The Author Responds
Re: Corn-Fueled Migration by Sally Kohn
A 279% increase in the price of tortillas is due to a reduction in the price of corn? There is an error of logic here which makes me eagerly await the writer's apology and promise to quit submitting stories while stoned!
James LaRue
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Sally Kohn responds:
The piece reads:
"The new [ethanol driven] demand for corn drives up prices. And so the price of a tortilla in Mexico has risen 279 percent since NAFTA."
In other words, U.S. agricultural subsidies artificially lowered the price of corn the point where U.S. corporate farms managed to monopolize the Mexican market, and when, a few years later, the ethanol craze hit (driven by agribusiness again) the price of corn went up, Mexicans—now dependent on the U.S. for their corn because local growers went under—were screwed. That’s it in a nutshell. Or cornhusk.
And no, I wasn't stoned.
Sally Kohn
Big Tent?
Re: No More Compromise
Please keep in mind that a "Democratic" majority was elected to both Houses in 2006, not a necessarily a "leftist" majority.
Stephen Cantin
The Pell Plan
Re: Funding Bush’s War: This Is No Game
Re Borosage and the pusillanimous Dems in Congress: Can't they authorize funds on a two-month basis only? Attached to that, clear markers for the Iraqi 'government' and from the administration: what will be the benchmark results in two months? The need is to make it clear to the voters that the Busheviks want a blank check and no balance required—and hammer this home again and again. X$ for two months; set public Benchmarks within two weeks of passage of the legislation.
Anthony Pell
Environmental Industrial Complex
Re:
Needed: Energy And Jobs
One of the things that Mr. Ringo omits mentioning in the move towards a greener America is that massive amounts of money should be directed away from the Defense Department's budgets and towards the Department of Energy in its alternative energy programs.
Unfortunately for the United States, our entire economy is dependent on a constellation of weapons manufacturers. From Boeing to United Technologies to General Electric and on and on, these multinationals receive a substantial component of their cash flow from weapons systems.
Given the extremely limited nature of the federal budgetary process, unless the United States were to come up with a substantially new form of revenue, there would be no money to fund the $300 billion in alternative energy developments that are desperately needed if we are to limit the damaging impacts of global warming. At the same time, simply withdrawing monies from the defense contractors to invest in solar, wind, etc, would create economic dislocations.
Ultimately, if we are to minimize economic dislocations and if we are to maximize the impact of alternative energy development, the United States government will have to do everything in its power to retool the weapons multinationals towards full participation in developing new technologies.
This is not to allow for the place of small businesses or individual entrepreneurs in alternative energy developments. But ultimately, we will have to replace the military industrial complex with the environmental industrial complex.
Karl Eysenbach
Two Views Of Food Stamps
Re: Food Stamps: The $21 Question
One of the biggest problems with the food stamp program is that it is administered by the states. I happen to have the misfortune of living in the most backward, parsimonious state in the Union--Idaho. In order to qualify for food stamps I would have to sell every asset I have regardless of the fact I am presently living on $114 a week!! That has to cover everything from lights to water to garbage to sewer to food. I also have to buy gasoline to earn that princely sum and pay car and homeowners' insurance in addition to property taxes and irrigation assessments. Food stamps? What a luxury that I can only get in this state if I sell my trucks, my travel trailer and any asset the state deems worth over $2000.
So I get a little hot under the collar when I read stories about rich people "playing poor" to show the country what it's like. As long as social benefit programs are left to the individual states to administer there will be tremendous disparity. Just don't insult me any more with your "living like a poor person" stories again. Do something constructive! I will spare you the REAL story about being one of the millions of uninsured with medical problems. That too is handled by the state. And by the way, I am a highly educated person with a BS degree who just happens to be stuck in an economically dead area with few jobs—especially for 58-year-old widows.
S. Wing
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My wife and I have had occasion to resort to food stamps over the years in our fringe existence as artists and writers, and while I see no reason not to raise the allotments, I must say that we usually had food stamps left over at the end of each month. The main reason for that, I think, is that we are vegetarians. Removing meat from the diet--and the food budget--as well as unhealthy processed food and other junk, increases health, not only for individuals but for the environment as a whole. Of course the government is not likely to embrace this practice because of the livestock lobbies, even though it should; but individuals can make that choice and live quite nicely on food stamps, thank you very much.
D.D. Delaney
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Your article incorrectly labels Rep. JoAnn Emerson as being from Ohio. She is, in fact, the representative for my district in Missouri.
Leslie Hanschen
