INFLATION DECLINE WILL CONTINUE: PRANAB

Mukherjee hopes inflation decline will continue

                   Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said Sunday he hoped that the declining trend in headline inflation will continue and go down to six to seven percent by next March.

               'Headline inflation is still high, perilously close to double digits,' he told reporters after a meeting of chief ministers of southern states and heads of public sector banks with their headquarters in the south.

                Mukherjee, however, hoped that the declining trend will continue and by March, it will be six or seven percent

                 Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said Sunday he hoped that the declining trend in headline inflation will continue and go down to six to seven percent by next March.

              'Headline inflation is still high, perilously close to double digits,' he told reporters after a meeting of chief ministers of southern states and heads of public sector banks with their headquarters in the south.

               Mukherjee, however, hoped that the declining trend will continue and by March, it will be six or seven percent

EURO GAIN AFTER UP BEATING U.S

Asian shares, euro gain after upbeat U.S. data

Asian shares edged up and the euro slunk higher on Friday, as signs of strength in the U.S. economy temporarily broke through gloom over the European debt crisis that had driven a sell-off in riskier assets over the past three days.

U.S. stocks rose modestly on Thursday, after a fall in U.S. unemployment, a stronger-than-expected rise in regional factory activity and better-than-forecast results from FedEx Corp painted an improving picture of the economy.

Japan's Nikkei share average followed the trend, rising 0.4 percent, while MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.3 percent

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  Fake currency linked to terror: Pranab

Finance Minister Pranab Mukharjee said here Saturday the challenge of terrorism from across the border was not confined to danger of loss of life but a threat to the economy due to fake currency being smuggled into India.

He was in Bhopal to lay the foundation stone of a new bank note paper unit at the ordnance factory in Hoshangabad district in Madhya Pradesh.

'The government has met with major success in countering the challenge of fake currency by increasing production of currency note paper and use of ultra-modern printing techniques,' said Mukherjee while addressing the gathering.

He said the use of currency had increased due to rise in population, growth rate and per capita income. Till some years ago, paper for currency notes had to be imported, but now 90 percent of the paper for currency notes was being produced in the country.

The finance minister said that with the construction of this unit, the total capacity of producing currency paper will go up to 6,000 tonnes from 2,800 tonnes.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan appealed to Mukherjee to provide employment to maximum number of local people in the unit.

Director General, Currency, Bimla Julka said that the country will start producing all the paper for currency notes for its requirements from 2013.

SBI can't decide alone on debt restructuring of Kingfisher Airlines

 

India's largest lender the State Bank of India (SBI) alone cannot take a call on the debt restructuring of the cash-starved private carrier Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, CNBC TV-18 reported, citing SBI Chairman Pratip Chaudhuri said.

Meanwhile, media reports Wednesday said that Kingfisher Airlines will submit a 'fully documented' recapitalization proposal to SBI, which has the largest exposure to the airline, before the end of the week. The company has mandated SBI Capital Markets Ltd, a part of SBI, to assess its business and recapitalization needs.

According to a media report, Kingfisher has asked the lenders to provide for a short-term working capital requirement of about Rs 5 billion.

SBI, which has the largest exposure of around Rs 14.58 billion to the ailing carrier, owned 5.7% stake in Kingfisher as on quarter ended September 30.

Earlier, this year, the airline restructured its debt through conversion of about a third of its debt into shares and issuing them to lenders and founder companies.

Currently, Kingfisher -- the third largest private carrier of India by market share -- has a total outstanding loan liability of about Rs 64.19 billion.

 

Russia admitted to World Trade Organization

 

Global trade ministers Friday accepted Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The accession protocol was signed for Russia by Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina and for the WTO, by its Director General Pascal Lamy.

Russian deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov, President of the Swiss Confederation Micheline Calmy-Rey, and WTO ministers attended the ceremony of signing the accession protocol.

Russia has been working to join the WTO since 1993. The last remaining obstacle for its entry has been Georgia, which has refused to approve Russia's entry ever since the two countries fought a brief war in August 2008 when Georgia attacked South Ossetia to bring it back under Tbilisi's central control.

After the war, Russia recognised the independence of South Ossetia and another ex-Georgian republic, Abkhazia.

Earlier Friday, WTO ministerial conference approved all the documents relating to Russia's accession to the organisation including commitments on market access for goods and services.

Russia will become a full member of this international organisation with all its rights and responsibilities within 30 days of Russian ratification, expected to occur in the summer of 2012, Russian officials at the conference said.

 

India holds rates steady on growth concerns

India's central bank held key interest rates steady as it struggles to foster growth amid high inflation, and took steps to curb currency speculation, lifting the rupee from all-time lows Friday.

The Reserve Bank of India kept the short-term lending rate, or repo rate, at 8.5 percent and the reverse repo rate — the rate it pays to banks for deposits, at 7.5 percent. The bank also kept the cash reserve ratio for commercial lenders unchanged at 6.0 percent.

Growth slipped to a two-year low of 6.9 percent in the September quarter and industrial production fell 5.1 percent in October, its first contraction since June 2009. But inflation remains above 9 percent.

The bank's 13 rate hikes since March 2010 have kept it out of step with many other emerging economies, which have started to ease monetary policy as global growth slows.

The Reserve Bank noted that Brazil, Indonesia, Israel and Thailand have all cut their policy rates, while China cut reserve requirements.

In India, the Reserve Bank has been waging a lonely — and largely ineffective — fight on inflation. New Delhi has failed to back the bank with fiscal consolidation or enact difficult policy changes that could unlock supply-side bottlenecks, pushing down prices and unleashing growth.

India is largely a cash economy, so rate hikes have little direct impact on most consumer demand. They do, however, hit investment, which can curtail supply and make inflation even worse.

Brazil seeking $10 bn from Chevron for oil spill

Brazilian federal prosecutors are seeking 20 billion reais (some $10 billion) in damages from US oil supermajor Chevron and Swiss-based Transocean for an oil spill that began in early November.

The prosecutor's office in the southeastern city of Campos, Rio de Janeiro state, filed a civil suit Wednesday in which it also requested a court injunction to halt the companies' operations and a daily fine of 500 million reais ($266.8 million) in case of non-compliance, the official Agencia Brasil news agency said.

In a statement, federal prosecutor Eduardo Santos Oliveira said Chevron and Transocean, the drilling contractor at the offshore well where the accident occurred, were unable to contain the spill and reduce its impact and used an 'inefficient' technique in their clean-up efforts.

Separately, a court granted a request by the Fishermen's Federation of Rio de Janeiro for an independent expert evaluation of the oil spill's potential damage to fishing production in the region, where some 10,000 people ply that trade.

The spill began Nov 8 at an appraisal well in the offshore Campos basin due to an 'unexpected pressure spike or 'kick'' during 'drilling toward a targeted reservoir', Chevron said in its preliminary assessment of the incident.

The San Ramon, California-based company estimates that a total of 2,400 barrels of crude leaked from the well, although Rio de Janeiro state officials say close to 15,000 barrels were spilled.

The company dispersed or recovered the majority of the crude that rose to the surface and the oil sheen, located some 120 km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state, has almost completely dissipated.

Final Glance: Internet companies

Shares of some top internet companies were mixed at the close of trading:

Akamai Technologies rose $.35 or 1.3 percent, to $27.01.

Amazon rose $1.05 or .6 percent, to $181.26.

eBay fell $.67 or 2.2 percent, to $29.60.

Google rose $1.47 or .2 percent, to $619.54.

Yahoo rose $.14 or .9 percent, to $15.16.

BlackBerry maker RIM's net income falls in 3Q

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. said Thursday that BlackBerry sales will fall sharply in the holiday quarter, providing further evidence that it is struggling to compete with the iPhone and smartphones running Google's Android software.

RIM said its net income sank 71 percent as revenue fell and the company took a large accounting charge because it had to sell its PlayBook tablet computer at a deep discount.

RIM earned $265 million, or 51 cents per share, for the quarter that ended Nov. 26. This compares with $911 million, or $1.74 per share, a year ago.

The Canadian company said revenue fell 6 percent to $5.2 billion.

The company shipped 14.1 million BlackBerry smartphones during the third quarter and 150,000 PlayBook tablets, but its guidance received particular attention because it had warned about the third-quarter results earlier. Although RIM has said it would sell fewer BlackBerrys in the current quarter, the forecast given Thursday appeared worse than expected.

RIM said it would only ship between 11 million and 12 million BlackBerrys in the fourth quarter and said earnings would be in the range of 80 to 95 cents per share.

Peter Misek, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. in New York, said earlier that if RIM reveals that it will ship no more than 12 million BlackBerrys in the current quarter, then the company needs to get its new phones out fast. Otherwise, RIM could lose money in future quarters as it continues to struggle to sell the current, stopgap models.

On Thursday, BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis said the guidance was terrible. He questioned when RIM will be able to come out with its next-generation BlackBerry 10 phones, formerly known as BBX. Analysts say RIM's future depends on the new software platform, but many of them expect the launch to be delayed until the second half of next year.

Jim Balsillie, one of the company's co-CEOs, acknowledged the challenges facing the once-iconic company and said executives are working to turn it around.

"It may take some time to realize the benefits of these efforts and the platform transition that we are undertaking, but we continue to believe that RIM has the right set of strengths and capabilities to maintain a leading role in the mobile communications industry," Balsillie said in a statement.

RIM is still deep in a struggle to compete with the iPhone and smartphones running Google's Android software. It's also having a hard time finding a niche in the tablet computer market, which is dominated by Apple's iPad.

RIM's stock fell $1.04, or nearly 7 percent, to $14.09 in extended trading Thursday after the results were released.

NYSE stocks posting largest volume decreases

A look at the 10 biggest volume decliners on New York Stock Exchange at the close of trading:

Blackrock New York Municipal 2018 Term Trust : Approximately 500 shares changed hands, a 89.9 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares rose $.01 or .1 percent to $16.68.

Cash Store Financial Service Inc. : Approximately 3,800 shares changed hands, a 76.9 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares rose $.05 or .8 percent to $6.00.

Goodrich Corp. : Approximately 624,200 shares changed hands, a 83.2 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares remained unchanged at $122.75.

Helios Strat Inco : Approximately 4,800 shares changed hands, a 77.4 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares rose $.02 or .4 percent to $5.43.

Kenneth Cole Productions Inc. : Approximately 9,900 shares changed hands, a 75.9 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares fell $.09 or .8 percent to $10.78.

McCormick voting : Approximately 100 shares changed hands, a 90.4 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares rose $.27 or .6 percent to $49.04.

Moog Inc. class B : Approximately 100 shares changed hands, a 79.8 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares rose $.25 or .6 percent to $41.75.

Sabine Royalty Trust : Approximately 3,500 shares changed hands, a 78.0 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares rose $.36 or .6 percent to $64.11.

Saratoga Investment Corp. : Approximately 1,100 shares changed hands, a 87.7 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares rose $.03 or .2 percent to $13.43.

Wiley John B : Approximately 200 shares changed hands, a 82.3 decrease from its 65-day average volume. The shares fell $.07 or .2 percent to $43.96.

Oil firms cut jet fuel prices by 1.38 percent

State-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs) Thursday pared jet fuel prices by 1.38 percent or Rs.833 per kilo litre (kl), effective from Dec 16.

With this, the air turbine fuel (ATF) prices at Delhi's IGI airport will come down from Rs.64,622.34 per kilo litre to Rs.63,739 per kilo litre from midnight Thursday.

The price cut comes after the OMCs Nov 30 hiked the fuel cost by 3.70 percent. The OMCs had previously increased the prices by 1.95 percent on Nov 15.

The OMCs revise ATF prices on every 1st and 16th of the month based on the average international crude oil price during the fortnight.

The latest cut is expected to reduce the burden on the industry, which has seen many airlines reporting losses owing to the high cost of jet fuel.

'Any reduction in ATF prices is a welcome step. But there is still a long way to go in rationalizing our domestic ATF prices which are nearly 50-60 percent higher than that in our competing markets like Middle East and Southeast Asia,' Amber Dubey, director, aviation for the global consultancy firm KPMG, told IANS.

