I realize that it has been over a year since I have posted anything. Tisk Tisk on me. But life has changed. Since my last post, my daughter has turned 1 year old, I finally graduated college, I paid off massive amounts of debt, have a fantastic job and now pay much more for my Milk.
That is what I wanted to talk about today. I felt like I had to rant about this somewhere. My milk almosts costs 4 bucks a gallon. What the hell? A year ago, it was like $2.50. And no i am not drinking organic milk. Gosh that must be really high in terms of price. Sorry hippies, you made the bed...sleep in it. Most probably don't drink milk anyway.
I have come to find out that the rapid rise in price is not due to fuel costs. Well actually it is, but in a far different way not associated with transportation to market.
It turns out that corn prices are sky hight because of the demand for it to be used in the production of Ethanol fuel. So the dairy farmers are paying more to feed their cows which, in term, increases the cost of Milk.
Seriously, What the hell?
Don't get me wrong here, I am all for getting away from foreign oil. I don't mind drilling in Alaska either. But the environmentalists are messing that up too. I wonder if they know the caribou population is on the rise because the pipline is warm and gives them a place that they prefer for making baby caribou. So that means the pipeline is good for the environment. Or it means that there can be some type of harmony.
I am also for a capitalist society, in which, I understand that the point is to make a buck. Free market economy is a beautiful thing.
But I am not sure about where you live, I haven't seen one Ethanol pump ever. So where is it all going? And if it isn't wide spread available, then demand is not high, which means the production is not high, which means corn shouldn't be that high, which leads back the questions "why is hell is my milk so high?"
Besides, hydogen fuel cells are the future of low emmisions cars, along with nuclear power for the country. Which, interesting, environmentalists have started to come around on because it is truely clean, in terms of emissions. We should thank them for not supporting it and backing legislation that prevented nuclear power plants from being build for the past 15 years. Thusly forcing us to rely even more so on coal, natual gas, and other Non clean forms of power generation because wind and solar just aren't afforadable to about 90% of America. Environmentalists should get a high five...
...they should also pay for my milk.
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Welcome back Phil! Glad to hear that things are going well, and also that I hadn't hear the last of your pro-capitalist rhetoric.
I won't argue with you that Ethanol production has affected corn prices - that seems to be well documented. But from what I've read that's only half of the picture. Ethanol has been growing steadily over the last few years, with related commodities (corn/dairy) adjusting prices along with it. You touched on another reason for the current milk price spike, rising fuel prices, but I've heard that droughts in NZ/Australia are as much to blame as Ethanol right now.
Because of the droughts, milk production is way down in NZ/Australia and they're the ones that typically supply the always growing Asian demand. Since they can't meet the demand, Asia is drinking other country's milk, basically. And since there are a lot of the Asians, Milk prices worldwide are going up.
Besides, on Ethanol, I think it's an issue that is currently doomed by politics more than technology. Powerful lobbies drive the fact that we use corn instead of more efficient soybeans, and I suppose it could be argued that soybean use for ethanol would be less destructive to our food/dairy chain. Pro-High Fructose Corn Syrup lobbies also prevent us from importing and using sugar (like in Brazil) which would be the cheapest and most efficient way of all.
So yeah. Milk is expensive, but I think you should look to your protectionist politicians to pick up the tab on that one.
As for solar, wind, nuclear, and caribou; solar and wind are too expensive because they need more widespread adoption (many major technologies require subsidies or other incubation to get them to a reasonable and accesible price). Nuclear is clean, as far as emissions are concerned, but the waste produced is most definitely not clean. Caribou snuggling up to oil pipelines, well, I don't know anything about that. Sounds like a good reality show, if you ask me.
Ok, this comment is way too long. I'm done.
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