US ends $6 billion a year corn ethanol subsidy but also ends tariff on Brazilian ethanol imports

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In 2007 hideous ethanol promoter Jeb Bush correctly predicted the US would lift tariffs on Brazilian ethanol within a few years but that wouldn't "necessarily threaten international food supplies."

12/24/11, "Congress ends corn ethanol subsidy," Detroit News, D. Shepardson

"The United States has ended a 30-year tax subsidy for corn-based ethanol that cost taxpayers $6 billion annually,

• and ended a tariff on imported Brazilian ethanol.

Congress adjourned for the year on Friday, failing to extend the tax break that's drawn a wide variety of critics on Capitol Hill, including Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Critics also have included environmentalists, frozen food producers, ranchers and others.

The policies have helped shift millions of tons of corn from feedlots, dinner tables and other products into gas tanks.

Environmental group Friends of the Earth praised the move.

"The end of this giant subsidy for dirty corn ethanol is a win for taxpayers, the environment and people struggling to put food on their tables," biofuels policy campaigner Michal Rosenoer said Friday.

The subsidy has provided the oil and agribusiness industries with 45 cents per gallon of ethanol blended into gasoline. By some estimates, Congress has awarded $45 billion in subsidies to the ethanol industry since 1980....

Ethanol supporters are worried Congress might roll back a 2007 mandate that dramatically boosts the use of ethanol annually through 2022. The mandate jumps from 15 billion gallons of renewable fuels —

• including cellulosic ethanol in 2015 — to 36 billion gallons by 2022.

The corn lobby has lost clout this year, losing votes in Congress. The Senate voted 73-27 in June to end the ethanol tax subsidy and tariff.

But Michigan Democrats Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow were among the 27 senators who voted against ending the subsidy.

Michigan is the nation's 11th-largest corn producer, harvesting 315 million bushels in 2010. The state has more than 11,000 corn growers, and they planted corn on 2.45 million acres last year, or about 4 percent of all land in the state.

Earlier in December, a bipartisan group of more than 70 House members urged a congressional block on higher levels of ethanol blended into gasoline.

Automakers and other engine makers have clashed with corn growers since 2010 over whether the United States should allow the use of a new blend of ethanol called E15 because it is 15 percent biofuel. The Environmental Protection Agency has approved the use in all vehicles from 2001 and after.

In August, the EPA approved fuel labels designed to warn drivers of older vehicles not to use the fuel, but it still must be registered before the fuel can go on sale. In February, the House voted 285-136 to block the EPA from moving ahead with E15 regulations.

"E15 is not ready for prime time," said the letter signed by Reps. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township; Mike Rogers, R-Brighton; John Conyers, D-Detroit; Tim Walberg, R-Tipton; Bill Huizenga, R-Zeeland; Darrell Issa, R-Calif.; and Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., among others.

Automakers and other groups have opposed approval of E15, warning it could damage engines in some models. Automakers "unanimously expressed concerns that E15 is likely to harm engines, void warranties and reduce fuel efficiency," said the congressional letter."

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Some of Jeb Bush's many entanglements including ethanol.

4/18/07, "Jeb Bush: Ethanol no threat to food supplies," People's Daily Online

""U.S. President George W. Bush's brother Jeb Bush said on Tuesday that an increase in Brazilian ethanol output will

• not necessarily threaten international food supplies.

We are convinced that Brazil is capable of increasing its production of sugar and ethanol from sugarcane

• without threatening food supplies, Bush said.

He also told Brazilian legislators that he expects U.S. government to reduce or eliminate its 2.5 percent tariff on ethanol

• in several years
  

and ethanol to become a key product on the international biofuel market. The United States hopes to create a "robust world market"

• for alternative fuels, Bush said..

The former governor of Florida state made the remarks during a visit to the Brazilian Congress in response to the boycott by Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro of a deal aimed at

• raising the production of ethanol worldwide as an alternative to fossil fuels.

Castro and Chavez, leaders of Cuba and Venezuela, said they were concerned that people might starve if more agricultural land is used to produce crops

• for energy instead of food."...

