RE: GP Comments on Ethanol

I recently tried to post this on a different blog which doesn't seem to be letting me write anything longer than a sentence or two:

.Here's the big problem with ethanol: the government stuck it's thumb on the scale. It shouldn't do that. It does that for petroleum, too. It shouldn't. No industry should receive an unfair competitive advantage from the government.

Look what happens. We have Haitians who can't get enough food (prices are too high because it's being used to fuel our cars) and are resorting to eating baked mud so they don't feel hunger pains. That is what happens when government distorts markets.

Look at petrol. It's getting more and more expensive, and we have no substitute for it (except of course the aforemetioned miserably failing ethanol), and there's really nothing that close to release. That's what happens when the government distorts markets.

Let's just take away the special subsidies and tax breaks that the petroleum industry gets (not ALL AT ONCE, but slowly). And lets let competition and Smith's invisible hand take care of our energy trouble.