BS: The Corn Thing

Subject: BS:The Corn Thing
From: wysiwyg
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 09:23 AM

I know that several Mudcatters are allergic to corn products (I'm not) and that they know a lot more about the increase in corn additives to the US food supply. I've seen popular-press references to the econonmic policies that have spurred this "corn boom" and depressed other sweeteners' use in products that used to depend on other sugars-- but no depth, just veiled references. But I can't seem to get it all straight in my head, or put together the timeline and role-players.... all I know is that our landlord, a hard-scrabble dairy farmer, has quit milking due to bad milk prices but seems to be growing a lot of field corn instead-- so I assume that subsidies are part of the picture.

Is this a trade deficit iusse-- was the US dependent on foreign sugars?

Who's winning, who's losing, and who built this system? I want farmers to get a fair shake, and to keep farming-- I'm not opposed to subsidies per se. But even I have noticed that corn is in everything nowadays, where it didn't used-to-was.

Fill me in. What's with this corn thing?

Thanks,

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 09:57 AM

Well, the corn lobby is bigger and richer than the milk lobby.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: wysiwyg
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 10:00 AM

Thanks.... Who is "the corn lobby"? What tells you they're richer?

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 10:02 AM

Time was I ate a bowl of cornflakes to put myself to sleep at night...

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 10:14 AM

Susan-
The bulk of the corn grown in the US comes from large agribusiness companies, not small farmers. Their lobbying is what prompted the government to subsidize ethanol from corn--one of the sillier ways to produce biofuels. Subsidies have placed high-fructose corn syrup in a more-than-competitive position with cane sugar, which is why the soft drink industry has almost completely switched to corn syrup for sweeteners.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: wysiwyg
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 11:26 AM

Are the corn syrup and ethanol in any way complementary production outcomes-- in other words, is that one kernel of corn separated into the two products, or does each product require its own kernel?

And yes I know my landlord is a small-potatoes farmer, but I suspect the subsidies trickle down to that level in some small way because he's been able to retain his newish large tractors-- I know the lactating dairy cows he breeds and sells aren't making enough to make those tractor-mortgage payments.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: artbrooks
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 12:07 PM

The ethanol production process is described in detail here. There seems to be two ways to go about it, "dry milling" and "wet milling". In the former, the corn is made into sugar which is then made into ethanol. In the latter, the corn is made into starch which is then converted into either sugar or ethanol. According to this (and the site is from the ethanol industry, so it may not be an entirely unbiased source), it appears to be an "either/or" process rather than a "both/and" one.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: bobad
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 01:30 PM

This page gives some idea of the ubiquity of corn products.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 01:52 PM

Interesting topic.
Sugar beets are big in western U. S. and western Canada. In our groceries here in Alberta, all of the sugar in larger bags, 2 kg (= short 5 lb approx.) or larger is from sugar beets.
Corn sugars as corn syrup shows up in table-size bottles but is available to manufacturers from wholesalers in large containers.
Cane sugar is kept out of the normal grocery; only found as a specialty sugar- Demerara and some of the brown, confectioners, etc. Wholesalers sell bags to those bakers and candy-makers who use it.

According to the USDA, corn as a feed grain accounts "for more than 90% of total value and production of feed grains." Some 80 million acres.
Corn syrup is a mainstay with Illinois agribusiness. Corn production for sugar seems to be subsidized. There are also very good insurance policies for producers (who determines percent of loss in the crop?).

It is hard to find information on large agribusiness corn producers; farms constituting the whole often retain names from their days of independence although control is centralized.
Dick Greenhaus, can you suggest a good publication on agribusiness and its share of the market? I would like to learn more about this. There are lots of bloggy materials, but there must be reliable figures somewhere.

Costs of production decrease as farm size increases, of course favoring the larger producer. The new genetically fiddled corns mean higher production per acre.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 02:05 PM

I know the book The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan, treats this topic in some detail. It was a best-seller not long ago. It might even be the book that started all the talk about this topic.

