A Joe Ragman from Ashton, Iowa had a letter in Thursday's paper attacking my challenge of ethanol. But he missed my point. One doesn't have to be an "expert" to think for himself. Nor does one have to be without error, right?
The major Bloomberg News article I quoted from states the big money is rushing out of corn-based ethanol. Even my brother is admitting abroad what he won't admit in the farm belt. Ethanol profits are collapsing. Do as the Fulda and Heron Lake farmers did, who called after seeing my letter -- check out the stock prices of the large publicly traded ethanol companies yourself. Huge losses in stock value!
The wholesale price for ethanol in Des Moines Jan. 17 was 41 percent higher than unleaded gas. The people putting finance packages together for new plants say some of them won't ever get built.
My Ashton friend appears to know little of the Bible. The entire point of the talking donkey was that the rebellious ass Balaam, who was riding the donkey, was blind to the truth of the messenger trying to shield him from harm. We have many such blind Balaam's around us today.
Finally, who is Joe S. Ragman from Ashton ... where an ethanol plant is located? His name is not in my printed phone book. I called a couple of long-time Ashton residents. They've never heard of him. In fact, searching whitepages.com I could not find one Iowan with last name Ragman. Not one! So where are you "Joe"? Or is this a pseudo name? If you are real, call me. I'm in the phone book.