Earlier, Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi informed parliament that domestic jet fuel is being sold at a much higher price than other Asian cities like Kuala Lumpur, where ATF is sold at Rs.41,009.33 per kilo litre, followed by Singapore at Rs.42,289.90 and Dubai at Rs.43,087.33.

The ATF cost accounts for nearly 50 percent of the operating cost of any airline. Jet fuel prices also vary from state to state which levy sales tax on the ATF in the region of 3 to 35 percent.

'Various taxes imposed by government on ATF is one of the reasons for higher cost of domestic aviation fuel,' Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi had informed the parliament.

Jet fuel prices have increased by 30 percent since December 2010, and domestic airlines are expected to lose Rs.3,500 crore in the first six months of this fiscal.

Owing to high jet fuel and interest costs, three major airlines -- Kingfisher, Jet and SpiceJet -- have reported heavy second-quarter losses.

Flag carrier Air India and its subsidiaries owe Rs.1,563.67 crore to Indian Oil Corp, followed by Rs.409.82 crore to Bharat Petroleum Corp and Rs.337.16 crore to Hindustan Petroleum Corp.

PM SEES FDI IN RETAIL AFTER MARCH

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expects to succeed in his push to open the domestic retail market to foreign companies after regional elections conclude by the end of March, according to an interview published by Bloomberg on Wednesday.

The government earlier this month suspended plans to open India's $450 billion supermarket sector to foreign firms such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc, backtracking from one of the government's boldest reforms in years in the face of a huge political backlash.

In the interview, Singh also reiterated that India's economy would return to a long-term growth rate of 9 per cent as inflation slows and the government extends market-opening policies, Bloomberg reported.

"We will stay the course," Singh was quoted as saying. "We will make India an eminently bankable and creditworthy economy."

Separately, Singh said at an event in New Delhi: "We have set for ourselves an ambitious target of 9 per cent annual growth in GDP in the 12th Five Year Plan (ending March 2017)."

  SOME NAFTA FUN

• Before NAFTA, Mexico imported 2% of its corn. Now it imports 50%.
• We're exporting extra meat and poultry to Mexico as well.
• To prevent this whole mess Mexico had federally owned corn stores that would buy excess corn from farmers when the price dropped too low. This was ruled an infringement of NAFTA.
• The amount of food one can buy with a day's wages has been halved.
• NAFTA's planners actually planned for people to leave the countryside and work in factories, but that emigration never stopped. 300 people/day leave the countryside.
• Privatization of Mexican government services, which actually preceded NAFTA, was sped up. In other words, Mexican train manufacturers were replaced with big American companies who could do it cheaper.
• NAFTA was hoped to create investment in Mexican industry. In Guadalajara, multi nations such as HP, IBM, and Intel built offices. The area was called "Silicon Valley South" in 1998. But by 2003 all these offices were relocated to China and 20,000 jobs were lost. The remaining manufacturers were on a contract basis.
• NAFTA ended the provision that forced American automakers to buy some percentage of auto parts from Mexico, immediately collapsing a large industry. So much for boosting the economy!
• Largest retailer in Mexico: Wal-Mart.
• One of Mexicans' biggest sources of income today: $23 billion of paychecks from illegal immigrants in the US.
• Without illegal immigration, families living under NAFTA cannot buy clean food, live in their own house, or send children to school.
• Illegal immigrants have no OSHA rights, or human rights such as the minimum wage, or the right to organize. In other words, unlike American citizens, they can be treated like expendable animals and placed in dangerous situations with no protection.

Asian Development Bank to finance Himachal Pradesh Energy Project

India and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) today signed an agreement for the first tranche under the 350 million dollars 'Himachal Pradesh Clean Energy Transmission Investment Programme', which is a multi-tranche financing facility.

The total estimated investment cost of the programme is 437.85 million dollars, which includes financing of 87.85 million dollars by the Himachal Pradesh Government.

The signatories were Venu Rajamony Joint Secretary (Multilateral Institutions), Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, on behalf of the Government of India, and Hun Kim, ADB Country Director for India.