Here's a review in the The New York Times.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 02:28 PM

I don't trust the corn sweetener at all. Stick to the tried and true and eat corn on the cob but don't transform it which I think they are doing..not just extracting it but I don't know...I hope a lot of the corn sweetener gets diverted to biofuels or just plain granary corn. mg

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 03:21 PM

The Pollan book looks interesting, however, I question the statement about cattle not having evolved to eat corn.

Back in the 1930s-1940s, we preferred corn-finished beef (which we called Kansas City beef because at the time KC was a center for feedlots and slaughtering), although it was expensive, to grass-finished, which comprised most beef. Statements that all beef before WW2 was grass-finished are not true, although it certainly was by far the more abundant. Especially in warmer areas (Georgia to Texas) grass-fed beef was strong in taste and the fat was yellow. Warm-climate grasses are lower in protein content as well.

We never heard that the cattle had trouble digesting the corn; although this was before the surge in antibiotics. Corn-finished beef is fattier, therefore more tasty, but research shows that grass-finished beef is healthier- some of this research about lower cancer risk, etc., is incomplete and questionable.

See this article, which pushes grass-fed, antibiotic-free cattle: Know your meat

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 05:15 PM

There was an entire TV program on corn the other night.(Discovery?) It made much the same point Dick G. did, but with details. At one time, the corn growers needed a subsidy...now it's just a cash cow for agribusiness to hold onto. And corn syrup has become the major sweetnig additive BECAUSE it's cheaper....never mind that many (including my wife) are sensitive or allergic to it.

And...do not be misled that we can make any significant inroads into the fuel problem using corn - the energy needed to grow and convert it don't leave much margin. It's fine to use excess production for ethanol, but we can't come close to energy independence that way. (never mind that Brazil has...on a temporary basis; they are doing it by bulldozing more rain forest and growing corn on land that had little topsoil and won't sustain that for long.)

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 06:05 PM

As Bill D indicates, the biofuels would be very destructive of the environment.
More and more oil reserves are found. The problem is that no practical way has yet been found to decrease emissions by harvesting them. May be impossible; not being an organic chemist I don't know.
Increasing nuclear power generation rapidly by building new plants would help with stationary power needs- thermal, solar and wind could help but only as supplements.
A mobile population needs power for vehicles, either mass transit or individual, and it is hard to visualize how massive reductions in greenhouse gases from vehicles can be achieved.

Hydrogen? It seems that there are problems with mass use that are difficult to surmount.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 06:39 PM

I have believed...literally for years....that in addition to any change in ways to make and store energy, we need to reduce the total number of people using it. If we do not come to some sort of equilibrium with the environment, WE will lose.

Every bit of land has its "carrying capacity"; the total amount of some specified activity it can sustain indefinitely....and this means the Earth as a whole, too. We cannot catch ALL the fish, we cannot grow an unlimited number of crops, we cannot put an unlimited amount of pollution into the air...etc..etc.
   It is not always clear what those limits are, but I dread being around when we push one of them too far....and I worry that we already have in some areas.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 07:20 PM

Condemmed by some, China took the right path when it decreed the one-child family.
Their switch from a largely rural people to an industrialized western-type economy, however, works in the opposite direction.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 07:25 PM

I know Brazil does a lot of ethanal from sugar cane..didn't know they were using corn..mg

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: JennieG
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 08:12 PM

I bought a ball of corn yarn for knitting recently - I didn't know such a thing existed! It's blue, very soft, and made in Portugal.

I don't plan to eat it.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 10:27 PM

"We had a cat down on our farm,
Swallowed a ball of yarn.
When those little kits were born,
They all had sweaters on!"

   "Whoa, old Mule,
    Miss Liza you keep cool.
    I ain't got time to kiss you now,
    I'm busy with my mule."

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: open mike
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 11:04 PM

they also make fiber out of bamboo...very soft like silk..
and the corn that is genetically modified has turned up in
everything from tortillas to...well, you name it.

