Alright so here's the thing. There is plenty of stuff out there claiming ethanol is the devil because it's raising crop prices. However many of the ethanol haters are the type who are generally of the opinon that if you're starving or don't have health insurance you just need to work harder.

So lets just drop that aspect.

There is also stuff about how it is too expensive. However the ones I've seen compares it with the price of imported oil.

However the economic impact of paying money to a US company is different than that of giving the money to Saudi Arabia. Job creation, more taxes etc etc. In addition a raise in crop prices could mean more cash is flowing into America because we are still a grain exporter.

In fact in the past the government has actually paid farmers to let their fields lie fallow in order to manipulate the market price up.

Of course ethanol could still be a bad deal, it's just I haven't seen any study that compares the costs with the gains from the oil money coming back to us and from the inflated grain prices.

Particularly if, without ethanol, we would be back in a market where the government would be paying people not to farm.

Though I suppose this would be complicated if the study was really recent due to the rice failures abroad. However most likely they'll be back at regular production in the future, if not enhanced production due to market forces.

Ethanol is not as efficient as gas - on average 10% less mileage per gallon

Corn is used in many different food stuff - so the overall cost of a huge portion of what we consume will go up.

Corn will never be plentiful enough to take care of all our needs.

We need to drill here and drill now and pay lower prices.

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Liberals believe it is okay to kill babies
but not terrorists.

If you really want to help the economy then you would support building refineries, dropping taxes, drilling here for oil, and using nuclear power.

If corn ethanol is such a good "solution", then fine. Use it. However, if it's worth anything, the government shouldn't need to take my money to make it cheap enough to compete on the market.

You're still missing the point that.

Alright here, lets say that ethanol, after figuring in the reduced milage, cost X dollars more per barrel. In a free market, in theory, that should mean the ethanol shouldn't be purchased and foreign oil should be used.

However the government isn't collecting income and Corperate tax from the Saudis. So if the extra tax money that comes into the government is greater than X than they aren't "taking your money" they're using it in a more efficiant manner.

But then there is the extra cash coming in due to the higher grain prices as well. The extra cash they save not paying farmiers not to farm(I'm serious, they did that for a long time). And so on.

There are economists that, in theory, could take a crack at calculating this stuff, but I haven't seen it.

In theory as well as practice. It will happen.

OK, so you're saying that x + (cost of oil) = cost of ethanol

Then you're saying that if (government tax revenue off of ? ) > x

then the government is using your money more efficiently. That makes no sense to me, but maybe I'm not understanding something. Are you saying that the government should pay for x with tax revenue in order to make ethanol economical?

FDR's AAA disaster comes to mind.

Explain what you want calculated exactly.

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Alright lets ty a simple example.

Lets say that 1 barrel of gas energy equivalent costs 5 dollars more without subsidies than foreign oil.

The government gains 0 extra dollars in taxes if the foreign oil is bought. It goes to building another mansion in Saudi Arabia.

However lets say that the extra taxes generated through corporate taxes, income taxes etc on that barrel equivalent of ethanol would be 20 dollars.

If that was the case it would make sense for the government to subsidize the ethanol for say 6 dollars in order to make a 14 dollar a barrel "profit".

It's more complicated than that. But hopefully you get the idea now. The calculations would be taking the extra complexities into account. Like how much extra we might make due to higher grain prices. Impact on other industries and the expected return if the workers were doing something else. So on and so forth.

Even without any tax whatsoever, ethanol is more expensive than gasoline, and that is on top of all of the subsidies already given to the industry. The government cannot make any money in taxes off of ethanol, it is losing money on every barrel produced. And a lot of money to boot. Corn subsidies totaled 56.2 billion dollars from 1995-2006. The government can not possibly make any money on ethanol, and that is why I was extremely skeptical. That 20$ just doesn't exist with which to give back to the consumer. Ethanol is just more expensive than you realize.

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True that! Try to buy anything without High Fructose Corn Syrup. Go ahead. Take a look at the ingredients on the foods you buy. You'll be amazed at what that stuff is in.

As a side note, is there any wonder that Americans have a weight problem with that in all of our foods?

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Catz: "And, the ever-sage Volvo Driver:"

I have a weight problem because I eat alot. I love food. I despise execise and would rather sit on my porch and drink Tequila.

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Liberals believe it is okay to kill babies
but not terrorists.

Ethanol is a pipe dream. There is no way we can gain "energy independence" (for those who wish for that) or substantially affect prices of gas with it. Of course the increases to corn costs are exaggerated (corn costs are driven up more by general crop conditions and by the cost of fuel itself than by the use of ethanol), but since the benefits are low...
I guess it's okay to use a little ethanol in our experimentation to get away from oil, but we should not trumpet it as though it is any real solution.

And as for corn costs... the big issue isn't so much corn and corn products as there are many alternatives people will use. It's animal feed. Meat costs will go up a lot.

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside