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Originally Posted by suspectnumber961
Gas prices at the pump have gone up LESS since 02 than the overall basket of goods when inflation is defined by ShadStats.
But then due to ethanol...there is a cost there that is shifted from gas to food? You pay less for gas...more for food?
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The cost of corn is minimal compared to processing and manufacturing costs. Remember that it's a raw input at a cost of pennies a pound($8 a bushel is 14 cents a pound of raw corn). Energy is the largest input next to manufacturing costs. I seem to recall a graph that said 40% of food costs were energy, which means fossil fuels.
I managed to find a mention of this on a recent Forbes article but a direct source might take a bit more work, if you're interested. Not the best source IMHO.
The Coming Food Crisis: Blame Ethanol? - Forbes
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When you pay $1 for groceries at the supermarket—out of that $1 only about 12-14 cents goes to the farmers that produced the commodities that went into the foods that you buy. About 35 cents goes to pay for energy to make, transport, process, and preserve the products. If the price of oil goes up—so will the price of the food you buy—-and about 3X faster than it will if the price of the base commodities increases. ALL foods—not just some.
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So it looks like 14% is raw commodities and 35% is energy.