Some Aftican countries have outlawed the importation into
their country of whole kernal corn with GMO altered, as the
corn could be viable and sprout and grow with the modified
strain. They do allow ground corn meal to be sold there, as
it cannot grow and spread the genes into other varieties of
corn.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Janie
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 11:25 PM

here. is a National Geographic article from last month that does their usual pretty good job of touching on all bases regarding costs and benefits of biofuels, including corn, algae and sugar cane.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 01:32 PM

It seems the rush into ethanol production is a rush to increase profits, regardless of the effects on the environment.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 01:40 PM

Back to corn sweeteners -

The people who use fear to market their products seem to have done a good job of demonizing corn syrup.

Corn syrup has been around a long time. When I moved to Kansas City in 1976, I was made aware that there was a big business called Corn Products which shipped corn syrup out in railroad tanker cars to be used in the production of all kinds of food. Corn sweetener is not new or unusual.

Wysi mentioned allergies. Allergies are caused by proteins. Sweetener is sugar, a different kind of chemical. We should not assume [and worry] that there is a problem here. Not when the matter is so easy to check out.

There are a lot of sugars in this world, and our bodies encounter them all the time. Just from general reading I can name sucrose, dextrose, maltose, glucose, lactose and fructose. The main fuel of the body is glucose. When we eat a different kind of sugar, enzymes and whatnot appear and alter the sugar to glucose.

Now do an mental exercise. Pretend that you have developed a great recipe for salad dressing and you have a family business to produce it and sell it. Should you use corn syrup or granulated sugar for that little bit of sweetness it requires?

Let's see. The sugar crystals have these disadvantages:

they are messy to pour

they send tiny crystals into the air, and the workers are breathing them all day, every day

they are gritty and hurt the machinery

the bags could get wet and be ruined

they might crystallize in the product, infuriating the customers

Which sweetener would you use?

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 04:46 PM

Sorghum syrup. A lot of that grown in the U. S. as well. Or cane syrup.
Lots of choices, and if a little dab will do you, corn is as good as any. The old southern expression applies, it don't make no nevermind.

Reminds me of the nonsense about salt in another thread. The recommended daily amount is 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons, which is a lot. Add up the salt in your morning bacon, sprinkled on or cooked with your food, on your nachos or chips, and it is difficult to reach that limit for daily intake.

Unless one has a medical condition which on the advice of your doctor calls for very low salt or sugar intake or a substitute, no importa.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 05:47 PM

Got me to thinking about those bothersome thickenings on the foot that are called "corns."
Turns out that the word comes from cornu, Latin for horn. Nothing to do with the plant.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 07:53 PM

Allergies are caused by proteins. Sweetener is sugar, a different kind of chemical. We should not assume [and worry] that there is a problem here. Not when the matter is so easy to check out.

I'm allergic to corn syrup. And also to other products made from corn, like citric acid. The reason I know this is because if I eat those things, I get very sick and I stay sick until I stop eating them. With some corn products, it's anaphylaxis. With others, it's other kinds of sickness.

I was almost completely bedridden for almost ten years until I discovered, by living for several weeks in another country where they don't put corn in everything, that I am allergic to corn. I found this out because I stopped being sick while I was there, and when I returned to the US, I got sick again until I stopped eating corn (and the other things I'm allergic to).

If I eat corn, I get sick. It's pretty simple and very predictable.

Food tastes better when other sugar besides corn syrup is used anyway. I found that out by living in another country as well.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Riginslinger
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 09:48 PM

The losers are corn-based native cultures in Central America, where the price of corn--due to the American demand for ethanol--has pushed the market beyond their ablility to buy corn for food.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: bobad
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 10:06 PM

Corn, as we know it, did not evolve in a natural way, it was created through human manipulation and now it is killing us. There is a movie in there somewhere: "The Revenge of the Corn", "The Night of the Living Corn", "Dr.Frankencorn"..........

