Bogdan C. Enache

There’s a new subprime crisis in the news. Unlike the US original, however, which has sparked the worldwide recession, this one doesn’t involve only falling home prices but also falling economies. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe, after years of high growth fueled by investment from Western Europe, are now heading towards a recession.

Contemplating the grotesque potential side effects of bioethanol subsidies in the world’s most developed economies is almost unbearable. While everyone is affected by higher food prices, for some people, the more costly food puts their very subsistence into question. No doubt, the politicians who came up with the idea of subsidizing the diversion of grain to the production of bioethanol did not intend to starve the world’s poorest people; but the fact that the consequences were unintended does not absolve them of responsibility.