Midwest floods may send gas up 15%

[flashl]

Soaring corn prices could increase the price of ethanol, driving up demand for oil and sending gas prices even higher. Some think it's time for Congress to act.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Continued flooding in Iowa and Illinois - the nation's top two corn-growing states - is inciting fears that the cost of the high-priced crop could soar even further, driving up ethanol and gas prices, too.

Days of heavy rain across the Midwest Corn Belt region have wreaked havoc on the crop, sending front-month prices to $7.08 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade Friday. Corn futures have risen for seven straight trading sessions.

Since ethanol - a mandated ingredient in U.S. gasoline - is produced domestically with corn, rising crop prices could send already-record gasoline prices even higher.

"The floods in the Midwest will have a major impact on ethanol," said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Alaron Trading in Chicago.

CNN

If one could possibly believe there is some beneficial effect from the floods in the Midwest, this is it. There will be a brief pause in the twofer memes of bio-fuel (gasohol) global food shortage reason for galloping prices.

[1monster]

1. Any excuse they can find to increase the price of gasoline... My mother's great-aunt's

third cousin's (twice removed) husband's grandmother's uncle's grandchild's cat fell off the television last night which explains why gas prices increased twenty-four cents a gallon this morning....

[rdenney]

8. I lost my DVD of "Girls Gone Wild 2008 ": so that mean gasoline goes up another .03 cents!!!

Just kidding, of course.........NOT. :-(

[glowing]

2. And there's the big problem... making biofuels from corn.... never in 100 years

should have been done with a crop like that...

[klyon]

5. When we started doing it we had a surplus of corn,

as I recall we were paying farmers not to grow to keep the price artificially high. Now we need to move on to other crops like hemp.

[glowing]

6. yes, we do...

and we need to produce different things.. different types of produce.... we are losing so many different varieties of fruits and veggies due to our farming practices.

[Demit]

3. Your last sentence is kind of unintelligible. Missing some words?

[flashl]

4. See #1. "Any excuse they can find to increase the price of gasoline"

[MadinMo]

7. I was thinking they might blame it on the upcoming summer solstice.

I agree, they will blame high prices on everything they can come up with.

[rdenney]

9. Come July 4th it's : Up, up and away !!!!!