Food And Energy

The drought currently afflicting the midwest is causing corn production to suffer. Corn is a primary animal feed thus the price of feeding your future burgers, chops and Chick-Fil-A's is going up. Farmers are selling off livestock which should bring the price of meat down, but the government is offering price supports for meats.

O.K. this has me wondering what the government is going to do with all that meat. When they buy milk, they process it into cheese and store it in refrigerated warehouses for use at some point in the future. One can imagine the processing of all that meat which would be pureed, commingled, canned, and labeled MEAT.

Meantime the corn shortage is causing the price of gas to go up as it must be mixed into gas in the form of ethanol. Ethanol requires the expenditure of a bit more than 1 gallon of diesel per gallon produced so it's not cost-efficient, plus it reduces your mileage. But look here:

Obama could solve this problem instantly by suspending the federal ethanol mandate -- something his EPA actually can do unilaterally and legally. Instead, Obama will buy up meat -- a move that meat producers say won't help them much anyway. "It doesn't solve the problem of having enough affordable corn next summer," industry analyst Steve Meyer told Reuters. "Without changing the ethanol program, nothing can be done," he said.

I had no idea it was that easy.