Are we starving people around the world?

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However, when I see the shopping carts full of cigarettes, expensive food, whiskey, beer, wine, candy, dog food, ready-to-serve snacks, etc. at the grocery store, and the fat welfare momma uses a food stamp card, it makes me want to SPEW.
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Ain't that the truth.
 
BTW, you can't use food stamps for cigarettes, beer, or liquor, can you?



Still, Gavin, I get your point. Many a time my wife and I go through the shopping line and pay for fish sticks and ground chuck with a coupon and cash, while someone next to us buys lobster and steak with food stamps.



TJR
 
I think food stamps should be able to buy nothing but ramen noodles, baby formula, and broccoli.
 
They pay cash for their cigarettes, beer, and liquor. Use the food stamps for other things. Makes you wonder though how many food stamps they would need if they used the cash for food instead.

 
I have to think that sugar cane and sugar beets would make for better ethanol crops than corn. I don't see any cause for alarm with regards to the world's food. As long as climate change doesn't continue we should be able to satisfy the needs, and it is a renewable resource. The main issue is getting the distribution infrastructure in place to make this alternative fuel viable.
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Sugar cane, beets, corn, soy beans, etc...



Ethanol can be made from nearly any organic substance. Cow and pig manure can be used if screened.



The thing with corn is this:



Ethanol is not generally made of sweet or human-consumable corn. It's made from field corn, or cattle feed.



So this "myth" that we are burning up our food supply is misleading at best.



The process is actually quite simple. The "waste" product of the corn used in the ethanol production is highly sought after for cattle feed. Cattle (unlike humans and pigs) cannot process the sugars in corn and are secreted in the droppings. By removing the sugars in corn for use in ethanol, then using the byproducts in cattle feed, we are actually taking higher advantage of the corn production in the United States. The corn byproduct is 100% healthy for the cattle and actually helps reduce methane emissions for the cattle heards (the little bit of sugars in corn feed that get processed ferment in cattle stomachs into methane).



The excuse of some media and other outlets that our production of ethanol is causing people in Mexico to pay 5x as much for tortillas is exagerated at best and down right lying at worse.



Field corn is not used in any major Human food product. Field corn represents something like 75% of the corn grown in the US.



As the demand for field corn expands, the production of corn will climb. It's the same with any business. If the price of a product climbs, people jump in and start producing that product to make money.



That's supply-side economics at work. We are FAR FAR from the maximum marginal corn production in this country.
 
Gavin,



It's easier to pull a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven.



Be glad that as you are your brother's keeper (or enabler) that it keeps you more economically modest.



;)



It's funny how the Bible often refers to sinners and tax collectors with the same contempt, but also preaches that we should take care of the poor. Clearly God never intended for social programs paid through tax dollars.



TJR
 
Most of those counties with starving people need birth control, not food. Send them Trojans.
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"We have deserts in America but we don't live in them. Instead of food we should send them luggage so they can move."--the late great Sam Kinison



Truth is in poor countries people have a lot of kids so that one or two live to adulthood to take care of mom and dad (where there is no pension or S.S.) and an 80% infant mortality rate is built into peoples' mentality. Also in primitive cultures, and some not-so-primitive, male children are more highly valued, so people if people have girls they will keep popping out more babies until they get some boys. Lowering the birthrate does not raise people's standard of living or lift them out of poverty, rather raising the standard of living lowers the birthrate.
 
It's funny how the Bible often refers to sinners and tax collectors with the same contempt, but also preaches that we should take care of the poor. Clearly God never intended for social programs paid through tax dollars.



TJR
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That's my point: They ain't poor if the got more toys than me! I'm just jealous because I had to earn a college degree, two post-graduate degrees, and continue to work my tail off for two jobs to get where I am at. No one gives me food stamps!
 
I wouldn't say this applies to everyone, but I remember this gem on Pittsburgh TV news from a few years ago.

TCI had raised cable rates in the city and a bunch of people were protesting outside the City/County Building downtown.

Overweight, *cough* dark-complected woman says to the reporter "I can't afford these high cable prices, I'm on welfare!"
 
LOL. Every Christmas the fire department I worked at would collect toys for needy children and we would deliver them on Christmas eve to people's homes/apartments. One place we delivered to a couple of years ago was falling apart and yet they had a 60" Plasma TV in their living room. Hell, even I couldn't afford one of those even though I was working 2 jobs. :)
 
My church did missions work in rural Kentucky (isn't that the whole darn state). Anyway, the work involved adding new roofs and updated electric to several small homes. We saw the same thing as TomT. Folks with no jobs, but they did have their small sat dishes, 24x7 premium Nascar channels, and LCD and Plasma TVs.



TJR
 

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