Rising food prices has troubled everyone in the world. A lot of people are blaming most of it on the use of corn for ethanol. Is that really the cause of the problem or is it rising fuel prices?

Food for Fuel
It should be no surprise that we saw a lot of people touting the use of corn for fuel was a good idea. The corn used is feed corn and is not the normal human consumption type. Almost every expert, politician, and average person saw it as a good thing and demanded it. Corn’s an easily renewable resource and America has lots of farmland. Nobody should’ve been naive enough to not foresee a slight hike in feed corn prices. That was going to happen regardless because of supply and demand. The supply was just not there at the time to support the demand and it was only going to take a matter of time before it regulated out. This was encouraged with government programs that helped farmers by giving money to those growing ethanol use corn. For a year or so, everyone would see lopsided growing until things started balancing out. Don’t believe me? Look up how many non-food uses we have for corn, wheat, oats, etc. There’s a lot! We’ve just found another use for corn, but people think that the industry won’t balance out. It’s true that farmland is drying up some due to no money in farming, but there’s still a lot of it out there. The American government has been trading food for fuel for the longest time and that hasn’t created price hikes in food.

The Reality
What’s really causing across the board price increases? Gas prices. There’s nothing mystical about it. Fuel is required to run tractors, transport food, and to process food. I’ve worked on my family’s farm and I know that the biggest cost factor is fuel. My family has seen huge price increases in all the supplies that they need. Fertilize is a very integral part of growing and it’s needed to get a good yield. However, the cost of fertilize has risen so much that my family has scaled back the farming business. Why’s fertilize and other things that farms use so high? It costs the companies so much money to transport the materials due to the rising gas price. That has caused everything produced on farms to go up in cost and in turn made the price we pay to go up.

In conclusion, I can’t completely disagree that the cost of food has gone up some due to corn being used for fuel. It’ll take some time for the farms to balance out again. However, I think it’s an insignificant amount that it would’ve made food go up. The real burden we face is the rising fuel costs such as diesel which is much higher than regular gas. Fuel plays such an important role in food production that one would have to be completely uneducated to not see how much it’s impacted food costs on all levels.

Corn for ethanol is not the ultimate way to end our dependency on foreign oil. It’s just a start for a better way of life. As we all know, you have to start somewhere.

I have a lot of complaints dealing with our current health care system. Among some of my complaints are ever rising costs and insurance companies’ priorities. I could talk forever about those two topics, but that’s not my point today. I want to discuss our presidential candidates and their health care policies. Do they have it right or have they missed the boat completely?

McCain
Since McCain is recently touring the US promoting his plan, let’s start with him. He states that the power of health care resides with the people. If we want change, we’ll have to make the change ourselves. Also, he would like to give $2500 single/$5000 family tax credits and take away the corporate discounts given for providing insurance to employees. A fairly unique idea for McCain is to make insurance portable that will stick with people if they retire early or if they need to take an extended leave of absence.

First of all, rates will increase because the insurance companies will have to go from mostly managing groups to handling a lot of individual accounts. Each account will have its own coverage that we selected from certain plans that were offered. The insurance companies will have people over a barrel because they will be dealing with individuals instead of companies. Also, fewer people will have health insurance. Why? Because the economy is horrible and it costs more to have less. Yeah, there will be a tax credit, but if you don’t have the upfront cash for it, you won’t be able to pay for it until said credit goes into effect. Also, if you don’t have the insurance, you most likely will not get the credit. The only good idea is to make insurance portable. So, on paper McCain’s plan sounds like he’s trying to put something together, but in reality it’s worse than what we currently have.

Obama
Next up to bat is Obama. He’s in favor of more government control. He would like to setup mandatory coverage for children, but not adults. He wants to make a large national plan that’s voluntary for people to sign up for. You can get your own insurance if you choose. For the employers who don’t provide insurance for their employees, they will have to pay into the national insurance plan. Obama has given provisions to allow states to develop their own plans as well. Also, plan portability is offered through signing up for the national plan or getting your own private plan that’s covered by his watchdog group.

It’s nice that he wants mandatory coverage for children. There are already lots of free or very low cost programs for children that people could take advantage of. His idea doesn’t really fix much and will cost small business owners more than they can probably afford. If the business doesn’t already offer insurance, it probably can’t afford to. I know he says that if they meet certain thresholds that they will be exempt, but what are those thresholds? Those businesses will have to shell out more to this national plan that their employees may or may not get. Of course, he doesn’t speak much about cost of the program, but I imagine that it won’t cost all that much since the businesses will be offsetting the cost of the program along with the government. One unique idea is to allow states to develop their own insurance plans which I think is a nice idea. That does allow for the federal government to scale down some and not be too overbearing. The plan portability is common sense. If you get something that’s outside of your job, it should still be around if you quit your job. That’s not a new idea or any kind of change.

Clinton
Heath care reform is a big deal for Clinton. She wants to offer a national health care plan and help reform existing plans. The big platform for her is that she wants it to be required that everyone have coverage. She insists that the cost will be low and to offset that cost even further, there will be tax credits given. The federal government will fund most of the program and their costs will be assisted by big corporations. Small businesses will be given tax credits for existing plans or for starting to offer plans for the first time.

