"THAR'S PORK IN THEM THAR HILLS"

A quarter-mile procession of trucks piled high with corn trundles concussively over the ruts on Distillery Road in the farm town of Pekin, Illinois, 163 miles south of Chicago.

The 18-wheelers are about to drop their loads at Aventine Renewable Energy LLC, an ethanol maker that Morgan Stanley bought for $66 million three years ago. Today, that investment is worth about $750 million, according to a company filing, as runaway oil prices spur an ethanol boom.

Investors and politicians from Wall Street to Detroit, to Silicon Valley are lavishing money and praise on the fuel made from corn. Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s announcement in May of a $26.9 million ethanol investment came after similar forays this year by billionaire Bill Gates and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, helping boost the shares of ethanol makers fourfold.
Aventine, which was planning an initial public offering for as early as June, is adding a total of about 500 million gallons of ethanol production in the next few years, a threefold increase.

Morgan Stanley spun off its buyout unit in 2004 into a new company called Metalmark Capital LLC, at which Abramson now serves as managing director. New York-based Metalmark manages the Morgan Stanley Capital Partners funds, which own a controlling 40 percent stake in Aventine. Abramson declined to be interviewed.

Climate Ark

From an initial $66 million dollar investment to a whopping cash cow that climbed in value to nearly $750 Million Dollars, investing in ethanol is looking more and more like the next PONZI scheme for the public.

If the ethanol business is such a money-making enterprise, then why is the public being forced to subsidize these "Ethanol Factories" with billions and billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies. These tax breaks are generously handed out at the local, state and federal level by our so-called "Public Servants" who are serving anything but the public when they hold for ransom our schools, infrastructure and our health.