Hacker News Reader

Comment by jcampbell1 | Hacker News Reader

I believe ethanol is a complex plot by the Illuminati so the world’s farmers grow excess food to provide insurance against famine without bankrupting said farmers.

I’m kidding about the Illuminati part, but it is one hell of a scheme that ensures there is always excess agricultural production.

View on HN

This isn't a conspiracy. It's one of the responsibilities of the Secretary of Agriculture. Here's Earl Butz in 1972:

> “One of my responsibilities is to see that we have a continuing adequate food supply, and the best way to assure that is to let farmers make a little money in the process.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/16/archives/up-up-up-butz-ma...

Is this the guy that said "go big or get out" ? or was that later.. (family-sized farms of all kinds across the United States died an ugly death under these policies in the 1970s and 1980s).

“Get big or get out.” (“Go big or go home” is a different expression.)

That was him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Butz

Much of the corn is being grown in a way that erodes the soil and depletes the water reserves being used, compromising our ability to grow crops in those areas in the future.

Someone should probably tell the Illuminati.

This is actually a good idea (IMO), but the huge problem is that most states have mandated ethanol content required for gasoline, and there's no "circuit breaker" in place when food prices rise dramatically. When corn prices quickly doubled during the Great Recession (2007-2008) we could've stabilized the price by cutting the amount being used for ethanol in gasoline.

... which would have (probably) spiked the price of gasoline, which may have had other effects.

I do not envy the people who have to research, analyze, plan, and execute these policies in complex economies in hard times like that.

its an interesting scheme, only issue is that "human corn" and "ethanol corn" and "feed-lot corn" are very different strains. Human corn is tasty, while the other two taste terrible.

I mean, you aren't wrong- the US is the world's biggest producer of food, oil and natural gas. These are important strategically.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com