Is George Soros Responsible for Ending Ethanol Subsidies and Brazilian Import Tariffs?

As of the beginning of this year, Congress allowed ethanol subsidies to expire. It’s amazing that a 30 year subsidy ended with a whimper, instead of a howl. You would’ve thought the recipients of this largess, along with their elected representatives, would be screaming bloody murder; but it didn’t happen. Why? I say we take a look at one of the biggest manipulators in the history of finance.

George Soros has huge influence in the Democratic Party and the White House. Peter Schweizer documented the shenanigans of this evil genius in his book Throw Them All Out, as outlined in BigGovernment.com:

Mr. Soros met with Mr. Obama’s top economist on February 25, 2009 and twice more with senior officials in the Old Executive Office Building on March 24th and 25th as the stimulus plan was being crafted. Later, Mr. Soros also participated in discussions on financial reform.

Then, in the first quarter of 2009, Mr. Soros went on a stock buying spree in companies that ultimately benefited from the federal stimulus.

Soros doubled his holdings in medical manufacturer Hologic, a company that benefited from stimulus spending on medical systems

Soros tripled his holdings in fiber channel and software maker Emulus, a company that wound up scoring a large amount of federal funds going to infrastructure spending

Soros bought 210,000 shares in Cisco Systems, which came up big in the stimulus lottery

Soros also bought Extreme Networks, which, months later, said it was expanding broadband to rural America “as part of President Obama’s broadband strategy”

Soros bought 1.5 million shares in American Electric Power, a company Mr. Obama gave $1 billion to in June 2009
Soros bought shares in utility company Ameren, which bagged a $540 million Department of Energy loan

Soros bought 250,000 shares of Public Service Enterprise Group, 500,000 shares of NRG Energy, and almost a million shares of Entergy—all companies that came up winners in the Department of Energy taxpayer giveaway that produced the Solyndra debacle.

Soros bought into BioFuel Energy, a company that benefitted when the EPA announced a regulation on ethanol

Soros bought Powerspan in April 2009. Just weeks later, the clean-energy company landed $100 million from the Department of Energy

In the second quarter of 2009, Soros bought education technology giant Blackboard, which became a big recipient of education stimulus money

Soros also bought Burlington Northern Santa Fe and CSX, both beneficiaries of Mr. Obama’s plans for revitalizing the railroads

Soros bought Cognizant Technology Solutions, which scored stimulus funds in education and health care technology

Soros also bought 300,000 shares of Constellation Energy Group and 4.6 million shares of Covanta, both of which landed taxpayers’ money through the stimulus, the former of which bagged $200 million

So on the rare occasion that a government subsidy is allowed to expire, one must cast a suspect eye. And guess what? There is a connection. On the same day,Brazilian ethanol import tariffs also expired. And guess who is heavily invested in that industry? You guessed it: George Soros. Business Week reported the following in 2007:

BETTING BILLIONS

A host of investors seem to think Brazil's ethanol bet is worth it. On June 3, billionaire George Soros visited a Brazilian ethanol mill owned by Buenos Aires food and energy group Adecoagro. Soros is the leading shareholder in the company, which plans to invest $1 billion in four more Brazilian fuel projects by 2015. "We expect the returns to be highly attractive," says Adecoagro President Alan Boyce. In March, private equity firms Carlyle Group and Riverstone Holdings raised $240 million to fund Brazilian partners operating four ethanol mills. "We think ethanol will be a permanent part of the [global] fuel mix," says Riverstone Managing Director Michael B. Hoffman.

And Congress made damn sure of that. They passed a law in 2007 mandating the following ethanol consumption standards, as reported by the Heritage Foundation:

In the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil, the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) mandates that we need to consume 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022. EISA also contains a mandate within the mandate for advanced biofuels, with the applicable volume of cellulosic ethanol set at 250 million gallons this year, 500 million gallons in 2012, and ultimately hitting 16 billion gallons in 2022.

How propitious is that? If I didn’t know better, I would say George Soros had a hand in this. But that would be crazy. Wouldn’t it?


Source: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_25/b4039079.htm

http://biggovernment.com/whall/2011/11/21/george-soros-helped-craft-stimulus-then-invested-in-companies-benefiting/

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/08/17/the-ethanol-mandate-needs-to-go/

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&refer=latin_america&sid=aJU.tnrW4Bu8