Good New And Bad News

The good news is that American drove 53.2 billion miles fewer from November 2007-June 2008, compared with a year previous.  At 20 miles per gallon that is 2.66 billion gallons fewer used.  At fifty-five gallons per barrel, that is, well, that is a helluva lot of oil.  So less demand is a good thing?

 

Well, sort of.  The trouble with using approximately 5 billion gallons of a year less is that federal and state governments hit us with about .40 per gallon tax.  If my math is correct, that means the feds and state boys take in about $2 billion less in taxes.  And those taxes go to maintain, repair, and build our infrastructure, i.e. roads and bridges.

 

So what?  If we drive less, we’ll wear out the infrastructure at a slower pace.  Unfortunately, the bell has already tolled on that one.  Our infrastructure is worn out, and we need mega bucks investment to get it back in shape.  So, when we can afford to take a road trip we can worry even more about the bridges we drive over.  Great, I was already a gephyrophobic.  And yes, that does mean fear of bridges.

 

More good news, though it is old news.  We won the Cold War with Russia.  The bad news is we may lose the peace.  Guess which country has more undeveloped oil reserves, the U.S. or Russia?  If you said the U.S., congratulations on your patriotism, but you just flunked geography, or at least geopolitics.

 

And with oil reserves comes?  Bingo-power.  Oil rears its ugly head again.  We can’t live with it-it pollutes our atmosphere and wrecks our economy, but we can’t live without it, because we have nothing to replace it with.  Big oil is one gigantic crack dealer, and they aren’t about to let us kick the habit.

 

What was it again that brought about the fall of the Roman Empire?  I think it had something to do with the greed of the ruling class.  Interesting.

~ by Ron Meyer on August 16, 2008.