Catching Up

Seeing as this is my first blog post in a while I will be brief and to the point on my usual obsessions. Except on corn ethanol... which I seem to rant about pretty regularly and at length.

1. "Corn Ethanol" or "It's a Sad Sad Day When I Agree With Chavez."
The BBC has an entire special web project on the shortages of food. Look, its very simple. Staple crops were cheap. Then certain countries got nuts over the fraud known as ethanol. We started using farmland for the ethanol-du-jour which has no actual fuel saving ability, and selling corn at higher prices to the new subsidized Iowa feedbag that is ethanol processing. Corn becomes more expensive due to rising demand. Drought in the Midwest leads to falling supply. Demand increases for substitute goods such as wheat, rice, and soy. Meanwhile the rising middle class in China and India are demanding more food (i.e. rice) due to large population increases. Demand for the substitutes is going up. Guess what else? Price on meat, bread, ANYTHING that requires a staple crop. That leads to large supply decreases across the board on food products. This is called cost-push inflation (no, I am not a Keynesian). Price increases while quantity demanded simultaneously decreases. Quantity demand decrease implies unemployment. Price increases imply inflation. What is that also called ladies and gentlemen?
STAGFLATION! Quijote's prediction for the next two years: Ben Bernanke will curl up into the fetal position and cry, since his policy of inflation targeting will be successful, but the unemployment increases will make him extremely unpopular among the general voting public. We keep crying, "Benny, Benny, please." The worst part is Ben will be doing the right thing (and will probably get fired for it). Inflation is what we want to get under control, while unemployment will be the demon that has to be let loose to keep the economy from crashing further. Who will actually be blamed for unemployment? The usual suspects. Greedy corporations (aka "The Man") treading on the "little guy", Mexican immigrants, Republicans (let's face it, we just don't care if you have a job or not), and of course that awful thing called "trade liberalization." Yes. Let's solve the economy's problems with isolationism. It worked so well in the 1930s.

This is of course not helped by oil price increases, which as we all know from the lovely time known as the 70's also leads to Stagflation.

Why am I not too worried? Aside from people starving for no good reason, the political and social turmoil caused by this, and the general horror of the situation there is hope. Economic incentives lead to technological development. That leads to increased production. The human race proved Malthus wrong 200 years ago. It will do so again. Prices of food will drop again. Although to help that along, please write to your senator about the ludicrous amount of subsidies going into ethanol production across the US.

Disclaimer: As all economic problems, the food price increase is a very complex and delicate problem. Iowa is of course not to blame entirely for simply wanting to improve their state economy and maintain their unjustified clout over the Presidential primaries. However costs to every policy must be weighed, and not ignored under the banner of "eco-friendly development". Especially when it is neither eco-friendly, nor development. Energy independence is also a crock (what do you think they use to break the corn down to its sugar? Oil. Where did they get the oil? Take a guess). We're better off sticking with straight up gas when compared to ethanol.

2. "Continental Sucks... wait... too rude... Continental is quite possibly the worst airline I have ever been cursed to fly on."
Stuck in the Newark airport for 17 hours. Then the Minneapolis airport for 8. While I got to spend a lot of time with my wonderful fiancee, I am never going to fly Continental again. The customer service was at times incompetent, disrespectful, and extremely vague on why exactly every flight out of Newark had been grounded. Airplanes seem to be grounded quite a lot lately due to "maintenance" checks that should have been done earlier.
Still waiting on those passenger trains to spring back up. Come on Warren Buffet. Get a move on.

3. Polar bears are awesome. Just saying.

4. My fiancee is more awesome than polar bears. Again. Just saying.

5. KU wins. Roy loses. All is right with the world again. Sorry K-State. Sorry Mizzou. There's always football. Oh wait...

6. Take home exams are fun and friendly. I nabbed a perfect score on my stats midterm, as well as a kudos from the professor about the "Creativity" involved in one of my answers. I think he means desperation, but it worked. Working on a take-home midterm for another class. Two questions. Seven days. Yeah... this is going to be fun.

7. Contacted the local labor guru of the department yesterday. She's an old prof. from where I got my MA. While a specialization in labor is not quite set for the department, she is working on it. We'll see if it goes anywhere.

8. Everyday I get up and log on to CNN hoping for that magical headline that starts with, "Bill Clinton Said Yesterday...". I swear, this campaign is like Christmas every morning with all the zingers flying around.