I think that she’s doing a good job of keeping it fairly even. However, the big drawback to her plan and reform is that it makes the federal government that much bigger. She offers better ideas than Obama about keeping insurance affordable, but she mentions a lot of tax credits like McCain. If the plans aren’t more affordable, people won’t be able to pay for the plan in hopes of a great tax credit. The compounding problem is that it will be mandatory to have it. She does offer tax credits for small businesses who already offer health plans or who start offering them later. That would be better than Obama who wants them to be financially burdened with funding his plan.

Summary
Overall, it seems that everyone’s missed the mark by a little or in the case of McCain, a whole lot. All three have something in common, reform. They all want to reform the country’s health care system by changing laws and enforcing more technology. Both McCain and Obama mention portability of their plans. Obviously, Obama’s plan would be portable since it would be individual coverage while McCain speaks of portability of whatever plan you have. Clinton doesn’t mention it, but it would be portable in the sense that Obama’s would be. The big theme between them all is being affordable.

I think that that McCain’s plan is the worst out of them all. It would cost people more and probably make the health care system worse than it is today. I think Obama’s plan is a bit in the middle. It’s not going to improve the system by leaps and bounds, but I think that it makes a great start in the right direction. In my opinion, Clinton’s is probably the best of them all because it will create the most positive changes, but it comes at a big cost. The cost is the fact that it will make the federal government an even bigger entity than it already is. Even though, I still think that it could be spun off into the private sector years later after the health care system improves. We’ve seen the government do that with other programs once a good foundation is built, so I don’t think in the end that it will be a bad thing to have the government step in and shake up the system a bit.

Ok, ok. I know the title is a bit corny, but it serves its purpose. I want to point out a few things about Rev. Wright’s ways that Obama either does or does not support. I’m not even sure that Obama knows which at this point.

Let’s start out with the easy stuff. The controversial sermons that Rev. Wright gave set this country ablaze (as well as YouTube) and made a lot of people question Obama. At first, Obama stated that he had never heard such things in the church. He went to the church for 20 years and somehow missed out on those types of sermons. Eh… I don’t buy it. That’s Wright’s teaching style and I’m quite certain that it’s not suddenly a new habit that he developed.

Obama’s recovery from the sermons was pretty well orchestrated. If you don’t recall, he gave an outstanding speech which covered a bit of Obama’s past and bringing the country together. Even though he had previously stated that he’d never heard the reverend speak that way, he got away with saying he had in his speech. What he wound up saying was that he went to Wright for spiritual guidance and didn’t follow his political views. Also, that Wright was part of his past and that he could not denounce him no more than he could denounce his own grandmother.

Hey.. I can follow that line of thinking. I don’t go to my butcher for political advice; I get advice about a cut of meat. Plus, it’s good to see a guy stand by the people that helped him along the way. However, I don’t quite understand something. Rev. Wright wasn’t dispensing political opinions in his sermons per se. He was mixing propaganda against a religious background and calling it a spiritual message. The messages he was giving were perfectly designed to incite anger and hatred which are two things that don’t have a place in a church that’s supposed to teach love and brotherhood. If Obama followed this guy, I don’t see how he didn’t walk away with that type of feeling. Obviously, Michelle did with the comments she’s made.

Moving right along. It’s pretty obvious that Rev. Wright was tired of the comments and opinions of those that differ from him because he spoke right up about them. I find it pretty funny that Obama came out and gave Wright his backing and Wright didn’t want to keep his mouth shut. Good man. Stand up for what you believe even if it’s wrong. He had a press conference where he stated that what he said was out of context. Okay… We can all agree that the media is notorious for that crap, but he left little to no explanation for the people who didn’t see the sermon. He simply stated that America reaped what it sewed. Tell that to the families that lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks and see how many agree with that line of reasoning. To top it all off, Wright even seemed to attack Obama during parts of his speech.

I’m sure that we all knew what was coming next. Obama renounced the comments made by Wright and stated that he’s now a different guy than he was 20 years ago. I seriously doubt that. Wright has found power by filling others with hate and anger which is much the same way other terrorists gained power. Maybe Obama’s a Manchurian candidate and he’s Wright’s ultimate plan. Wright has made sure that Obama distanced himself, so we wouldn’t see it coming, right? Haha.. I don’t seriously think that, but it is rather humorous to think about.

So, what’s next for Obama? More of the same stuff that he’s a great uniter, but he can’t even unite his church and ex-pastor with the rest of the country… or himself for that matter. Instead he’s decided to drive an even bigger divide between it all.

Obama: The great divider.

I’m sure you’ve heard of Sean Bell and the acquittal of the officers who killed him. I’ve done some research on this and I’ve found some odd occurrences that made me think differently. Let me present those to you.

First of all, we should start out with the story. I’ll keep it brief as possible as to not bore you with the same information. Sean and a couple buddies of his went out to a strip club the night before his wedding to celebrate his bachelor party. This club just so happened to be under police surveillance due to complaints of drugs, weapons, and other criminal activity. I’m sure that we can all appreciate the cops taking the complaints seriously enough to investigate. They had some undercover cops dressed in casual streetware in and outside the club.

