Gas Price Questions

[Bragger]

Fuel prices are definitely impacting my fishing. Last year I joined a club that fished 8-10 tournaments on the major water bodies in Indiana (Patoka, Monroe, Ohio River, etc.). Due to gas prices I dropped out of the club this year. Last year I fished practically every Tuesday night tournament at Geist. This year I'm fishing every other Tuesday. I did join a Geist only circuit that fishes once a month through September. That's the extent of my fishing plans for 2008. I'm going to rethink things come Fall and possibly put my 1998 Ranger up for sale. Notice that I said "put it up for sale"......selling may be hard to do. I'm just glad I'm not committed to making 144 payments on a $50K rig.

And as a side note, say no to ethanol based fuels. It is not the answer as you'll notice from your grocery bills. Not My Man Mitch needs to recognize this as well. The benefit the local farmers noticed from the ethanol craze is over and his input costs have caught up. Diesel, fertilizer, pesticides, etc. have all risen sharply causing his net profits to be the same (or less) than they were before the push for ethanol.

Don't vote Mitch in November!

I have to disagree on the ethanol. Other than the direct purchase of corn and corn based products (very small amount of my groceries), ethanol is not making your grocery bill go up. Your grocery bill is going up becasue a truck driver had to use diesel fuel to deliver those groceries, and diesel prices are not going up because of ethanol.

I think you are also missing the whole point of ethanol. It is not to make our farmers rich. It is to break our dependance on foreign oil. Personally I think ethanol is a possible solution, but I think we should be producing it from grasses rather than corn. From what I understand there are some grasses that would produce much higher ethanol yield per acre.

[WMAMOS]

Bragger,

You are mistaken. Do you eat pork? How about chicken? How about a greasy burger now and again? Eat eggs? Ever drink milk? Well, beef, pork, and poultry, in case you didn't know, also eat corn based products. You eat these products and so do the gazillion Chinese. You have livestock producers, food companies and ethanol giants competing for the same important ingredient.......corn. Its simple economics: increased demand increases costs. The rising demand for corn is driving grocery prices significantly higher. Experts have said that ethanol is responsible for approximately 40% of the increase in grocery prices.

http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Groceries.html

[Bragger]

Bragger,

You are mistaken. Do you eat pork? How about chicken? How about a greasy burger now and again? Eat eggs? Ever drink milk? Well, beef, pork, and poultry, in case you didn't know, also eat corn based products. You eat these products and so do the gazillion Chinese. You have livestock producers, food companies and ethanol giants competing for the same important ingredient.......corn. Its simple economics: increased demand increases costs. The rising demand for corn is driving grocery prices significantly higher. Experts have said that ethanol is responsible for approximately 40% of the increase in grocery prices.

http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Groceries.html

Here are some different reports:

http://www.napsnet.com/articles/58615.html

http://www.valleynewstoday.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19782919&BRD=2703&PAG=461&dept_id= 555139&rfi=6

Interesting....in the above article they say there are only 8 cents worth of corn in a box of corn flakes. The majority of the cost is transportation, packaging, & markup. So....your corn could double in price and your corn flakes should only cost 8 cents more.

I guess you have to make a choice. Do you pay more for your gas(oil) and continue to be dependant on foreign supply that could cut you off at any time.....or do you pay more for your groceries and be energy independent. I think you already know my choice.....although you are right about the corn, we need to forget the corn and use the grasses or sugar cane like Brazil.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2006-03-28-brazil-ethanol-cover_x.htm

[idbefishing]

What ever idea/theory you believe in you can always find the media to support it. To say that ethanol is not responsible or not is both right and wrong. To grow corn you have to use diesel driven farm machinery, fertilizer which is petroleum based which keep demand for petroleum high. The feedstock cost more because the supply is less causing higher prices in meats, egg, milk, etc....Everything else cost more because transportation cost skyrocketed due to high fuel prices. High fuel prices mainly caused by worldwide demand, the dollar lost value and those doggone speculators that keep speculating the prices to the point of crashing our economy.

[GeoFisher]

I have to disagree on the ethanol. Other than the direct purchase of corn and corn based products (very small amount of my groceries), ethanol is not making your grocery bill go up. Your grocery bill is going up becasue a truck driver had to use diesel fuel to deliver those groceries, and diesel prices are not going up because of ethanol.

I think you are also missing the whole point of ethanol. It is not to make our farmers rich. It is to break our dependance on foreign oil. Personally I think ethanol is a possible solution, but I think we should be producing it from grasses rather than corn. From what I understand there are some grasses that would produce much higher ethanol yield per acre.

I also have to agree.........the FUTURES market shows that corn futures have QUADRUPLED over the last 18 months.......THAT means the potential for 4X the cost of corn due to supply..........

Big money hedge funds are betting on a STEEP increase in corn prices in the next 18 months.....AND this is the price of the RAW grain, without any additional transport costs tacked on...........

Betting on corn for fuel is a HORRIBLE bet......

Drill here, DRILL NOW.........

Later,

Geo