When Paul Krugman joins a diverse group of pundits and publications in slamming ethanol, says Mark J. Perry, “it’s now official: Ethanol is a complete and total scam.”

Krugman’s April 7 column, “Grains Gone Wild,” discusses inefficiency in production of ethanol, global warming associated with its use, and displaced land use. Perry, a professor of economics and finance at University of Michigan at Flint, links to similar sentiments from The Wall Street Journal, Reason, the Cato Institute, Investor’s Business Daily, Rolling Stone, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, John Stossel, The Ecological Society of America, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation, George Will, and Time.

“So who is left out there supporting ethanol?” Perry asks. “You sure won’t find very many scientists, economists, policy groups, or editorial page contributors. But, ethanol has been very, very good to corn farmers and ethanol producers like Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), the largest producer of ethanol in the United States. ADM stock has quadrupled over the last five years, from about $10 to about $40 per share, an increase of 300 percent, while the S&P has only increased by about 50 percent during the same period.”