Many in this world are starving while we grow food to turn into fuel for automobiles.

[RC]

And to counter this starvation, we blow up women and children half way around the world, from the safety of an air conditioned room in Florida, California, Nevada or wherever.

What is wrong with us?

[Ikonoklast]

1. Starvation has little to do with food.

And mostly to do with politics.

India exports wheat, and now rice to the world market, for hard currency, while people starve in their streets.

[elleng]

3. Has to do with politics and market manipulation.

[KittyWampus]

7. Wait- I'd say it has to do with distribution which in turn has to do with politics/markets.

The reason I insert the step of Distribution is because it's an important concept/issue.

[elleng]

8. Of course, distribution is crucial.

Many countries have little ability to distribute, and that's for many reasons, internal and international 'poltics' among them. One of the things IMF + World Bank try to work on, isn't it?

As to 'market manipulation,' I was referring to commodity manipulation, resulting in 'unnatural' price increases, as we in U.S. experience re: oil/gas.

[AndyTiedye]

10. IMF/World Bank Seem Indifferent to Building Infrastructure

They are more into privatizing whatever infrastructure there already is. :grr:

[KittyWampus]

11. I'm not arguing... but I'd add we have a distribution problem here in the good ole USA >

Hence the Rightwing's need to demonize the words "redistribution of wealth".

Money and resources are like the life blood of the body politic. It needs to circulate throughout the whole body freely.

Right now, we have some cancerous tumors cutting off the flow to feet, so to speak.

[Odin2005]

13. +1,000,000,000,000,000,000!!! There is plenty of food, it just gets exported...

...rather than being used to feed starving people.

[FrodosPet]

2. Food Not Fuel

Got that right! Less biofuel (except "oil from algae"), more food, and more ships and trucks to get the food to the people, and more / better roads so the food can get there quickly and safely without destroying the trucks, and more stores and distribution centers to get the food to the people.

More warehouse, transportation, road crew and retail distribution jobs = WIN!

[AndyTiedye]

9. Of Course, Many of the Starving are in War Zones

So those building those roads and driving those trucks may suffer heavy casualties.

[mysuzuki2]

4. One thing I don't understand about this question:

there is actually quite a bit of sugar in cornstalks which could be turned into ethanol. Why not use the cob for food and make biofuel from the stalks?

[Recovered Repug]

6. Transportation and storage issues make it unfeasible.

[ellenfl]

5. farmers in america have long been paid to NOT grow certain

crops. where's your outrage?

ellen fl

[Maru Kitteh]

12. Are you outraged about the far greater % of corn used to unnaturally bloat animals in factory farms?

Abominations of nature that scar the landscape, ruin the environment, gobble up billions of tax-payers money in subsidies and are orders of magnitude less efficient than feeding people the food directly.

Only 3% of corn harvested is for human consumption.

I'd rather see a bigger portion of the balance used to burn as a cleaner alternative to dirty fossil fuel than to grossly inefficient, unsustainable, environment-killing factory animal production.

[AndyTiedye]

14. Buy Grass-Fed Beef Instead