Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

Two stories today.  First, Forget fuel costs, U.S. farmers cheer oil surge, at Reuters:

Not too long ago, a surge in oil prices such as this week's would have caused a groan of misery from the U.S. farm belt, forced to pay higher prices for tractor fuel and fertilizer. Today, farmers are far more likely to cheer.

The farm sector's response to a surge in fuel costs has inverted for two important reasons: the rise of biofuels now means more corn and soybeans are likely to be drawn into the fuel pool; and the disconnect between natural gas and crude prices means fertilizer costs are not being dragged higher.

While neither trend is new, it's been put in sharp relief this week as U.S. oil prices surged to $100 for the first time since 2008 amid Middle East unrest. U.S. crude futures rose toward $100 per barrel again on Friday before easing.

On balance, the surge is far more likely to lend support for a near-record corn sowing season than it is to crimp farm income through higher costs for crop chemicals and transportation charges, analysts say.

Second, Why Wouldn't the Tea Party Shut It Down, by Frank Rich:

The 2011 rebels are to the right of their 1995 antecedents in any case. That’s why this battle, ostensibly over the deficit, is so much larger than the sum of its line-item parts. The highest priority of America’s current political radicals is not to balance government budgets but to wage ideological warfare in Washington and state capitals alike. The relatively few dollars that would be saved by the proposed slashing of federal spending on Planned Parenthood and Head Start don’t dent the deficit; the cuts merely savage programs the right abhors. In Wisconsin, where state workers capitulated to Gov. Scott Walker’s demands for financial concessions, the radical Republicans’ only remaining task is to destroy labor’s right to collective bargaining.
That’s not to say there is no fiscal mission in the right’s agenda, both nationally and locally — only that the mission has nothing to do with deficit reduction. The real goal is to reward the G.O.P.’s wealthiest patrons by crippling what remains of organized labor, by wrecking the government agencies charged with regulating and policing corporations, and, as always, by rewarding the wealthiest with more tax breaks. The bankrupt moral equation codified in the Bush era — that tax cuts tilted to the highest bracket were a higher priority even than paying for two wars — is now a given. The once-bedrock American values of shared sacrifice and equal economic opportunity have been overrun. (emphasis mine)