Well, it certainly would explain why Sen. Barack Obama doesn't seem to have a problem with high gas prices. It would benefit him through his close ties to the ethanol industry, which has seen its prices go through the roof because of extreme demand for corn.
Obama has benefited from his close ties to the ethanol industry, as it helped him win the Iowa caucus and propelled him to the nomination, but his ties are one that run counter to the needs of the nation. Combined with the current round of flooding in the Midwest, corn prices continue to rise, which means that the farmers and those who process the corn into ethanol are standing to benefit from those higher prices.
Of course, all those higher prices have to get passed on to the ultimate users - the consumers of food products and gasoline formulated with ethanol. Obama thinks that Americans can tolerate those higher gas prices, but as we're seeing, Americans are starting to change their spending habits as the prices push past $4. Americans might be better capable of adjusting to such changes, but that doesn't mean that it is a good idea for those prices to stay there, nor is it a good idea for Obama to continue proposing windfall profits taxes on the oil companies.
Indeed, it's never a good idea for a windfall profits tax since there's no such thing as a windfall profit, and the oil industry's profit margins are actually lower than many other industries. It's the sheer volume of oil sold that results in the huge numbers that carry the day in the media.
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