[vhawk01]

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If we could grow sugar (in the south maybe, I don't know enough about climates vis a vis Farming) and grow less Corn, we could actually rid ourselves of forign oil, that's not going to happen on Corn.


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I don't know myself, but you didn't answer any of my questions. If they move off corn for ethanol, what happens to the people growing that corn? What happens the next time Iowa is wiped out? Will there still be Indiana and Ohio corn farmers without an ethanol market? With all the corn produced for ethanol keeping the price down, what happens to the price of all the other corn products if ethanol is removed?

Plus now your solution is going to require growing more sugar (down South or someplace?). So what happens to the stuff that this new sugar production displaces? Obviously the price of something is going to go up, because the land it is using is now going to be used for sugar.

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Maybe the corn growers will do what the cassette manufacturers are doing....presumably working at McDonalds?

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I agree with your sarcasm, but there is a small differnce here. First I imagine we're talking about more displaced farmers then manufactures (given the fact that factories can be converted, and there are more farmers). Secondly, those manufacturers had some shiftable skills, whereas farming is pretty specific.

Cody

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I agree, there are very legitimate differences between the two situations. I'm just not sure any of them make any different to the point, which is that people who do things that other people don't need do not have some fundamental right to subsidization. That doesn't mean subsidization is always wrong, or that it isn't sometimes in our best interests to subsidize, it is just an attempt to deflate the "But what about the poor X!" style of argument.