Around 4am, the club was closing, so Sean and his buddies, like everyone else, were leaving. His buddies being of shady character, one had been incarcerated already, got into a verbal spat with another patron. Here’s when things go bad.

According to one of the cops inside the club, they heard one of the friends mention getting a gun. The cop started following the trio and had notified other undercover cops to pursue them as well. The cops let them get to the car, get inside the car, and get prepared to leave before jumping into action. To fit the cops’ story, Sean would’ve already had the car started as well. The cops surrounded the car and drew their guns. According to the cops, they yelled out that they were police. After that, the police stated that they felt that their lives were in danger, so they all opened fire. Between all the cops, they put 50 bullets into Sean to stop him from endangering their lives.

Upon searching the vehicle, the cops found no gun.

Hmmmm…

I don’t quite understand a few things. First of all, if the guys were going after a gun in the car, why wouldn’t have the police stopped them as they reached the car. That would’ve given the cops the upper hand because the guys wouldn’t have had a chance to get it out yet. Also, wouldn’t the cops have had enough sense that when leaving an area at 4am is going to make people a bit cautious? The cops should have reacted a bit calmer and shown their badges. That’s what identifies the police the best, in my opinion. No, they chose to jump out with five men dressed in casual clothes and draw their guns on the trio. They thought yelling police would make it ok. Here we have 5 men with guns pointed at three men in a car who only expected to be partying through the night. Like most partiers, we can probably assume that they left the radio on which would make it difficult to hear. Even if they did hear the cops yell “Police” common sense would tell me that a person would yell anything to distract me enough to shoot me. What do you think Sean and his buddies thought? Execution.

You can already see that this could’ve been a mistaken identity situation and that it was definitely handled badly. So, I’ll only make one more point. 50 bullets. Sure, shooting out the tires or even doing a non-lethal shot would’ve been a better choice, but the cops thought it was best to shoot Sean as much as possible. One of the cops even shot 31 rounds! Most police issued guns hold around 15-21 rounds so, this guy would’ve had to reload at least once. What did he think was going to happen with Sean, a stationary target?

These are the occurrences that I was speaking of. Obviously, this went to trial. The cops wanted a bench trial instead of a jury. I can understand why. It would’ve been hard for a jury to stay impartial, so the cops would’ve had a harder time convincing everyone that their actions were correct. Also, the main witnesses, Sean’s two friends, had a very shaky past which would have made a bigger influence on the judge.

I’m sure you would still like to know why the cops were acquitted. It was the testimony of the friends. The one accused of stating that he was going to get a gun had spent 5 years in prison for drug charges. Also, he didn’t have the right demeanor for the courthouse and was a bit aggressive on the stand. Here are my thoughts on that. There’s a completely different culture that the guys are from particularly the friend. Most of us could never completely understand it, but it’s a culture built on aggression and proving oneself. On the stand, the friend was made out to look like he was lying because he stated that he never said anything about getting a gun. That played into the lawyer’s hands all too well. The friend had a bit of an aggressive action which discredited the entire account to the judge. It was then up to the lawyers to discredit the few witnesses by comparing their past transgressions with the civil servant cops. It was a slam dunk.

While these cops are acquitted, I can only hope than the police can walk away learning something. Maybe it won’t be how to get away with murder and it will be what you should do in similar situations. More than likely, it won’t even be a learning experience at all. That’s our fair and balanced system.

Hello everyone! As you well know, this is the first entry for AvgOpinion. You may be wondering, why the fairly generic name? Why not something more personal or exciting? That’s because I wanted a name that conveys exactly what this is about. An average guy and his opinions on everyday life. I’ll be writing about politics, the economy, law, and anything else that I feel like giving my opinion about. It even could be a trip to the grocery store or a simple movie review.

Why am I doing this? I don’t think that the average person’s voice is heard enough. I don’t think that the upper echelon of people bother to look at things from the perspective of a normal person.

Who am I, really? While all this information will be in my About Me page, I figured a small description was still in order. I am in no way running for public office or have any other financial gain by writing these blogs. I am 27 years old and I work a Monday through Friday kind of job. I play video games and even cook on occasion. I am pretty outspoken and I love to hang out with friends. I deal with a lot of people and through that I have found that the average person doesn’t really feel that they are being heard. I hope to remedy that even if it doesn’t have an impact on anyone else besides me.

Last but not least. What do I really hope to achieve? I asked myself that for a while before making this blog. I didn’t have an answer. Really, I haven’t come much farther than that. I did realize a couple things which lead me to making the blog. First, I can’t expect to make an impact with a blog. It’s more of an outlet to me and a way for a reader to discuss what I’ve said. Whether you agree or disagree, I think introducing a forum of discussion is the best way to utilize intelligence and to be open to new ideas. Which brings me to my second realization; I would really like for others out there to comment on my blogs to bring up their ideas. I want to be inspired by other’s differing ideas and I would like to see who else has the same opinions I do. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to have regulars and even have some co-authors.

So, there you have it. An introduction to something a bit… average.