2023-09-01 01:22:00
When the socialists say that Guatemalan businessmen are mercantilists, patrimonialists and blah, blah, blah, what they think of is those businessmen who use their influence to obtain legislation that benefits them and treat affairs of state as their own affairs.
Not all businessmen are mercantilists and patrimonialists. In fact, most I know are heroes who get ahead despite stifling regulations, despite tax “chains with a ball”, despite the absence of a reliable administration of justice, despite invasions, blockades and acts of violence.
The “entrepreneurs”, as my friend Rómulo López Sabando calls them, are responsible for the socialist narrative finding an echo among consumers, voters and taxpayers.
Do you want an example? I’m dying to give you one for recent and evident.
As of 2024, in accordance with the fuel alcohol legislation, the Ministry of Energy will order the percentage of fuel alcohol or ethanol that must be mixed with the gasoline you use in your vehicle; and from 2025 you will have to use that mixture, yes, or yes.
Denatured anhydrous ethyl alcohol, for this purpose, is produced from sugar cane and the comb appeared! The excuse is that that alcohol generates fewer emissions that cause the greenhouse effect; but the truth is that there are entrepreneurs with the industrial capacity to produce ethanol and… well… you have to sell it. The producers of alcohol and those of renewable fuels applaud that there is a way to sell the product; but the obligatory question is: If the mixture is so good, why does its use have to be forced? Do not be deceived that it is going to be a market, because a characteristic of the market is that in it, the exchange is voluntary; and there is no voluntariness if consumers are not going to be able to choose between adding alcohol to the engines, or not.
Legislation to force the use of ethanol is negotiated between fuel importers and exporters, vehicle importers, and ethanol producers. Pure!entrepreneurs”, negotiating how to force you to use ethanol! Pure mercantilism and pure patrimonialism, without you -the user- being represented at the privilege distribution table. All with “technical, ecological, scientific and economic criteria”, of course! How could it be otherwise?
At the end of the day, those interest groups decide for you, and you have no choice but to use the product, without penalty of some kind. Regardless of whether you deem it reasonable to use it in your vehicle, or not.
Ethanol promoters see some advantages:
Since it oxygenates gasoline, it increases the octane rating, which supposedly helps decontaminate and gives more power to the engines. Replaces harmful additives such as lead and methyl tert-butyl ether. The demand for sugarcane increases, and “caeteris paribus”, improves the price of this raw material and the quality of life of those who are linked to the sugarcane/sugar industry agroindustry.
Peeeero has disadvantages:
Ethanol burns 25% to 30% faster than gasoline. Produced, as in Guatemala, from sugar cane, it increases the burning of the cane before harvest, which releases large amounts of methane and nitrous oxide. This would be solved by mechanizing the harvest process, but here there were already machinery burnt down when an attempt was made to do that. Combustion occurs at the wrong time. As ethanol contains water, it favors the corrosion of the injection system. This means that it will be common to have to change hoses, or valves, since they no longer work correctly due to this corrosion process; What you might save from cheap ethanol (and it remains to be seen if fuel prices will drop), you might have to spend on parts and labor. The use of ethanol raises the temperature of the gases that are expelled through the exhaust, in such a way that the complete system or the catalyst can be damaged due to the increase in their temperature, generating premature wear. The demand for cane increases, and “caeteris paribus” makes that raw material and its derivatives, such as sugar, more expensive, to the detriment of the quality of life of those who consume it.
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#Ethanol #entrepreneurs #ecoexcuses