EXPENSIVE BEER

If you order a pint of beer in an English pub, it will cost you about $5.00. Yes! Five dollars! That’s outrageous! Unless something is done, five-dollar-a-pint beer will be coming to America.

Ethanol is the reason for the big run-up in the cost of beer. Farmers are switching from other crops to grow corn to be made into ethanol. That has pushed up the price of food around the world and the cost of beer.

In theory ethanol seems like a good thing. The more ethanol we put into our gas tanks, the less petroleum. We reduce our dependence on foreign oil and help the environment at the same time. When gasoline costs $4.00 a gallon, ethanol costs less than gas, a win-win situation.

The problem is, when gas costs $2.00 a gallon, it is cheaper than ethanol. But that isn’t the real problem. The real problem is that ethanol really isn’t any better than petroleum for the environment. When woodlands are cleared to make room for corn crops, we lose the carbon dioxide absorbing quality of all those trees, thus releasing more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. So ethanol made from corn costs motorists more than gasoline, and its influence on the environment in the long run is the same of that of petroleum.

The influence of ethanol on the economy is negative. Food costs more and becomes scarcer in third-world countries. And the price of beer keeps going up.

Let’s stop this madness before beer becomes too expensive for Joe the plumber and other ordinary Americans.

WHAT ABOUT CHEAP BEER?

What a mess! The price of gasoline has doubled in the past year. Food prices keep going up. Where will it stop?

People in India and China and other places are starting to enjoy a standard of living that Americans have taken for granted for years. There is more demand for petroleum around the world than ever before. The oil producing countries probably cannot keep up with demand. Petroleum is contributing to global warming. Something needs to be done, and the production of ethanol is probably a good place to start.

The problem is, we have not gone about it very wisely. We are growing more corn for ethanol, which means less for food for export to poor countries. The problem with corn ethanol is that it produces just two units of energy for every unit it uses. We’re all paying for that tiny bit of extra energy because the government subsidizes rich farmers to grow that corn.

Brazil creates ethanol from sugar cane, a much more efficient process. Sugar ethanol creates eight units of energy for every unit of energy used. Sugar cane requires a tropical climate, but we could import ethanol from Brazil. The problem is, there is a 54-cent-a-gallon tariff on Brazilian sugar cane ethanol.

That makes a lot of sense. We support inefficient corn ethanol through subsidies while keeping out efficient sugar ethanol through tariffs.

Through all of this the cost of beer keeps growing up. Instead of growing barley to make beer, farmers are growing corn for inefficient ethanol production.

Dr. Carl Perrin is no longer in the presidential race, but he is still eager to serve the country. He is volunteering his services as a sub-cabinet officer, perhaps in the Department of Agriculture. In this role he would see to it that barley crops are subsidized. This needs to be done soon to keep the price of beer affordable to working people and to senior citizens!

ALARMING TREND

According to the British Beer and Pub Association, the number of pints of beer sold in British pubs has declined by 22 percent since 1979. Part of the reason for this decline is a rise in taxes on the brew. In the last ten years the tax on beer has grown by 27 percent. The increased cost of barley has also added to the cost of beer. A lot of Britons have switched to wine! It boggles the mind.

We don’t want to be alarmists, but we must face the facts. The same thing could happen in America. American farmers who once grew barley are now growing corn to be made into ethanol. Democratic candidate Dr. Carl Perrin wants to see price supports for barley, so we can keep the price of beer affordable to the average working person.

Dr. Perrin does not want to see America become a country of effete, Francophile, wine-drinking snobs. Perrin is the beer-drinking man’s candidate. Perrin: a man of the people, and the people’s choice.

ENDORSEMENT FOR DR CARL PERRIN

I heartily endorse Dr. Carl Perrin in his campaign for the nomination as Democratic candidate for the presidency of the United States. I have known Carl since our days in Σ Τ G fraternity at good old Keene Teachers College in New Hampshire. I can also tell you that Carl has enjoyed cheap beer since those days. (He could really put it away!) Also, like all of us at good old Sigma, he was a Red Sox fan. I am told that he remained a fan of the Sox through his time in the Midwest, the South, and even now in New Jersey (Yankees territory).