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 03:54 AM

Corn syrup is prepared in a way that leaves traces of the original corn proteins - hence the well documented allergic reactions.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: bobad
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 08:41 AM

An extensive list of things that can contain corn and may cause an allergic reaction in sensitive individuals:

http://www.cornallergens.com/list/corn-allergen-list.php

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: autolycus
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 10:15 AM

Millions of people are allergic to something without knowing they are.

For example, you might be allergic to wheat, not know that, get your usual headache ('oh,got my headache again'),or whatever the reaction is, and not have an obvious way to connect the two.

There there are dietary therapists and food allergists around who can tell you.

When we went to a food allergist, she warned us off wheat and sugar among other things. She told us people can be allergic to standard foods which, precisely because they are standard, people never think of as causes of allergies. (And when the Berlin Wall, what two crops do Russia request first to help them? Why, wheat and sugar.)

(I won't ask here,except sneakily, if farmers who get subsidies are for or against government. Might get me into trouble with authorities.)

    Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 10:21 AM

I believe we had another thread about corn allergies, but I appreciate all of the information contributed in this thread. I'm still hoping for more from y'all on the background and political players involved in the Corn Thing.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 10:56 AM

Archer Daniels Midland is a big player in the corn thing.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 10:59 AM

And do we know easily and conveniently (right here in the thread) who their best Washington pals tend to be? By name as appearing on ballots and yard signage? (See where I'm going with this?)

Here in our area, I see a LOT of Ron Paul signs. (I always misread it as RU Paul, the "singer.") Is he a corny dude or what?

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 01:49 PM

WYSIWYG, I dislike Wackipedia because it has errors in many of its posts, but see its article on Cargill, perhaps the biggest player, not only in corn, but all massive agricultural enterprises. According to Waskipedia "the world's second-largest privately held corporation..."; "responsible for 25% of all United States grain exports," "supplies 22% of the United States meat market," etc. It is a producer of ethanol and other products.
Descendants of the family still control 85% of the company. Annual income over 80 billion dollars.

Although presented without proper documentation, much of the article can be verified through other online sources, and is a good brief introduction to an American giant.

It is now a large player in financial operations and hedge funds. It is a major exporter from Latin American and Asian countries as well as from North America. It is a major lobbyist in Washington and other capitals, supporting free trade.

Its large holdings are difficult to sort out- a forest of interlocking entrprises and land and corporate holdings. Being privately held, there are no public stockholders and public disclosure of practices is held to a minimum. They have a website, which presents their public face.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 01:56 PM

Link to Cargill article-
Cargill

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 02:05 PM

" I see a LOT of Ron Paul signs. (I always misread it as RU Paul, the "singer.") Is he a corny dude or what?"


                      RU or Ron?

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 02:33 PM

Either! :~)

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 07:46 PM

"It (Cargill) is now a large player in financial operations and hedge funds. It is a major exporter from Latin American and Asian countries as well as from North America. It is a major lobbyist in Washington and other capitals, supporting free trade."


                  And it's amazing what the American public is willing to accept as "free trade."

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 08:48 PM

I just bought some bulk "country sausage" so I can make biscuits & gravy for tomorrow's breakfast.

Among the ingredients is "corn syrup."

In sausage??

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 11:02 PM

Coca-cola classic- glucose and fructose sugars.

Coca-Cola Diet no caffeine- no sugar. 0 calories. Phosphoric and citric acid, sodium benzoate. Aspartime and Acesulfame-potassium (all chemical). Caramel coloring. Carbonated water.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 01:47 AM

There's corn in almost everything - most store bought breads, most store bought pasta sauces and salsas, most condiments, most prepared foods of any kind. There's probably corn in one form or another in your biscuits and gravy as well, Rapaire, if you make them from mixes, or buy them already made. There's corn in most kinds of canned tomatoes and also jams and jellies in the form of citric acid. There's even corn in iodized table salt (in the form of dextrose).

If you want to find out how ubiquitous corn is, print out the list of food additives in the link bobad provided in his 01 Dec 07 - 08:41 AM post, take it to the grocery store with you the next time you go (or even just in your own pantry), and compare the ingredients in the food you encounter with the items on the list.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: autolycus
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 04:22 AM

Exactly.