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12/21/11, "To Survive, Some Biofuels Companies Give Up on Biofuels," TechnologyReview.com

"As the difficulty of producing cellulosic biofuels cheaply becomes apparent, a growing number of advanced-biofuels companies are finding it necessary to take creative approaches to their business, even though that means abandoning some of their green credentials, at least temporarily, and focusing on markets that won't have a major impact on oil imports. This is hardly the outcome the government hoped for when it announced cellulosic-biofuels mandates, R&D funding, and other incentives in recent years."...

via WUWT, via Tom Nelson

US home prices fall unexpectedly in 3 months ending Oct. 2011 over previous year-Bloomberg

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12/27/11, "U.S. Home Prices Fell More Than Forecast," Bloomberg, T. Homan

"Residential real estate prices dropped more than forecast in the year ended October, showing a broad-based decline that indicates the U.S. housing market continues to be

• weighed down by foreclosures.

The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities dropped 3.4 percent from October 2010 after decreasing 3.5 percent in the year ended September, the New York-based group said today. The median forecast of 27 economists in a Bloomberg News survey projected a 3.2 percent decrease.

The real-estate market is bracing for another wave of foreclosures that may keep pressure on home prices, indicating any housing recovery will take time to develop....

Stock-index futures held earlier losses after the report....

Atlanta and Las Vegas posted new post-peak lows in October, the report showed. ...

Eighteen of the 20 cities in the index showed a year-over- year decline,

• led by a 12 percent drop in Atlanta. ...

Federal Reserve officials reiterated at a meeting this month that they will keep their benchmark interest rate near zero until at least mid-2013. The central bank in September decided to reinvest maturing housing debt

• into new mortgage- backed securities
  
• instead of Treasuries."

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Stoning to death of Iranian woman for adultery back on, 'experts' considering hanging too, but sharia requires stoning

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US taxpayers have solidified bloody Islamic practices such as stoning to death by financing victories of Islamic extremists across the Middle East. No one's afraid of 'international outcry' anymore.

12/25/11, "Iranian woman convicted of adultery to be executed by stoning or hanging, official says," Canadian Press, AP

"Authorities in Iran said Sunday they are again moving ahead with plans to execute a woman sentenced to death by stoning on an adultery conviction in a case that sparked an international outcry, but are considering whether to carry out the punishment by hanging instead.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is already behind bars, serving a 10-year sentence on a separate conviction in the murder of her husband. Amid the international outrage her case generated, Iran in July 2010 suspended plans to carry out her death sentence on the adultery conviction.

On Sunday, a senior judiciary official said experts were studying whether the punishment of stoning could be changed to hanging.

"There is no haste. ... We are waiting to see whether we can carry out the execution of a person sentenced to stoning by hanging or not," said Malek Ajdar Sharifi, the head of justice department of East Azerbaijan province, where Ashtiani is jailed.

"As soon as the result (of the investigation) is obtained, we will carry out the sentence," he said, according to the semi-official ISNA news agency.

The charge of a married woman having an illicit relationship requires a punishment of stoning, he said.

He said judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani ordered a halt to stoning in order to allow Islamic experts to investigate whether the punishment can be altered in Ashtiani's case.

Ashtiani was convicted of adultery in 2006 after the murder of her husband.

She was later convicted of being an accessory to her husband's murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison."

via wz

Hedge funds trying to buy up MF Global customer bankruptcy claims at a discount

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12/23/11, "Hedge funds and other financial firms looking to buy MF Global customers' bankruptcy claims," NY Post, Whitehouse

"Wall Street’s vultures are swooping in with offers to buy bankruptcy claims held by MF’s brokerage customers.

A slew of hedge funds, banks and other financial firms, including Longacre Fund Management, Elliott Management, Triax Capital Advisors and Contrarian Capital, have started contacting MF customers with offers to buy their claims for cash — but at a discount to their face value, The Post has learned.

Commonly referred to as “vulture investors” because they seek to profit off distressed situations like bankruptcies, these shops are seeking to buy the rights to money owed to MF customers in the aftermath of the firm’s Halloween bankruptcy....

Dan McCool, of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., said he didn’t even bother to hear the bid before saying no and hanging up the phone.

“I just told them I wasn’t interested,” he said. “My feeling is, I don’t know if we’ll get all the funds we’re entitled to, but I’m going to let it play out.”"...

via LynnSamuels.com

All presidents hold Ramadan celebrations at the White House now and aren't afraid to call it Ramadan but you can't call Christmas Christmas anymore

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12/25/11, "Steyn mocks western world's 'war on Christmas:' Institutional self loathing," Daily Caller, J. Poor

"There is no crusade to generalize other religious holidays and that the West’s budding hatred of itself and its values was at the “heart” of the matter.

“There’s something very odd by the way, as I said about this stilted artificial avoidance of Christmas,” he said....

“Nobody does this with Ramadan, for example. I notice when you look at the big Ramadan festivities at the White House that every president conducts now — nobody bothers to pretend that is a kind of general celebration.

• Nobody says ‘happy holiday’ instead of Ramadan.
• And I think there’s something sort of slightly — it’s not a small thing in that sense.
  

It gets to the heart of the most disturbing feature of Western world at twilight, which is this kind of institutional self-loathing that’s at the heart of it.”

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12/17/11, "Merry War on Christmas!" Mark Steyn, National Review

"When an explicitly Catholic institution thinks that the meaning of Christmas is “tenderness for the past, vapid generalities for the present, evasive abstractions for the future,” it’s pretty much over. Suffering no such urge to self-abasement, Muslim students at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., recently filed a complaint over the lack of Islamic prayer rooms on the campus. They find it offensive to have to pray surrounded by Christian symbols such as crucifixes and paintings of distinguished theologians. True, this thought might have occurred to them before they applied to an institution called “Catholic University.” On the other hand, it’s surely not unreasonable for them

• to have expected Catholic University
• to muster no more than the nominal rump Christianity of that Catholic college in New England.
  

Why wouldn’t you demand Muslim prayer rooms? As much as belligerent atheists, belligerent Muslims reckon that a decade or so hence “Catholic colleges” will be Catholic mainly in the sense that Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia is still a cathedral: That’s to say, it’s a museum, a heritage site for where once was a believing church. And who could object to the embalming of our inheritance? Christmas is all about “tenderness for the past,” right? When Christian college administrators are

• sending out cards saying “We believe in nothing,”

• why wouldn’t you take them at their word?"

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Businesses rushing to leave California and Illinois

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12/22/11, "Editorial: Even profitable firms fleeing California," Orange County Register

"California businesses can expect little sympathy from leadership in Sacramento."

"The California Democratic Party's attitude long has been that businesses are basically trying to rip off the public, and the source of all wealth and advancement can be found in the public sector, When businesses leave. (State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell) Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Co. show little sympathy."...

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Dec. 2011, "Illinois companies eyeing an exit," Chicago Tribune, by Zoe Galland and Wangui Maina

"Chicago's huge futures exchange owner CME Group has joined a growing list of companies threatening to leave Illinois as a result of the state's corporate tax increase earlier this year. Illinois pushed through the 45 percent corporate tax increase in January, trying to address one of the biggest budget shortfalls of any state in the U.S. But the move proved to be a risky step -- since then, both small and large companies have complained about the increase, and some have received incentives to stay put."...
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12/27/11, "Businesses Exit California and Illinois," Mike Shedlock, Townhall


via Lucianne

Communist China slashes high speed rail budget 42%, will focus instead on expanding existing freight rails, WSJ. Poor Tom Friedman.

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12/24/11, "China to Slash Railway Spending," Wall St. Journal, Areddy

SHANGHAI—"Chinese authorities are cutting spending on railway construction for 2012, the latest signal the world's No. 2 economy is de-emphasizing one of its most expensive programs after a year of problems highlighted by a deadly high-speed collision.

Under the new plan, spending for 2012 construction will drop 42%, from more than 700 billion yuan ($110 billion) earmarked in 2010—an investment level that initially had been expected to be maintained for a number of years, until the death of 40 people in the July crash prompted a reassessment.

China's railways minister, Sheng Guangzu, on Friday said 400 billion yuan will be ..." (remainder subscription)

From Walter Russell Mead about freight rail expansion:

12/26/11, "China Rail Fail: 42% Spending Cut in Bullet Train Meltdown," The American Interest

"Spending on rail will fall 42 percent from projected levels, and the priority looks to shift from gee-whiz high speed bullet trains to the expansion of China’s overstretched freight network."...

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The Chinese D train derailed with two of its carriages falling off a bridge , AP, from 7/24/11, UK Telegraph. "China sacks railway officials following high-speed crash"

9/15/11, "Obama makes case for bill at gala," Politico Staff

"President Obama, speaking Wednesday at the 34th annual awards gala of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute in Washington, hammered home his favorite points of the week, the need

• to pass the American Jobs Act. Here is an excerpt:...

""At a time when countries like China are building high-speed rail lines and gleaming new airports, we’ve got over a million unemployed construction workers -- many of them Latino -- who could be doing the same thing right here in the United States. That’s not right. It’s time for us to fix it. And that’s why Congress should pass this bill

• right away.""...

