Hippies, The World Economists

I had to laugh at a recent news story on TV… it’s not often that the local news is forced to admit that what might be “good for the environment” might be “bad for humans.” A story a while back about how electrical cars might be worse for the world, due to the batteries that run the car. Explosions, leaking waste, etc. Of course a story like this caused the Tree Huggers to hug themselves into a frenzy: new batteries must be found.

Pft. Who would of thought Cartman was being sensible about something…

The story this morning, though, was about food inflation and shortages …and why it’s the Hippies fault.

There’s a marked increase in the price of certain foods.

Eggs, chicken, milk, and beef have all increased in the price… why? Feed is more expensive, making it more expensive to raise [and milk] livestock. Rice has also doubled in price and certain warehouse stores are putting limits on what people can buy… why? Because we’re getting less imported from places like India and Vietnam.

Feed is more expensive because wheat is in less quantity and more expensive. Because we have less wheat, we aren’t exporting as much; other countries can’t count on us for wheat right now, so they are holding back their rice exports, to feed their own citizens.

Wheat is having a shortage – and has grown more expensive – because more fields are being used for corn instead of wheat.

Corn is being grown more than ever before, to make domestic ethanol.

Ethanol is the front runner as an alternative to gasoline, even though most ethanol plant owners admit that they can never make enough ethanol to replace the level of gasoline used in the states.

Basically, the price of my teriyaki dinner is bound to increase – possibly double – knocking the last reasonable non-fastfood food option out of Redmond just so some tossed-off, stanking, dirty, Greenpeace-supporting, tree-hugging feck off dickmunch can feel smug that hir car is possibly being more environmentally friendly…

Lemme give ya some insight: you’ve disrupted my environment and I’m not at all friendly about it.


4 thoughts on “Hippies, The World Economists”

  1. So, at the moment, there’s actually no evidence that ethanol production is impacting food supply or price – I’ll admit that it certainly can’t help, but good environmentalists have never said that corn should be used for ethanol anyway because its horrible inefficient. And yet, the corn lobby has made it such that corn ethanol is the bulk of that growing in the US.

    High food prices are based on a couple factors. The skyrocketing price of rice is based on vastly increasing demand in China and India during the last 10 years without a cooresponding increase in yield. The rice producing nations are actually beginning to horde (see Australia and Thailand, not the US yet although that jacks up our rice price) and reducing their internation export levels because the price is gaining too quickly to be stable, which in turn invites commodity speculators, which in turn raises the price.

    Add to this the substantial increase in cost to ship food within the US and you end up with substantially higher food prices. The thing is, if it were a biofuels problem, the prices would be high because there would be a shortage of food. There is no supply shortage in the US.

  2. Frankly, if it is true that ethanol fuel is making food prices go up, big deal. I would rather pay more for food, which goes in to the pockets of Americas farmers, and mostly American food industries, than gas, which just makes the already over paid oil industry even ricer. And it almost certainly is better for the environment because it burns cleaner. Besides, we’re too fat anyways according to the rest of the world. might as well eat less fast food too.

  3. @Steve – Actually there IS a rice shortage in the US and I believe there’s been signs of a wheat shortage. If not now, then soon… it’s a simple math problem: less land for wheat = less wheat + we eat a lot of it. Futher, there was a drought in the midwest which hurt the crops more.

    @Obed – dork, the whole complaint is about how fast food is the last cheap food source, not about how to eat more food. There’s ALWAYS alternatives for people that want to spend more on food for “better quality”… see Whole Foods as an example. This is going to help take choices away from people. All for yer treehugger happiness. Pfoo.

    In fact, this just scrolled by MSN: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/SuperModels/CouldWeReallyRunOutOfFood.aspx

  4. Hey, aren’t you less hippy if you fill up with ethanol?

    -It’s made from american grown corn.

    -It’s cheaper so you can buy more.

    -It gives your car shitty has mileage so you’re forced to buy more.

    -It’s hard on your engine so your car doesn’t last as long so you’re forced to spend more on repairs/new cars.

    Sure, it’s “cleaner” in a sense that it burns cleaner in your car, BUT the amount of land needed to make enough corn to make enough ethanol for everyone is staggering. It’s like, in LA where everything is a giant parking lot, so they can cram a huge amount of people in a small space so they can spend tons of money (nevermind, that made no sense I guess).

    Hippies can’t see the world that’s really in front of them. I hate that.


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