Deepak Sanan, Principal Secretary (Power) and Vijay Kumar Kaprate, Director (Planning and Contracts) signed the project agreements on behalf of the State Government and the Utility Himachal Pradesh Power Transmission Corporation Ltd. (HPPTCL) respectively.

Speaking on the occasion, Rajamony said that this programme would help in upgrading the transmission system of Himachal Pradesh to take advantage of its vast hydropower resources.

"It will not only contribute to economic development in Himachal Pradesh, but will also enable a clean, indigenous source of energy to flow to other parts of the country where demand is rising as a result of strong economic growth, he added.

Hun Kim stated that the programme will fund much needed new high voltage lines and other transmission infrastructure to allow the state to increase output to meet growing local and national demand for electricity.

ADB's loan has a 25-year term including grace period of five years and interest determined in accordance with ADB's LIBOR-based lending facility.

Himachal Pradesh, a small mountainous state with five major rivers, has about a quarter of India's total hydropower generation potential. It wants to scale up generation, but its transmission facilities in certain locations are currently unable to handle large amounts of additional power

US to hold major auction of oil and gas leases

 The US announced that it will hold a major auction of oil and gas leases in the US Gulf of Mexico.

In a statement, the government said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will travel to New Orleans Wednesday to hold a major oil and gas lease sale covering more than 85,000 sq. km in the Gulf of Mexico - a move that comes 18 months after BP's massive oil spill, the largest in the country's history.

The sale of rights to the deepwater tracts also comes on the heels of last week's lease sale covering more than 567 sq. km in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve.

The initiative is one of several steps, including additional lease sales, offshore lease extensions and steps to streamline permitting, that are aimed at meeting a series of directives announced by Obama in May, the White House said.

Those moves, which have included licenses to drill in areas of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico that were previously off-limits, are aimed at achieving the president's goal of 'expanding safe and responsible domestic oil and gas production'.

The Department of the Interior estimates that Wednesday's lease sale could result in the production of between 222 million and 423 million barrels of oil and up to 2.65 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the White House said.

The administration also noted that, in the wake of the oil spill resulting from the April 20, 2010, explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, it put in place 'unprecedented safety reforms for offshore drilling, working with industry to improve practices and oversight'.

Those steps, the White House said, will ensure these new areas are developed safely.

Since implementing the new safety standards, the administration has 'approved 97 shallow water permits in the Gulf of Mexico and 211 permits for activities at 60 deepwater wells', the statement said.

Rupee at new low

The rupee tumbled to a record low of Rs 53.88 to a dollar ' the third consecutive day that it has been roiled ' as worse-than-expected inflation numbers and a strengthening dollar across global markets spelt bad news for the Indian currency.

Dealers and analysts expect that the rupee, which closed at 53.72 on Wednesday, will fall further to Rs 56 to 57 to a dollar as early as the end of this month as worsening external economic conditions refuse to abate.

"We see the rupee sliding to 55-56 on account of which global investors will pull out funds amid fast deteriorating economic health," said Samir Gilani, head (derivatives) at Mape Securities.

C. Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, said India could do little to check the fall in the rupee as the slide was driven by external factors especially the appreciation of the dollar. The rupee has been Asia's worst performing currency this year.

Economists said the RBI's hands-off approach and lack of intervention in the forex market might be a result of the tight liquidity conditions in the money market. Other factors impacting the slide include significant redemption of foreign currency convertible bonds by foreign institutional investors as well as repatriation of funds by FIIs as the year draws to a close.

However, credit rating agency Moody's said the falling rupee would only have a moderate impact on Indian companies. Market men have expressed worries about the impact of the rupee slide on companies with large foreign debt. Moody's said rupee depreciation affected the Tata group's manufacturing companies with large foreign operations, while Tata Steel is the most "vulnerable" in the group. Indian exporters especially the technology firms are likely to benefit from the strengthening greenback.

Food inflation slips sharply to 4.35 percent

India's annual food inflation fell sharply to 4.35 percent for the week ended Dec 3, the lowest in nearly four years, as prices of onion, potato and other vegetables declined their fall, official data showed Thursday.

The food inflation has been on a downtrend for more than a month, falling from the double digits seen in October. Policymakers have said it should fall to below 3 percent within a month.

