Rising gas and food prices show the risk in economic miracles.
Now that milk and gasoline can cost $3.50 each, filling up your grocery cart or SUV has become an exercise in pain. Most people just wince, pay, and get along as best they can. But someone like me can't help but see these price spikes as a nasty side effect of America's ethanol program. How nasty? Think of the recent film starring Will Smith, "I Am Legend."
You might ask what the connection is between a half-baked energy policy and overdone sci-fi. Answer: the unanticipated consequences of supposed miracle cures.
Ethanol first. This corn-into-fuel program has been around for years but gained vast new impetus from President Bush's program to cure America's "addiction to oil" by using biofuels. We'll grow our way to self-sufficiency. Oh, well. Not only are oil prices at all-time highs (in dollar terms), but diverting agricultural land to energy production is a major factor in the rise of worldwide food prices. We've had food riots in Mexico and Egypt. Even in the U.S., Costco and Sam's Club are rationing rice. Creepy.
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