RUSH: We go back to Webb, Iowa, and Jerry. You?re a corn producer, therefore you’re big on ethanol, and you were upset that I equated you with an environmentalist wacko, and I didn’t.
CALLER: Okay. Along with that, there’s another side to a carbon credit. I’m getting paid for my carbon credits also, but that’s another story. Going back to ethanol cost of production. Right now if the price of barrel [of oil] remains above $40 a barrel, and if the present price of corn, ethanol, will still continue to be economically feasible — okay?
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: And, you know, once again, obviously it changes. The second thing is, this is the first time in ten years, you know, that I’ve been paid a reasonable price for corn. So, yeah, ethanol is not the answer to the whole world, but it’s good for somebody.
RUSH: I understand that. You know, this is a great lesson here. When domestic oil prices plunged to the 18- to 12- and 10-dollar-a-barrel mark back in the eighties, the domestic oil producers got killed.
CALLER: Sure.
RUSH: But the consumers made out like bandits.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: So in all news — economic, social — there’s always good news that comes with bad. Very rarely is it all or totally one way or the other. My problem with ethanol is not so much what it is, is that it’s being sold as a panacea. It’s being sold as an alternative fuel. It’s not. It uses gasoline and it’s got its own inherent problems with storage and transportation and so forth, and to me there’s a lot of irony in this. The left, which is pushing all of this, has traditionally occupied the sacred ground of being the ones who have all the compassion for the nation’s poor and the world’s poor and the downtrodden, the hungry, the thirsty, the distracted — the whole bunch, and only their prescriptions will do wonderful, magical things to help people of downtrodden status rise above those obstacles in their way and become prosperous and affluent, which is absolute bunk.
So here they come with this brand-new thing on ethanol and it has caused the price of corn to skyrocket. Which is fine. You love it, you just mentioned it. You got a raise in price for the first time in ten years. I’m happy for you. Meanwhile, in Mexico, a tortilla is now four bucks, or three bucks, and the weekly salary is four bucks. Guess what? They’re going to be coming up here. There’s going to be riots in the Third World over the price of corn. It’s a major food stock for much of the oppressed world. So all these unintended consequences. There might be some marginal benefit — marginal, marginal, marginal environmental benefit — to all of this, but there’s going to be death, destruction, and riots on the part of the very people the left seems to think we need to save. Of course, it’s
My problem is that I have a frustration over how easy it is to sell snake oil to people in supposedly the most educated country in the world. If you want to use ethanol, if you want to buy it, go and do so. Be my guest. But don’t think you’re saving the planet in the process because you are not. Then all the other ancillaries that descend from this: everybody is going to be forced to do it. As an alternative fuel, it’s bogus. What South American country is totally ethanol? Brazil, and they have been doing great with it. Brazil. They use sugar for it. Fine and dandy. Whoop-de-do. I don’t hear anybody blaming Brazil for global warming. ?But it will reduce the use of fossil fuels, Rush, and it will reduce our imports for foreign oil for people who fund and pay for terrorists — and that’s why, Mr. Limbaugh, we must move forward.?
I did some research. I can’t remember what I read. I wish I could remember the quote. But if this whole country went to ethanol, it would affect like 8% of the oil that is used, which is zilch. That number would decrease every year as usage increases and so forth. Look, I have no quarrel with you guys in the corn, agricultural business being able to raise your prices and so forth. My objection here is the continued selling of snake oil to people who get in this stuff and think that they’re making a dramatic improvement in the world, in the lifestyles of other Americans or reducing pollution and all this other stuff, when it’s just smoke and mirrors.
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