[lit-ideas] Re: global luke-warming
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 18:19:16 -0400
We are swimming in oil. The problem is at the refinery level where pretend
pollution controls are being forced by Archer Daniels Midland through
ethanol. ADM is the producer of the raw material of ethanol. It's a multi
billion dollar rip off scam of the consumer put together by oil companies,
ADM, the White House (which is big oil anyway). Check out these web sites,
and especially the quotation from the CEO of ADM, Dwayne Andreas (quoted
from the Cato Institute):
"Andreas recently told a reporter for Mother Jones, "There isn't one grain
of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only
place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians. People who
are not in the Midwest do not understand that this is a socialist
country."(2) Andreas's comment about "no free markets" is like the old joke
about the son who murdered his parents and then asked for the court's mercy
because he was an orphan. ADM champions political control over markets and
then invokes that control as an excuse for its continued political
manipulation. Andreas has exerted his influence in Washington to ensure
that the U.S. form of "socialism" resembles 1930s' Italian corporate
statism: the government plunders the citizenry for the benefit of
politically connected corporations. And, though Andreas does not like to
admit it, there are many markets in the world for agricultural products
that are not controlled by politicians."
snip
"Thanks to federal protection of the domestic sugar industry, ethanol
subsidies, subsidized grain exports, and various other programs, ADM has
cost the American economy billions of dollars since 1980 and has indirectly
cost Americans tens of billions of dollars in higher prices and higher
taxes over that same period. At least 43 percent of ADM's annual profits
are from products heavily subsidized or protected by the American
government. Moreover, every $1 of profits earned by ADM's corn sweetener
operation costs."
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-241.html
As far as gas over two dollars a gallon in the 80's, on the east coast I've
never seen it that high. The highest it ever went was around $1.50 and was
usually below a dollar. That sounds like they used Clean Air legislation
to artificially hike prices (see, we told you cleaning up the air is
expensive). Enron was also responsible for the rolling blackouts in
California recently that cost everyone so much money. Enron's blackouts
were completely, utterly, 100% artificially set up to make money for them.
See the movie (or book) "The Smartest Guys in the Room".
> [Original Message]
> From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 4/15/2006 2:05:12 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: global luke-warming
>
>
> On Apr 14, 2006, at 3:39 AM, Teemu Pyyluoma wrote:
>
> > For
> > example most EU nations have considerable taxes on
> > petrol, originally for trade balance reasons but
> > nowadays for environmental ones. Americans don't. And
> > this is really all you need to know to explain why
> > average car in Europe has much better MPG than the
> > average car in USA. Or what has had more effect on air
> > quality, few people biking or improving standards on
> > fuel and exhausts?
> >
>
> Here's the number that puzzles my slow mind: cost of a barrel of oil
> from 1986 to 1999...within a range of $15 to $30. Cost of a barrel of
> oil between 1999 and the present...rising to $60. And what has
> happened to the cost of a gallon of gas?
>
> Well according to this website, if you allow for inflation, the price
> of gas in real dollars was about half in 1986...which is in line with
> the change in cost of a barrel of oil.
>
> http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/statistics/gasoline_cpi_adjusted.html
>
> But I lived in California in 1985 and I remember paying a couple of
> dollars per gallon. Inflation should make money worth less. So if I'm
> paying two dollars and some per gallon now and I was paying two dollars
> and some per gallon then...there's something weird about the
> calculation.
>
> Why haven't our gas (petrol) prices doubled? Because the cost of oil
> is a small percentage of the cost of the final product and refiners are
> taking a smaller mark-up? Because there has been an adjustment in
> taxes? Because re-sellers are taking a smaller mark-up?
>
> David Ritchie,
> Portland, Oregon
>
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