We all missed Carl when he, along with a half a dozen other members of our fraternity, enlisted in the army during the Korean War. Instead of coming back to Keene after he got out of the army, Carl went to UNH. While at UNH he worked the second shift at General Electric in Somersworth, NH, while taking a full academic load during the day at the university. I believe Carl is the only candidate of either party who has actually worked in a factory.

Beer drinking, Red Sox rooting, factory working Dr Carl Perrin is truly the people’s candidate. If you don’t work to elect him and vote for him, there must be something wrong with your head.

J. Pierpont Peaseblossom
Σ Τ G

A VOTE FOR PERRIN IS A VOTE FOR CHEAP BEER

CROP SUPPORTS FOR BARLEY

There is general agreement among Carl Perrin’s friends and family that he is the best qualified among the dozens of candidates, both Democrat and Republican, for the presidency. Once he starts raising more money and getting his name out, the voters will recognize this and vote him in.

Because Perrin is getting better known every day, people are beginning to ask where he stands on the issues. Perrin is a serious candidate and knows people have these questions, so he is sharing his view on one major issue in this blog.

While Perrin is all for corn being used for the production of ethanol to cut down on the burning of fossil fuels and decreasing our dependency on foreign oil, he does not think this should be done at the expense of growing less barley. Malt is made from barley, and beer is made from malt. When farmers stop growing barley because corn is more profitable, there is less malt for making beer, and the price of beer has been going up steadily in the last year.

The Declaration of Independence, which we recently celebrated, cited certain “inalienable rights,” among which was the “pursuit of happiness.” If the price of beer makes it prohibitive to the average American, a lot of people ain’t gonna be happy.

We must do something now. Candidate Perrin calls for government crop supports for barley. There needs to be an incentive for farmers to grow enough barley to keep the price of beer from rising any further.

You will not see Perrin waffling on an important issue like this. When it comes to keeping cheap beer available, Perrin tells it like it is.

KEEP CHEAP BEER

NATIONAL CRISIS

My fellow Americans, we are now facing an emergency: The price of beer is going up! Just yesterday we wrote about the consequences of using sake for automobile fuel. We warned that it could happen to beer. We would be faced with the dilemma of whether to use a keg of beer to go to work or to use it for a party. We are now at that turning point in our history.

A six pack costs three percent more than it did a year ago. That’s the biggest increase in several years. If you go to your local tavern and get a cold draft beer, the increase in price is even more, almost four percent. It couldn’t come at a worst time, just when we need a couple of cold ones to get ourselves through the latest hot spell.

Of course the price of everything goes up. The cost of glass, cardboard, energy, transportation, etc. have gone up, but what has made the cost of beer increase faster than inflation is barley, which has increased seventeen percent since last year. Beer is made from malt, which is made from barley. It’s frightening.

What has pushed the price of barley up so high? Just one thing: farmers who used to grow barley are now cultivating more lucrative grains, especially corn. Why corn? Because it is used in make ethanol to be used as automobile fuel.

We have no objection to farmers’ growing crops for ethanol, but does it have to be barley? Does it have to be something that affects the price of beer? If we had any kind of government, there would be crop supports to keep the price of barley low for Americans. When Carl Perrin becomes president of the United States, you won’t see people having to choose being cheap beer and automobile fuel.

ALTERNATIVE FUEL

FILL IT UP WITH SAKE

At some point in the future Japanese cars might be running on sake, rice wine, rather than on straight gasoline. A project in Shinanomachi, Japan, is experimenting with rice-based ethanol to burn in their automobiles. The experiments involve waste materials such as rice husks being converted into material that can be used along with gasoline to power their cars. We think this is a good idea—as long as they keep it in Japan.

If the Japanese want to get a gallon of rice wine and then decide whether they want to drink it or put it in the tank, that’s fine, but if we move that venue to the U. S. and imagine ourselves with a keg of beer, that’s a different story. Are we going to use the beer to get to work this week, or are we going to have a keg party? You can see the problem.

First they came and took all the sake to use for automobile fuel, and I didn’t protest because I don’t really like sake. Then they came and took all the tequila for fuel, and I didn’t protest because of an unfortunate incident some years ago. Eventually it’s going to come to beer, and it will be too late to protest. We want to stop this thing in its tracks before someone throws all the beer into the gas tank.