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8/14/11, "China's enthusiasm for high-speed rail stalls," AP, USA Today, Joe McDonald

"China's infatuation with high-speed rail soured at bullet train velocity.

Six months ago, the rail network was a success symbol and the basis of a planned high-tech export industry. But after a July crash that killed 40 people, Beijing has suspended new construction and is recalling problem-plagued trains,

• raising questions about the future of such prestige projects.

It was an extraordinary reversal for a project that once enjoyed political status on a level with China's manned space program."...

• *But the Communist Chinese still want to sell their death traps to high speed rail projects in the US! ed.*

"Chinese contractors want to bid for work on a planned California high-speed line, though it might be harder to woo buyers who see China's

• government has lost faith in its own system.

Global Insight's Ren said she sees no sign the government might scale back its export plans, which are a core part of its technology development strategy.

"The only thing they are going to rectify is the domestic buildout of their infrastructure," she said. "I think they still will push for more exports of advanced manufactured goods

• such as these railway systems." (end of article)
  

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Questioning the reliability of Communist China's high speed rail system is not allowed and can get you fired.

7/25/11, "China's effort to muzzle news of train crash sparks outcry," Reuters, Ben Blanchard, Sui-Lee Wee

"Government directives demanding journalists not question official accounts of a deadly high-speed train crash in eastern China are fueling public anger and suspicion about conflicting details of the accident,

• such as the death toll.

Saturday night's crash killed at least 38

people and was China's deadliest rail disaster since 2008, raising new questions about the safety of the fast-growing and high-profile high-speed rail network.

The central propaganda department issued directives to media on Sunday for coverage of the accident.

"The major theme for the Wenzhou bullet train case from now on will be known as 'in the face of great tragedy, there's great love'," the department said, according to a copy of the directives posted on a web site called the "ministry of truth", that regularly posts copies of government orders.

"Do not question, do not elaborate."

Reporters with state media who saw the directives confirmed to Reuters the propaganda department's media guidance on the crash.

The department also told media not to "investigate the cause of the accident", and reminded journalists that "the word from the authorities is all-prevailing"....

Compounding the problem, the state-run Xinhua news agency said late on Sunday that eight additional bodies had been found, bringing the death toll to 43. But a Railways Ministry spokesman then said the

total figure was actually 35.

On Monday, the official count stood at 38.

Seeking to assuage public anger, the government sacked three middle-level railway officials on Sunday. The media directives appear to show a government hoping to contain the outrage.

Any attempt to link the crash to the reliability of China's much feted high-speed rail system was off-limits, according to the department."...

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The high speed rail company would share the costs of losses "with its suppliers, including Germany's Siemens."...Trading of Communist China's CNR Corp. has been suspended.

8/12/11, "Chinese bullet trains pulled over 'flaws'," news 24

Shanghai - "A state-owned Chinese train manufacturer said on Friday it is recalling 54 bullet trains being used on a

new high-speed rail link between Beijing and Shanghai

• because of "flaws".

The statement by China CNR Corp came a day after Beijing said it was suspending approval of new railway projects, and underlines the scale of concern over the safety of high-speed rail after a fatal crash last month.

"China CNR Corp ... is recalling 54 CRH380BL bullet trains produced by our subsidiaries that are already in operation to systematically analyse causes of flaws," the firm said in a statement filed with the Shanghai bourse. "...

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7/11/11, "No bids for Brazil's high-speed train," AP

"A Brazilian government auction for the rights to build a bullet train between Rio de Janeiro and metropolitan Sao Paulo

• has drawn no bids.

A lack of interest had forced the government to delay the auction twice before for the 317-mile (510-kilometer), high-speed train."...

via Instapundit

Afghanistan awards oil exploration deal to Communist Chinese government-BBC

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""This could involve projects in infrastructure, including high-speed rail in times to come.""

12/26/11, "China gets approval for Afghanistan oil exploration bid," BBC

"China has gained potential access to millions of barrels of oil after it won approval for oil exploration and extraction in Afghanistan.

The country's cabinet approved a deal to allow China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to develop oil blocks in the Amu Darya Basin.

The basin is estimated to hold around 87 million barrels of oil....

Analysts said that as peace returns to the country, it will require a lot of rebuilding activity in order to trigger economic growth in coming years, something that China is keen to tap into.

"China is looking towards a much bigger scale of investment," said Mr Chaw.

"This could involve projects in infrastructure, including high-speed rail in times to come," he added."

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