It’s not a general inflation problem; it’s a problem of political corruption. America’s first presidential primary happens to be in Iowa. That gives ethanol first dibs at the pork barrel. Add Republican farm voters to Democratic environmentalists, shake vigorously and you get a brew called ethanol. The farmers get rich on taxpayer subsidies, the venture capitalists who focus on alternative fuels (I’m looking in your direction, Mr. Gore) get fat on profits. Good deal for everybody, except people who happen to eat food.
It’s not the dollar either. Yes, the dollar is a problem; the Treasury Secretary and the Fed have neglected it. But the falling dollar isn’t causing these price spikes. First of all, the world’s hungry don’t trade in dollars. They trade in Ringits, Bahts, Yuan, Rubles and Rands. Foreigners are not starving because the dollar lost value. In fact, the drop in the dollar helps them. And it’s not even the dollar that’s the problem here in America either. We generally export food, especially grains. But Americans are getting hit with the worst price spikes in precisely those agricultural sectors where we supply our own food. We’re the bread basket of the world! I’m sorry, but when I buy high fructose corn syrup from Iowa, it doesn’t involve the foreign exchange markets. The problem isn’t the dollar – the problem is that we’re burning food. We’re taking carbohydrates which would have gone into someone’s stomach, chemically altering them and putting them into our gas tanks instead. One SUV fill-up is roughly the same amount of calories as it takes to sustain a man, woman or a child – for a year. I believe that future generations will look back in history at the hungry of this world, and the preening self-satisfaction of the ethanol lobby and call it what it is, a crime against humanity.