(Can be the same with sugar).

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 07:37 AM

Someone (I remember who JiK :-P) sent me some US products as a kind act - and I noticed the difference in taste as here we don't put corn syrup in everything.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 10:32 AM

I am not looking to prove that corn's in everything-- I'm looking for information about the legislation and legislators that helped put it there. Still hoping for more in that vein.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 11:04 AM

I don't think "corn" is in anyway a controled substance. There wouldn't be any reason for a company to ask or even be concerned about putting corn products into foods, would there?

             Now, if we were marketing Alice B. Toklas brownies, that would bring out the food police.

             One of the things that comes to mind, though, is this: if corn is in everything, and ethanol production raises the value of corn, wouldn't that raise the cost of everything else?

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 11:09 AM

Sausage, chopped onions, pure butter (if needed), unbleached flour, milk, a pinch of salt, freshly ground pepper for the sausage gravy. Freshly made biscuits for the biscuits. I'm talking scratch-made here.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 11:28 AM

I don't think "corn" is in anyway a controled substance. There wouldn't be any reason for a company to ask or even be concerned about putting corn products into foods, would there?

No, it is not a controlled substance. It is a SUBSIDIZED commodity which is being managed and economically manipulated under governmental policies that I am asking about.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: autolycus
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 11:37 AM

Susan,

You might try sending the question to a mag like New Scientist. Or a US equivalent that has on open Q&A column. Or The Guardian's Notes and Queries column.(Tuesdays).

This looks like the kind of situation where either the internet has its limitations or I ask 'how on earth did you find that link?'

Does anyone thin......thread drift.....sorry.

   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 12:23 PM

Almost any farm product produced in the United States can have subsidies attached. In addition to a floor price, the price may be subsidized to a certain fixed price. Corn is just a piece of the whole. 2004 figures:

Feed grains 2.84 millions (sorghum, etc. etc. as well as corn)
Cotton       1.42 millions
Wheat       1.73   "
Rice         1.13   "
Soybeans    610    "
Dairy       295    "
Peanuts      259    "
Sugar         61    "   (both cane and sugar beets)
Oilseeds, tobacco, wool, vegetable oils, honey, etc. etc. 234 millions.

The whole system of subsidies and tariffs restricts the entry of foreign agricultural products. Asian and African countries complain bitterly.
The Americans sell low and collect subsidies- 30% top-up on corn (maize), 50% for rice and cotton. By selling at low prices, the U. S. can control marketing of these products, all paid for by the taxpayer.

Foreign countries are largely denied the American market while they are pressed to buy the American product- rice and sugar the most contentious. So much rice is produced in the Central Valley of California (as well as the region from Arkansas to the Gulf) that the U. S. almost forces its rice on Vietnam, etc., selling on the market at the low third world prices and demanding that the rice be taken if they wish to keep low tariffs for their exports.
Latin America and Africa cannot market their sugars in the U. S. because of the subsidies and tariffs.

In 2002, Bush signed a bill that raises farm subsidies up to 80% a year for the next ten years. The price tag is $180 billion.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 12:50 PM

Livestock subsidies? Milk subsidies? Yes, the U. S. has those as well.
Subsidies are part of the American way of life.
(Also important in western Europe)

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 12:55 PM

And why is it that the corn issue is so HUGE now, and who are the pols benefiting from catering to the corn lobby?

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 01:24 PM

So, Rapaire, if you use iodized salt, you have corn in your biscuits and gravy in the form of dextrose.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: autolycus
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 01:32 PM

These subsidised whatevers, do they happen to be free marketeers at any time - their day off or whatever?

   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 01:53 PM

The American Corn Growers Association got excited about ethanol prospects and put pressure on the legislators representing the Corn Belt. No big deal, just congressional business as usual. And the bogeyman specter of "energy security" loosed its banshee wail.

