The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 423
I guess no one shared this information with you. And I guess no one told you
that even if corn ethanol caused an increase in the price of corn that the increase would have virtually no effect. For example, in 2010 a $4 box of corn
flakes had about a nickel's worth of corn. So, if corn prices doubled, the corn
content would only be 10 cents. The reason for a box of corn flakes to cost so
much was because all of the distribution and marketing costs related to selling
breakfast cereals.
Moreover, since 2010 corn prices have generally been low, therefore for you to
write a current story about high corn prices causing food price increases is just
plain silly. This is 2016; if there have been food price increases since 2010, it
wasn't because of corn prices. There was a rise in corn prices from 2011 to
2013, but this increase coincided with crude oil prices rising to near-record
highs (3 times more than today), and 3 times higher than they were in 2009
(after oil prices fell from the record setting 2008 oil prices).
By the way, it was during the 2008 record setting oil prices that The World Bank
issued the fallacious report that they later retracted.
David, you need to do a lot of homework on this...a lot of homework.
Then you say that America no longer depends on oil from foreign producers,
however in all of 2015 and since January 1st of this year, we have imported
more crude per month from Canada than at any time since 2010. In case you
don't know, Canada is a foreign country.
• SEE: Weekly U.S. Imports from Canada of Crude Oil
Crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia for 2015, and to-date in 2016, were approximately the same as the two years prior (2013-14). In addition, we continue
to import oil from Iraq, Kuwait, Nigeria, Venezuela, Mexico, Columbia, Ecuador,
and Angola. When you say that America "no longer depends on oil from foreign
producers," you're wrong. Yes, imports levels are the lowest they've been in a
long time, but your statement is still grossly incorrect.
You write "There's no evidence that the use of ethanol actually lowers oil imports." This is one of those times when having some real business experience
would have been helpful to you. You see, it's this simple: Say you had a grocery
store and you normally sell 100 gallons of milk per day from distant Dairy A, but
now because you are also selling milk from a local Dairy B you are only selling
60 gallons of Dairy A milk per day. Although you are still selling 100 gallons of
milk every day, this means that by selling local Dairy B milk has you don't have
to import as much milk from the distant Dairy A.
