Re:Lawrence Lessig's new TED talk
by cma on Tuesday August 03, 2010 @05:24PM
(#1572803)
re: obesity, don't the US corn subsidies for ethanol actually make corn more expensive? Total total agricultural subsidies (excluding tariffs) amount to less than 1% of the average american's food budget; much of it for the aforementioned ethanol. Am I off?
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> don't the US corn subsidies for ethanol actually make corn more expensive?
My understanding is that the subsidies are there to incentivize corn production. The video says that the subsidized cost of corn production is actually negative -- that you can go plant a corn field and will have made money before you sell a single ear.
Once the corn is produced, if there are additional subsidies for ethanol production from corn, then that may divert corn from food uses. It may increase the cost of HFCS production.
But the cost of corn production is still lower despite, or perhaps even because of, the ethanol subsidies.
Re:Lawrence Lessig's new TED talk
by telemachos on Tuesday August 03, 2010 @07:29PM
(#1573123)
The issue is high fructose corn syrup (made from corn) versus sugar. According to Lessig, the price of sugar (high relative to corn) and the price of corn (low relative to sugar) are both a result of market tampering. See 2.17 into the video. (And in both cases, again according to Lessig the tampering was straightforwardly paid for by lobbying, which is apparently a very good investment. That is, it works very well.)
And as a result, we get inferior sodas with corn rather than sugar. The only country with corn soda as far as I know. =(
I don't know the numbers, but you're probably off in comparing the food budget to subsidies on raw ingredients. Relative to what people spend in restaurants it may not be much, but in making a choice between two similar ingredients, it can tip the balance and switch the market entirely.