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Non-Tech : Farming -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (1365)	6/19/2008 1:34:00 AM
From: patron_anejo_por_favor	Respond to of 4448

This was an excellent report on ethanol, published in early 2007. Very prescient on this part: wilsoncenter.org The United States produced 8 billion gallons of ethanol last year, and is set to expand its output to 11 billion in 2007. Ethanol currently constitutes approximately 3.6 percent of U.S. gasoline consumption on a volumetric basis, and 2.5 percent on an energy equivalent basis. Since January 2007, however, agricultural consequences have reduced the profitability of ethanol: the price of corn is rising. Ethanol producers are still breaking even, but the relative decline in profits has led to the postponement of new plant production and slowdown of the industry’s growth. Tyner detailed six policy alternatives for U.S. energy policy. The first is retaining the current 51 cents a gallon U.S. federal subsidy. Total ethanol subsidies are projected to reach U.S. 4 billion for 2007. The likely consequence is continued growth until rising corn prices choke off ethanol profitability—raising international food prices and upsetting both consumers and livestock producers. While the logical assumption is that higher agricultural prices would help the world’s poor (around 70 percent of which rely upon agriculture), the actual impact on poverty would be far more complicated and quite difficult to estimate. Concern for higher corn prices leads to the second policy alternative, which is reducing the amount of the federal ethanol subsidy. Lowering the subsidy down to 30 cents a gallon would help lower the price of corn.

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (1365)	6/19/2008 7:50:00 AM
From: Tommaso	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4448

Whenever simple arithmetic has been on my side, my investment results have been outstanding. Your arithmetic on CZZ and ethanol is certainly convincing.

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (1365)	6/19/2008 4:32:48 PM
From: Snowshoe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4448

I guess I just don't understand all the noise about the ethanol tariff. You said: "a tariff rollback is enacted it would be HUGE for CZZ!" Why? The world is full of other energy-hungry countries that don't have such a tariff. Why aren't the Brazilians shipping ethanol to them, instead of whining about the US tariff? And to reiterate my point, if you scrap the US tariff then there's no point in keeping the subsidies or mandates either. If you want to rationalize the market to remove all government intervention, why would anyone ship Brazilian ethanol all the way to the USA? Seems to me it would make more sense to use that green bio-fuel locally in Brazil. But right now Brazil still consumes lots of diesel made from yucky black crude oil. So why don't they either switch over vast amounts of that sugar cane land to grow soybeans for bio-diesel, or swap out their diesel engines for big honking flex-fuel engines that burn their local ethanol? Seems like there's less here than meets the eye. What am I missing? snowshoe@devilsadvocate.com