fjasper, I hope your feeling better too.
I notice when I read something, i see only what I want to see. And i hear only what i want to hear. And the person next to me hears something totally different.
But, i can't think of job in this country that isn't subsided by the government. The government does pay part of the crop insurance premium. It's less expensive to do that than pay for all the natural disasters to crops around the country every year. But, the main reason the government subsidizes agricultural is for control. Agricultural is considered a matter of national security. And the government feels they need to control it.
Its been 25 years since the gov. paid farmers not to farm. That is over.
Our ag. industry is one of the most efficient industries on the planet. Even through a recession we didn't starve. For 8 bucks we can buy a box of oats from Sam's that we can live on for a month. Is it fun, no, but compared to the rest of the world...
Ethanol and biodiesel are holding down the prices of gasoline and diesel. When you buy a blend your getting the 90% cheaper because of the 10% ethanol. Our fuel is half the price, than most of the world. There are so called studies that show that it takes 2.5 gallons of gasoline energy equivalent to get 1 gallon to the pump. And 2.2 gallons of ethanol energy equivalent to get 1 gallon to the pump. How? The sun doesn't add energy to the finite supply of gasoline. Either way if an engine burns at 30% efficiency that means we are actually only getting 12% out of the total energy. Of course after we make ethanol, the byproduct, brewers grain or whey is an excellent source of protein for feed.
Why the horsepower race in the automotive sector right now, I have no idea, other than people have too much money, fuel is too cheap, and the fuel quality is too good for high performance engines. As much as i hate government how about a heavy tax on horsepower.
But we have bigger fish to fry, China is going to own our country and they consider us to be their enemies...
Thank the lucky stars that we have agriculture to slow the trade deficient.
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