If you are wondering why the price of food is going up, here is your answer. Using corn for fuel has to be one of the stupidest ideas ever conceived. This great country of ours has an abundant supply of oil that if tapped into would lower the cost of everything and boost our economy to levels never imagined.
These corrupt politicians have to go. They don’t care what happens to our country or its people. Their only concern is lining their pockets with special interest money.
Corn Hits $6 a Bushel on Tight Supplies
Corn prices jumped to a record $6 a bushel Thursday, driven up by an expected supply shortfall that will only add to Americans’ growing grocery bill and further squeeze struggling ethanol producers.
Corn prices have shot up nearly 30 percent this year amid dwindling stockpiles and surging demand for the grain used to feed livestock and make alternative fuels including ethanol. Prices are poised to go even higher after the U.S. government this week predicted that American farmers — the world’s biggest corn producers — will plant sharply less of the crop in 2008 compared to last year.
“It’s a demand-driven market and we may not be planting enough acres to supply demand, so that adds to the bullishness of corn,” said Elaine Kub, a grains analyst with DTN in Omaha, Neb.
Corn for the most actively traded May contract rose 4.25 cents to settle at $6 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, after earlier rising to $6.025 a bushel — a new all-time high.
Worldwide demand for corn to feed livestock and to make biofuel is putting enormous pressure on global supply. And with the U.S. expected to plant less corn, the supply shortage will only worsen. The U.S. Department of Agriculture projected that farmers will plant 86 million acres of corn in 2008, an 8 percent drop from last year.
Related:
200 Billion Barrels Of Oil That Could Make The U.S. Energy Independent
Democrats Put Big Oil on Display Once Again
With gas prices in the headlines and the Presidential election around the corner, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and various other Democrats have decided once again that “Big Oil” is America’s single greatest enemy. Well if they were really serious about lowering the cost of gas they would start by cutting the amount of tax added to price of one gallon.
Taxes add a significant amount to the price of gas and vary widely by state. For the first quarter of 2008, the average state gasoline tax is 28.6 cents per gallon, plus 18.4 cents per gallon federal tax making the total 47 cents per gallon. For diesel, the average state tax is 29.2 cents per gallon plus an additional 24.4 cents per gallon federal tax making the total 53.6 cents per gallon.
It scares the pants off me that so many people have such a fragile grasp of even the most basics of economics that they buy into the hogwash politicians peddle to gain votes.
Capitol Hill Democrats yesterday chastised executives of five big oil companies for not doing enough to curb skyrocketing gasoline prices and investing too little in renewable energy, as pump prices hit a record high.
“Today, on April Fool’s Day, consumers all over America are hoping that the top executives from the five largest oil companies will tell us that these soaring gas prices are just part of an elaborate hoax,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
“Unfortunately, it’s not a joke.”
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, Missouri Democrat, said Americans’ “anger level is rising” for having to pay more than $3 per gallon for gasoline.
“Your approval ratings are lower than ours [in Congress] — you are down low,” Mr. Cleaver told the oil executives.
Profits of the five largest oil companies — Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and Conoco Phillips — topped a record $123 billion last year, up from $30 billion in 2002.
The oilmen told the committee that their companies’ profits are in line with other industries, and warned that higher taxes or excessive government regulation would do nothing to lower gas prices.
“Imposing punitive taxes on American energy companies, which already pay record taxes, will discourage the sustained investments needed to continue safeguarding U.S. energy security,” said J. Stephen Simon, senior vice president for Exxon Mobil.
Motorists voiced disgust with prices at the pump, which hit a record of $3.29 a gallon and could eclipse $4 a gallon when the peak summer driving season starts.
“The gas dealers are making their money,” Maryland motorist Walter Haselrig grumbled as he pumped gas at a Citgo station on New York Avenue in Northeast. “They’re making profits. High profits. Never before in the history of America has the industry made that kind of money.”
Michael Smith, an Anne Arundel County resident who drives 50 miles a day to and from his job in the District, blamed high gas prices on the war in Iraq.
“They’re going to keep going up because we’re over there fighting a war that’s not ours,” he said. “We had an agreement with them and we broke that agreement, so now we’re paying.”
Rising pump prices have put added pressure on a U.S. economy already beleaguered by an imploding housing market and recession fears, while oil-company profits surge.
The committee heard testimony from officials at Exxon Mobil, BP America, ConocoPhillips, Shell and Chevron oil companies in what is expected to be the first of several congressional hearings this year.
Many committee members urged the companies to invest more in biofuels, wind and solar power and other renewable energy sources in order to wean the country off its dependency on fossil fuels, specifically foreign oil.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Oregon Democrat, encouraged oil companies to replace oil with renewable alternatives as the industries’ main fuel source within the next 10 to 15 years. And Mr. Markey suggested that oil companies should invest 10 percent of their profits in alternative fuels.
But the oil companies said that despite millions of dollars invested for the development of renewable energy, oil will remain the world’s dominant energy source for decades.
“We are in a fossil-fuel environment for some time,” Chevron Vice Chairman Peter J. Robertson said.
Mr. Simon said that even by 2030, oil and gas still will handle about 54 percent of the world’s energy demand.
Several committee members criticized Mr. Simon and Exxon Mobil for investing billions in researching new oil sources but little on “clean” energy fuels that would help reduce greenhouse emissions.
“If you don’t put research dollars into [clean energy sources], is it going to come from the oil fairy?” said Rep. Jay Inslee, Washington Democrat. “We’ve got to put some real money into this.”
But Mr. Simon said oil “is in our equation” and that his company is “focusing on how to make that oil much more efficient.”
Republicans on the committee also acknowledge the public frustration over the rising oil prices, but many tempered their criticism of the oil companies.
