grade chemistry, you know that ice cream is made from, well, cream. Cream, comes from cows. Cows eat (wait for it)... corn. We could debate the wisdom of using corn for cattle feed, since a "free range" cow would eat grass, as God intended. However, in the commercial dairy industry, the cows basically stand still all day, feeding on corn, and vacuum hoses are connected to the nether regions to extract milk. A little biological factory. So, if the cost of feed corn rises, the cost of milk rises. The ice cream makers are stuck.

Here's a quick quote from an article, the rest of which can be found here:
This month, the price of milk in the United States surged to a near-record in part because of the increasing costs of feeding a dairy herd. The corn feed used to feed cattle has almost doubled in price in a year as demand has grown for the grain to produce ethanol.

If Bill Clinton were still president, I'm sure he'd do something about all this now that ice cream is feeling the pressure.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I think your end date is a little forgiving. Perhaps 1995 is a little more appropriate. Of course, I was working 120 hours a week about then, so maybe I'm predisposed to think there was no common sense to be found, at least not in management. (at the company where I was toiling, the president and CEO were childhood best friends through starting the company together; then became bitter enemies.) Sorry, rambling.