We are experiencing a significant increase in costs for two 'staples' in our lives, food and fuel. Rice purchases are being limited in some stores because people have begun to hoard this basic food item. Gasoline and diesel fuel are both at all time highs and are moving higher. Grocery costs are escalating rapidly.
How is it that this can be happening? What is driving this rapid cost escalation? Is it the Republicans having been in office for the past seven plus years? Will a Democrat president change all this?
We are seeing the results of years of marketplace interference. Our government (both parties are guilty) has created the gasoline and diesel fuel situation through its stubborn refusal to approve the construction of new refining capacity and through its equally stubborn refusal to permit drilling for oil where there are known fields that could take care of our needs for many decades to come.
We are seeing the result of farm programs that cause farmers to do things that are encouraged by financial incentives. We are seeing the results of corporate farm programs that reward the very wealthy people who own large pieces of land. We're seeing the result of legislation that favors the ADMs of the world. We are seeing the results of political interference in the areas of 'bio-fuels' (ethanol) that have begun consuming bigger and bigger amounts of corn, which has caused the prices of other substitute grains to rise accordingly.
Ethanol is a very poor fuel additive. It does not burn as efficiently, it is difficult to carry over distances, it has a government subsidy that is just being reduced to $.45 cents per gallon from the original $.51 per gallon. So, we put one of our basic food stocks into our gas tank because of government meddling and wonder why we're seeing the food and fuel price increases that we're seeing. We get poorer mileage, pay more for the gas that gives us that poorer mileage and we wouldn't buy the ethanol-laced gasoline if it were priced at its true market price.
Our food costs are rising due to supply and demand. Substitute grains cause flour prices to escalate. There is a shortage of soy products due to the move from soy beans to corn because the price of corn has been artificially manipulated. Fuel costs affect the cost of food transportation. Livestock is being fed with more and more expensive grains.
Beyond all this in our own country, we have seen the economies of both India and China expand at significant rates. That has made them able to be larger consumers of the things we're paying more for today. More people in India and China have automobiles, more can afford to buy clothing made from synthetic materials that are produced from fossil fuels, and both countries have tens of millions of newly empowered consumers.
The long and short, from my perspective is this: politicians have played around with the marketplace and they broke it; the movement to force 'green' into our lives has cost us refining capacity and crude oil to refine if we had the capacity; we're burning 'food' in our cars that is driving up the cost of edible food from a raw materials perspective and a transportation perspective.
This will not be a problem we solve overnight. Refineries require nearly a decade to build...if they were able to gain approval from the politicians who don't want more refineries. We import crude oil when we could be drilling and extracting it from our own fields. We import gasoline because of the lack of refinery capacity. People are trying to hoard basic food stuff because they fear where all this is going.
And finally, we are in the midst of a presidential campaign and I don't believe I've heard one peep out of any of the candidates about this issue. They must see this as a net losing subject or they'd be all over it with their promises to resolve the 'crisis'. They'd certainly not get the votes from agricultural states. They'd not get the huge contributions that flow to them because groups think they're going to favor the members of those groups.
How will this issue get resolved if we cannot even include it in the presidential campaign discussions? How will this issue get resolved if the economic drivers created by Congress continue to exist as they currently do? They are all too eager to side with those who 'know' that global warming is upon us. They are only too happy to jump aboard the Al Gore bandwagon even though his 'research' has never been proved out in the scientific community.
I am tired of the disingenuousness of way too many of our politicians, from both parties, who are in office because it is a nice cushy job with great 'perks'. I'm tired of those politicians who sit in a handful of staged hearings and emerge as the expert on any given issue.
And, I'm tired of ethanol in my fuel that raises the cost and reduces the mileage rate. And, I'm tired of seeing our grocery bills climb weekly when I know that it is caused by artificially-induced government policies. And, I wonder if I'm alone?
