Thanks for Nothing, Indiana Farmers

The ethanol fuel debacle continues, as not only does ethanol still consume more fossil fuel than it replaces, as well as lower fuel economy, but thanks to greed and huge government subsidies, it's also starving people this Thanksgiving.

There's little more insulting in American energy policy today than the idea that vast amounts of arable land in one of the most productive agricultural regions of the world should be turned into inefficient, money-soak fuel factories. Yet that's precisely what's happening today. King Corn, as the lobby has been called, has gotten precisely what it wanted: billions of dollars in government waste to fund the destruction of vast amounts of food, grown using vast amounts of gasoline, into an inefficient gasoline substitute. The process produces about 85% as much fuel as it uses, and the fuel it produces is crappier as well, requiring you to fill up your car more often and spend more money.

Worse still, it's creating a shortage of corn. Of food.

As documented in this article from The Independent, America's obsession with paying farmers not to produce food has led to, predictably, a shortage in the food that they throw into the waste bin of ethanol. Corn surpluses that used to go to feeding the hungry? Now tossed into SUV gas tanks. Corn syrup used in countless consumer products (whether or not this is a good idea, leave that aside for the moment)? Gone. In addition, thanks to the idiot economic policies of the Chimp in Chief, our dollar is in the basement, and you know what happens to a country with huge agricultural reserves and worthless money, right?

It exports its own food to try to pay the bills. Because our food is cheaper to buy than the food in countries whose currency isn't in the toilet.

So Happy Thanksgiving, and make sure to give thanks to the assholes on the road with their FlexFuel SUV Behemoths, as well as your friendly farmers here in the Heartland of America, who are lining their pockets with your tax dollars, and the hunger of their fellow Americans.