“My hope today is that the committee will have a reasoned discussion with you today and that we will benefit from your experience and your expertise,” Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee Republican, told executives. “I also hope that we’re not going to sit here and try to place blame for what may be causing this.”
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, the committee’s ranking Republican, reminded the panel that oil companies “create a lot of good jobs, and their expanded investment in market-driven research and technology only serves to create more jobs.”
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, mocked the hearing by distributing a fake news release yesterday that featured fabricated testimony from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez thanking House Democrats for passing a recent measure that reportedly would benefit Venezuela’s state-owned oil giant, Citgo.
Related:
200 Billion Barrels Of Oil That Could Make The U.S. Energy Independent
If this is true, try and force me to put corn in my gas tank. Next Energy News is reporting of a massive oil field in the Bakken Formation Reserve of North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. Estimates range from 100 billion to 500 billion barrels of oil. That could produce enough oil to make us energy independent for decades.
Massive Oil Deposit Could Increase US reserves by 10x
America is sitting on top of a super massive 200 billion barrel Oil Field that could potentially make America Energy Independent and until now has largely gone unnoticed. Thanks to new technology the Bakken Formation in North Dakota could boost America’s Oil reserves by an incredible 10 times, giving western economies the trump card against OPEC’s short squeeze on oil supply and making Iranian and Venezuelan threats of disrupted supply irrelevant.
In the next 30 days the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) will release a new report giving an accurate resource assessment of the Bakken Oil Formation that covers North Dakota and portions of South Dakota and Montana. With new horizontal drilling technology it is believed that from 175 to 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil are held in this 200,000 square mile reserve that was initially discovered in 1951. The USGS did an initial study back in 1999 that estimated 400 billion recoverable barrels were present but with prices bottoming out at $10 a barrel back then the report was dismissed because of the higher cost of horizontal drilling techniques that would be needed, estimated at $20-$40 a barrel.
It was not until 2007, when EOG Resources of Texas started a frenzy when they drilled a single well in Parshal N.D. that is expected to yield 700,000 barrels of oil that real excitement and money started to flow in North Dakota. Marathon Oil is investing $1.5 billion and drilling 300 new wells in what is expected to be one of the greatest booms in Oil discovery since Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938.
The US imported about 14 million barrels of Oil per day in 2007 , which means US consumers sent about $340 Billion Dollars over seas building palaces in Dubai and propping up unfriendly regimes around the World, if 200 billion barrels of oil at $90 a barrel are recovered in the high plains the added wealth to the US economy would be $18 Trillion Dollars which would go a long way in stabilizing the US trade deficit and could cut the cost of oil in half in the long run.
It is sabotage. Make no mistake about it and Thomas Sowell sums it up.
You will also be paying more at the pump thanks to these corrupt phony anti American traitors.
Thanks, Democrats! Oil price rises with US-Turk tensions.
With all the problems facing this country, both in Iraq and at home, why is Congress spending time trying to pass a resolution condemning the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago?
Make no mistake about it, that massacre of hundreds of thousands — perhaps a million or more — Armenians was one of the worst atrocities in all of history.
As with the later Holocaust against the Jews, it was not considered sufficient to kill innocent victims. They were first put through soul-scarring dehumanization in whatever sadistic ways occurred to those who carried out these atrocities.
Historians need to make us aware of such things. But why are politicians suddenly trying to pass congressional resolutions about these events, long after all those involved are dead and after the Ottoman Empire in which all these things happened no longer exists?
The short answer is irresponsible politics.
People of Armenian ancestry in the United States and around the world are justifiably outraged at what happened in the Ottoman Empire — and at subsequent governments in Turkey which have refused to acknowledge or accept historical responsibility for the mass atrocities that took place on their soil.
But the sudden interest of congressional Democrats in this issue goes beyond trying to pick up some votes.
They want a resolution to condemn what happened as “genocide” — a word that provokes instant anger among today’s Turks, since genocide means a deliberate government policy aimed at exterminating a whole people, as distinguished from horrors growing out of a widespread breakdown of law and order in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.
These are issues of historical facts and semantics best left to scholars rather than politicians.
If Congress has gone nearly a century without passing a resolution accusing the Turks of genocide, why now, in the midst of the Iraq war?
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this resolution is just the latest in a series of congressional efforts to sabotage the conduct of that war.
Large numbers of American troops and vast amounts of military equipment go to Iraq through Turkey, one of the few nations in the Islamic Middle East that has long been an American ally.
Turkey has also thus far refrained from retaliating against guerrilla attacks from the Kurdish regions of Iraq onto Turkish soil. But the Turks could retaliate big time if they chose.
There are more Turkish troops on the border of Iraq than there are American troops within Iraq.
Turkey has already recalled its ambassador from Washington to show its displeasure over Congress’ raising this issue. The Turks may or may not stop at that.
In this touchy situation, why stir up a hornet’s nest over something in the past that neither we nor anybody else can do anything about today?
Japan has yet to acknowledge its atrocities from the Second World War. Yet the Congress of the United States does not try to make worldwide pariahs of today’s Japanese, most of whom were not even born when those atrocities occurred.
Even fewer, if any, Turks who took part in attacks on Armenians during the First World War are likely to still be alive.
Too many Democrats in Congress have gotten into the habit of treating the Iraq war as President Bush’s war — and therefore fair game for political tactics making it harder for him to conduct that war.
In a rare but revealing slip, Democratic Congressman James Clyburn said that an American victory in Iraq “would be a real big problem for us” in the 2008 elections.
Unwilling to take responsibility for ending the war by cutting off the money to fight it, as many of their supporters want them to, congressional Democrats have instead tried to sabotage the prospects of victory by seeking to micro-manage the deployment of troops, delaying the passing of appropriations — and now this genocide resolution that is the latest, and perhaps lowest, of these tactics.
