Wasteful Ethanol Subsidies & Politics

One of our first posts here at the IPE Journal was on the distorting influence of ethanol subsidies on food prices and their link to naked politicking. Oh, and also on them being a huge waste of taxpayer dollars. Well the FT has just published an article describing the boom-bust cycle of investment into ethanol production - even Bill Gates lost a crop of cash.

Let's also keep in mind that the candidate most likely to win the US Presidency is, to my knowledge, as much in favour of ethanol as the outgoing chief.