The decline in food inflation would give much needed relief to common people and policymakers who have been struggling for almost the last two years to control price rise.

It will also bolster the case for reversing the Reserve Bank of India's tight monetary policy. The RBI has hiked key policy rates 13 times since the beginning of 2010 to control price rise.

However, headline inflation based on the wholesale price index was still at elevated levels in November, recorded at 9.11 percent.

The primary articles index, which has a 20.12 percent weightage in the wholesale price index, dropped to 5.48 percent for the week under review as compared to 6.92 percent in the previous week, according to data released by the commerce and industry ministry.

The fuel and power index slipped marginally to 15.24 percent.

The following are the yearly rise and fall in prices in the week under review of some main commodities that form the sub-index for food articles:

Onions: (-) 46.03 percent

Vegetables: (-) 12.28 percent

Fruits: 9.37 percent

Potatoes: (-) 33.28 percent

Eggs, meat, fish: 9.26 percent

Cereals: 1.85 percent

Rice: 2.04 percent

Wheat: (-) 4.43 percent

Pulses: 11.76 percent

Global markets - Euro steady, focus on Switzerland and Spain

The euro steadied just off new 11-month lows on Thursday, with eyes fixed on a Swiss National Bank meeting to consider its campaign of currency intervention while a Spanish bond auction will offer more signs on the depth of Europe's debt crisis.

The prospect of more sovereign ratings downgrades and a gloomy outlook for the euro zone economy after two-years of turmoil has depressed demand for European stocks and much of the region's debt, prompting safe-haven buying of the U.S. dollar, Treasuries and German government bonds.

"Overall, the outlook for the euro remains dark, with the unravelling of the treaty last week, refusal to lend to the IMF and the overall downside risks to global growth," said Paul Robson, currency strategist at RBS Global Banking.

"We expect the euro to fall to $1.26 by the end of Q1 next year."

The Swiss central bank is not expected to do much but some investors are worried that the recent fall in the euro could prompt it to raise the permissible exchange rate with the franc.

The SNB set a cap of 1.20 francs to the euro on September 6 to try to shield the economy from recession, after investors seeking a safe-haven from the euro zone debt turmoil almost pushed the unit to parity against the single currency in August.

There is no sign of the surge in inflation which the intervention policy risks, rather Switzerland is increasingly threatened by a downward deflationary spiral.

"Speculation remains intense that the SNB will act by lifting the euro-Swiss floor higher, possibly towards 1.2500," Credit Suisse analyst Koon How Heng said in a note.

The Spanish bond auction is also key after a rise in Italy's borrowing costs on Wednesday sent the euro down and depressed equity markets.

The government plans to issue up to 3.5 billion euros in debt maturing in Jan 2016, April 2020 and April 2021 but they are likely to pay 2 percentage points less to shift five-year paper than Italy did on Wednesday.

Flash euro zone, German and French PMIs for December are likely to paint a grim picture.

A private sector survey out earlier indicated China's factory output will shrink again in December, adding to the headwinds facing a global economy struggling with sluggish U.S. growth and the euro zone's problems.

"We're quite bearish about the world at the moment," said Damien Boey, equity strategist at Credit Suisse in Sydney. "You're looking at basically the three major economies in the world causing problems."

European shares stated slightly firmer but were expected to have a mixed day as liquidity dries up ahead of the year end. The FTS Eurofirst 300 index was up about 0.3 percent in early trade.

THE FALSE PROMISE OF BIOFUELS

EIGHT BASIC QUESTIONS ABOUT  BIOFUELS

                              

                 IT IS A RARE OCCURRENCE when President Bush, major environmental organizations, the agriculture community various federal and state politicians, and even some “peak oil” educators, appear to agree on an issue. The recent expansion of ethanol from corn production is just such an issue. It is a very attractive idea to think that we can satisfy our voracious appetite for inexpensive liquid fuel from a renewable resource such as corn. But is it justified? Is the large-scale domestic production of corn-based ethanol going to provide “energy independence” from foreign oil as claimed, as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions, revitalize the farm belt, keep the U.S. economy growing, and replace the global decline in petroleum production with the advent of Peak Oil?