California may be a little smoggier as a result- see this article from the Sacramento, CA, newspaper, "Corn Lobby wins....," posted in Senator Feinstein's website:
Corn Lobby Wins

Ethanol increases nitrous oxide and hydrocarbon emissions when mixed in gasoline- this seems to be a deep dark secret. Ethanol has a lower energy content than ordinary gasoline, so it also reduces fuel economy slightly.

Digression- this thread is forcing me to learn a few things.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 02:00 PM

And the bogeyman specter of "energy security" loosed its banshee wail.

Dang, Q, thet thar war a good'un!

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 02:14 PM

The wonderful thing about the ethanol lobby is, it gets the less educated environmentalists on the same side as the big player Archers-Daniels-Midland, for instance, and unless somebody can break into print with the truth, they'll ride it all the way to the bank, the oval office, and beyond.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 02:14 PM

autolycus, free market capitalism may indeed be a wonderful idea, but we really have no way of knowing because it's never actually been tried.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 02:21 PM

"Free market"? Language is pekuliar, ain't it?

Noted here, and in several articles, the Mexican government has put a cap on the price of tortillas, a food necessity to the country's poor, as the cost was increasing dramatically.
The corn subsidies of the U. S., allowing it to sell its corn at below world prices, put the Mexican corn farmer out of business. As a result, Mexican corn products such as tortillas are made with corn imported from the United States.

The large sugar, corn and rice production of the U. S. is restricting production of these products in countries where they are traditionally grown and economies are poor, increasing the numbers of people without jobs, and forcing them into immigration, raising the numbers crossing borders in hopes of finding employment.

"Illegal immigrant problem"? Partly the result of the agricultural subsidies of the U. S. and Western Europe.

Increasing corn prices are affecting other branches of the U. S. agricultural and livestock business. And ultimately your pocketbook.

Ethanol Boom Rising Prices

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 03:10 PM

"The corn subsidies of the U. S., ...put the Mexican corn farmer out of business."

          And now the ethanol boom is pricing American corn out of their budgets. But you can't just decide to go out and harvest some more corn tomorrow...

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: autolycus
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 06:36 PM

I'd agree, CarolC, if I knew. I'm confused. Is all that fee market blah been just propaganda?


And is corn in everything for the same reason as sugar, namely that people are addicted , so continual sales are guaranteed, and we're all kept in the system????


Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 07:24 PM

What they are calling "free market capitalism" isn't, it seems to me. With huge reserves of amalgamated capital, almost any market can be leveraged to benefit the holder of the most capital.

         It would be like playing poker without "table stakes." They guy with the most money--provided he has enough money--could just continue to double the bet until the other players couldn't meet it, no matter what cards they are holding.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 12:29 AM

Is all that fee market blah been just propaganda?

Pretty much, autolycus. We've never had free market capitalism in this country. The land and its resources was taken from its original inhabitants by force, rather than purchased at market prices. That's a huge subsidy right there. Then labor was taken by force from the slaves who played an integral part in building this country and its economy, rather than paying them wages that were determined by the market. That's another huge subsidy. And it's all been downhill from there. There's never been anything 'free market' about it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 07:31 AM

Of course there have been reforms: anti-trust under Teddy Roosevelt, organized labor, federal backed mortgages. Unfortunately all that went away under Ronald Reagan.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: autolycus
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 12:42 PM

Thanks Carol, quite.

rigin, what you described sounds like the game Monopoly.

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 01:11 PM

Yeah, I think pre-1929 America is where the game got its inspiration.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 01:22 PM

Actually, I use sea salt.

Subject: RE: BS: The Corn Thing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 01:51 PM

Sugar beet sugar and cane sugar also are subsidized to about the same extent as corn sugar. The type of sugar used by your regional bakeries, etc., depends in part on what is raised in that region.
The Corn Belt lobby, of course, favors products that would be complimentary to ethanol production.

sea salt- with the bilge-oil flavor?
No advantage one over the other.

Mayo Clinic on salt vs. sea salt: Salt
(2300 milligrams is about one teaspoon full)