Hypocrisy of oil

Mundus vult decipi ergo decipiatur translated means “The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.”

It is no small irony that this Latin phrase appears in the bottom right corner of the JOKER in a deck of bicycle playing cards.

Congressional hypocrites are reportedly having secret meetings about increasing domestic oil production because they are under increasing pressure to act. At the same time they are spreading increasing rations of manure mis and disinformation. Here’s a summary of basic facts to help you sift the wheat from chaff.

A barrel of oil is 42 gallons. Domestically produced oil amounts to 41 % of the oil we consumed in March of this year. Canada supplies 12% of our nation’s oil and 20 percent of all the oil we import.; Saudi Arabia (7 percent and 13 percent); Venezuela (6 percent and 11 percent); Nigeria (6 percent and 10 percent); and Mexico (5 percent and 8 percent).

All Persian Gulf countries account for only 16% of our foreign oil imports each year from 2005 to 2007. In fact, our Persian Gulf imports declined most of this decade, from a 15-year high of a little more than 1 billion barrels in 2001 to 791.9 million barrels in 2007.

One barrel of crude oil (which is 42 gallons), yields about 19.6 gallons of gasoline. The other 22.4 gallons go into the products like: diesel and jet fuels, heating oil, liquefied petroleum gas, lubricants, asphalt, plastics, synthetic fibers, detergents, fertilizers, ink, crayons, bubble gum, deodorant, tires, and heart valves.

We consumed about 390 million gallons of gas a day last year in our cars, trucks, recreational vehicles, boats, farm implements, and construction and landscaping equipment. Back when crude was $68 a barrel (that was just last year), it accounted for about 58 percent of the price of a gallon of gasoline. The rest of the price came from refining costs (17 percent), federal and state taxes (15 percent), and distribution and marketing (10 percent).

By the way, the price of crude accounts for about 77 percent of the cost of gas at $4 a gallon.

Californians pay 63.9 cents a gallon in state and federal fuel taxes, the most in the nation. plus an additional 6% state sales tax, with some paying another 1.25% county sales tax plus applicable local sales taxes. Same in Illinois , where Chicago motorists pay 12.75 cents per gallon on top of the 57.9 cents per gallon in state and federal taxes. Some Illinois motorists also pay a 6.25-percent sales tax. It’s ironic that in such states higher per gallon gasoline prices literally shovels tons of tax money to the treasury.

Politicians, pundits, and other TV talking heads don’t like to provide these answers, because facts get in the way of positions that pander to the mob. We don’t point fingers at Canada , because it’s de rigueur to paint the Saudis with the broad brush of blame. Folks float the idea of a moratorium on state and federal gasoline taxes without explaining its minimal impact on gas prices, or without mentioning the $3 sales tax some motorists pay on top of a $50 fill up. Policymakers don’t explain that oil trades in the dollar, which is weak vis-Ã -vis the Euro, because that would require solutions for strengthening the greenback.
And, it’s easier for simple minds to convince simpler minds to impose windfall-profit taxes on pension funds and owners of Individual Retirement Accounts who invest in oil companies than to take on credit card issuers charging double- and triple-digit interest rates to the millions of people using plastic to pay for food and fuel. Talk about irony.

And, we sure wouldn’t want to impose a windfall-profit tax on someone who goes from making $56,000 a year as, say, an Illinois legislator, to $165,000 a year as, say, a U.S. senator, an increase of nearly 200 percent (not counting book deals or real-estate related loans).

Edited from an article by John David Powell an award-winning writer and Internet columnist.