Spilt Milk

I bought a gallon of milk today for $1.99. Well, actually I bought two gallons when I noticed the price. :)

The cost of it reminded me of when I was a kid. I used to be able to buy a half pint of milk for 2 cents. Chocolate milk was a nickel. My mom used to give me a nickel so that I could buy chocolate milk instead of whole milk. Yes, we used to drink whole milk not that 1/2% or skim milk that they are passing off as milk these days.

Not to get too sidetracked... Historically speaking, milk has increased in price as everything else has.
1910 $ .32
1920 $ .56
1930 $ .56
1940 $ .34
1950 $ .82
1960 $ .49
1970 $1.15
1980 $2.16
1990 $2.78
2000 $3.32
2008 $3.99

Why over the last few years have we seen a spike in cost of milk? One of the culprits is… Ethanol.

We have decided that it’s a good idea to make ethanol instead of buying oil from OPEC. We have all bought into the mantra that Ethanol is good for us, as it will give us energy independence.

Ethanol in this country is currently made from corn. Corn is also, what we power those milk-producing vehicles with. People in the heartland have grown to love Ethanol as their corn crops have skyrocketed and are now more valuable. The question is why do we use corn? Brazil uses sugar cane husk to make their ethanol. It is more cost effective as it is what is left over after they extract sugar from the cane. Their Ethanol could be imported from Brazil at a significant cost savings to the end user.

So why don’t we import ethanol from Brazil, as we import oil from Venezuela? The federal government has a tariff on the Ethanol from Brazil that makes it prohibitive to import. Last time I checked it was in the neighborhood of 55 cents per gallon.

“I thought we had NAFTA?” you may be saying. Sure, we have NAFTA, but that is only for the NORTH AMERICAN... not Brazil. The lobbyists from the big farm conglomerates are promoting their farmers and that is why Middle American corn growing farms are very happy that neither political party is removing this tariff. Political parties are around to keep themselves around. Therefore, they do not want to upset farmers in heartlands. Remember Iowa was the first primary state. You don't think that the political machines tried to sway their vote and not upset the voters.

One more point on Ethanol... It has been estimated that it takes a half gallon of gasoline to produce one gallon of ethanol. Let’s face it, corn made Ethanol is not the long-term answer, but as long as we decide that it is better to put food in our cars fuel tanks instead of our fuel tanks food is only going to get more expensive. The high cost of food is here to stay until we take back our country and demand that we REALLY become energy independed and not just shift the cost around. There used to be a saying about spilt milk, but as gasoline cost stabilize over $4 per gallon, we are faced with crying over spilled milk.