NYT: a bit behind the times on Obama and ethanol

Fun fact about this blog: by far the single largest driver of visitors to it is a single trackback link on a post about Obama, McCain, and ethanol on Gary Mankiw's blog. Anyway, because of that link (which I can't see in Safari, but can in Firefox) and the NYT's story about Obama and ethanol that appeared on A1 below the fold today, I've been getting a lot of hits.

Anyway, the article was a pretty standard critique about Obama's pro-ethanol fuel policies and his ties to lobbyists, including the obligatory reference to agribusiness rent-seekers extraordinaire, Archer Daniels Midland ("ADM: supermarket to the world," to NPR listeners). However, something that struck me as a little bizarre and unbecoming of the Times' stature was that throughout the whole article, the author never once mentioned the fact that Obama recently stepped off a bit from his ethanol platitudes and admitted that it might not be such a great idea, after all. Since then, I don't remember having heard him talk about it, but then again I also have been trying my damnedest not to hear the presidential candidates at all. But it seems like something that might have warranted at least a mention, eh?

Millionaire corn farmers of the world, unite!

For all the farmer couples out there earning earning $2 million a year, never fear: you're still getting your subsidies! In case there was any doubt, the latest incarnation of the farm bill passed the Senate with flying colors (only fifteen senators had the common sense to vote against it). Though Bush promised to veto the bill (a rare moment of sanity), the point is moot, given that the bill passed both the House and Senate with enough votes to override a veto.

And how do the presidential candidates compare on this issue? The SF Gate has no love for Obama on the issue:

Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who has based his campaign on a promise to end special-interest politics in Washington, issued a statement praising the farm bill, which is laden with special-interest subsidies. Obama said the bill will "provide America's hard-working farmers and ranchers with more support and more predictability."

The incredibly irrelevant Hilary Clinton had the gall to chide McCain for his opposition to the bill. Though McCain is admittedly bad on economics, he took the high road and voted against this bill (from Time: "For now, we need to put an end to flawed government policies that distort the markets, artificially raise prices for consumers, and pit producers against consumers. We’ve once again failed farmers in that regard, which is why I oppose this bill.").

In addition to the absurd economic distortions and general government waste in the bill, the soon-to-be law is guaranteed to piss off the world and hamper the Doha round of trade liberalization.

Obama backpedals on ethanol

Barack Obama, this campaign season's über-champion of ethanol subsidies, is starting to retreat from his position:

With the world teetering on the edge of a full-blown food crisis, it may be time to cut back on biofuel, said Barack Obama yesterday.

In an interview on NBC's Meet the Press, the Democratic presidential candidate said "there's no doubt that biofuels may be contributing" to falling food supplies and rising prices.

Ya think!? This being politics, I know it's too much to ask, but it would be nice to hear an apology from Obama for almost single-handidly pushing ethanol to the forefront of the presidential campaign, inspiring a chorus of me-toos from Camp Hillary (though McCain's generally held the high ground, he too occasionally becomes intoxicated on the Iowa spirits).

Edit: Obama's been pretty quiet about the subject of ethanol subsidies since his almost mea culpa, but the NYT didn't give his change of heart any play in an A1 article it ran about his stance on ethanol in June 2008.

Would you like some dog food with your pasta?

A quote from the NY Times' latest fear-mongering article about the rising prices of food in America:

“It hasn’t gotten to human food mixed with pet food yet,” he said, “but it is certainly headed in that direction.”

Somehow, I don't see that in the near future. This ranks up there with the slew of stories about Costco's starvation-inducing new policy of limiting customers to buying only 100 pounds of uncooked rice at a time. I wish someone would explain to these journalists the meaning of the term "loss leader."

Farmers farming

All sorts of juicy little bits about the infamous Farm Bill in a "NEWS ANALYSIS" from the NY Times (pun entirely unintentional).

Not to get your hopes up, so I'll just say it right now: no big changes for the farm bill. The mammoth thing is $300 billion and covers five years (!!), and it ends up in the low single-digits as a percent of federal spending. However, the ramifications are huge: payments to farmers encourage the planting of certain commodities, much of which is used as animal feed. So, farmers of wheat, soy, corn, rice, animals, and even tobacco receive lower prices, which inevitably (given the finite nature of the world) leads to higher prices for literally everything else in the world, but mostly for unsubsidized foods: fruits and vegetables. Oh yeah, and there's that whole food-pricing-shooting-through-the-roof and agribusiness-making-huge-profits thing. But hey, maybe they really need the money!

One of the bill's defenders, Sen. Tom Harkin of Dakota, comes up with the entirely unconvincing argument that "expecting the huge farm bill to address current challenges is like asking a farmer to go out and grow corn for tonight’s supper." To me, the fact that it's so difficult to change the farm bill (uh, why would it be so difficult, anyway?) would seem to be more of a reason to start now, rather than wait. "The senior Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, Representative Robert W. Goodlatte of Viriginia" blames it on the Democrats with their ethanol – definitely partially their fault, but it's amazing that these people can use the "what he's doing is worse" argument with a straight face, as if your duty to the nation depends on how well someone else is doing their job.

Rep. Kind, who obviously never got the memo about how governments work:

“It really is astounding,” said Representative Ron Kind, Democrat of Wisconsin, who has pushed for broad changes in farm subsidy programs. “It’s as if this farm bill is being negotiated in a vacuum.”

Astounding? More like par for the course. Oh, and your candidate for change? He issues incredibly misleading communiqés in which he hopes you'll confuse millions and billions, all the while being a big backer of farm subsidies' evil twin: ethanol subsidies.

Why politicians wouldn't want to talk about science

The headline on wired.com today is an article about Clinton, Obama, and McCain spurning a debate that was supposed to be about science. You'd think that would be a warm place for Democrats: there is no fundamentalist Christian base out there asking them to refute basic tenants of modern science, and yet neither of them wanted to show up at the event. It's pretty telling, though, of electoral strategies: debating science is a very technical topic, and actually requires expertise. Which isn't a bad thing – if a president is going to be making decisions that are ultimately rooted in science, they ought to know something about it. But people don't campaign on facts, they campaign generalities. What's Obama going to say when someone confronts him about the environmental and humanitarian costs of ethanol subsidies? Or when McCain is questioned about his statement that marijuana has no unique medicinal value? Or when any of the candidates are pressed on how likely any of their plans are to actually address America's contribution to general environmental degradation? So much of electioneering is based on trying to get people to not pay attention to numbers and facts, so it doesn't seem to be in anyone's advantage to embarrass themselves when they have to concede that they really don't know much about science at all.