Misplaced Anger

I understand that people are mad about the way things are, so it's understandable they would associate with the Party of Anger.  But it's what they are mad about that I don't get.

Are they mad that the government gives money to the American sugar growers so that they can "compete" with cheaper sugar production from the Dominican Republic and Brazil?  That subsidy cost is passed on to the consumer at a rate of roughly 14 cents per pound.  That's enough to discourage food companies from using sugar in their products. Instead, they opt to use high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in their products, which thanks to the corn subsidy, is cheaper. 

The corn subsidy has detrimental effects as well.  Ninety percent of the corn grown in the US is Yellow Dent #2.  That means nothing to most people until they taste it - it is completely inedible.  It is used primarily for animal feed, and for producing ethanol and high fructose corn syrup. 

Producing a gallon of ethanol from corn actually requires more energy than the gallon yields, and it requires more energy to produce than it does to make a gallon of gasoline from oil.  It also burns less efficiently in your engine than gasoline so you end up using more than if you had simply bought regular gasoline.

Cows have evolved to be very efficient grass eaters.  However, it takes two years for a cow to grow to maturity feeding on grass.  It only takes six months for them to grow to full size feeding them corn.  That’s not some miracle; corn is a modified type of grass and does not occur naturally. The difference between grass-fed and corn-fed beef is that if a corn-fed cow is not slaughtered within that time frame, it will die from its diet.  They literally have to manually relieve the gas from a cow every so often so that its stomach does not rupture.  That diet also requires that the cow be administered steroids and antibiotics daily. One of the side effects of that process is that more resistant strains of bacteria are created.

HFCS doesn't have the same chemical triggers that sugar does that tell you that you are no longer hungry. So people who eat foods with HFCS tend to over-eat which results in obesity.  A hundred years ago Americans were the tallest people on Earth; now they are the fattest. Obesity carries a number of health hazards including heart disease and diabetes. Drinking one soda with HFCS a day doubles your chances of contracting type-2 diabetes.  It's estimated that treatment of diabetes and lost productivity due to the disease is roughly $245 billion per year in the United States. Medical treatment of people who have it is more than double those who don't.  The disease affects roughly 25 million Americans, or almost 10% of our population.

So are conservatives mad about any of that?  No, because price supports for sugar, corn subsidies, ethanol, fast food, HFCS, health care... those are all big businesses and big businesses are the ones who benefit.  That’s good for America, right?  Individuals?  Well, they're on their own.