I'd say you're correct, but in a slightly more indirect way than many might assume (they might read it as, gov. gives money to company, therefore company has more money -- but they still compete with each other on price, so that doesn't totally make sense). But because corn is subsidized, the food is cheap on a $/calorie basis, which means customers can be less price sensitive, because it's all easier and cheaper than eating a non-corn-based meal. We see this reflected in the fact that cereal (a very generic term for a certain type of staple) is emphatically _not_ a commodity. People have types they like more -- so they can compete on something other than price, which lets profits go up. A good line of research to verify is to compare cereal demand elasticity to e.g. meat, where there are variations people like more than others, and it's semi-interchangeable, but because of price people treat it largely as a commodity.