Gas Prices...Is Someone Yanking our Chains?

Like any SUV driver, I watch gas prices rise and I cringe. My big Tahoe is pretty good, comparatively, getting 17.2 mpg overall. I use it to carry TV equipment, to shoot video of vehicles that we test, to carry wood for my dock, (I live on a lake) and to go to the dump every Saturday with our dog, Koto, who, for some reason, loves to go to the dump. Back to gas prices. Is it me or has anyone else noticed that the closer we get to the election on November 7th, the lower the price of gas goes. I am convinced that we are getting ripped off by the oil companies who make major contributions to politicians in Washington, write energy policy with the current administration and then get back their contributions by sticking it to all of us at the pumps. If you look at the price of gas over the past few years and few months, some startling realities appear:

In 2002, when Bush/Cheney took over, we were paying $1.31 a gallon. Oil was about $30 a barrel. Today, a barrel of oil is about $58. A few months ago it topped $70 a barrel and $3.15 a gallon. On the face of it, the consumer would assume that higher oil prices automatically yield proportionately higher gasoline prices. Not so. Here's proof: The price of oil accounts for just 59% of the cost of a gallon a gas. (Please see chart) The balance is taken up with taxes, 20%, (18.4 cents federal and about 24 cents on average for state) distribution, 11% and refining, 10%.

So, when the price of oil rises from $57 to $70, the cost of a gallon of gas should only rise by 23% or just under 30 cents per gallon.($70 minus $57 = $13 divided by $57 = 23%) multiplied by 59% X $2.20 (the cost of a gallon of gasoline when oil was $57 a barrel) So, all of us who have been paying between $3.00 and $3.50 per gallon should have been paying no more than $2.50 per gallon for regular! ($2.20 + $.30) What's worse, if we used the same ratios as existed in 2002, we'd pay even less: Just $2.09 a gallon! Our do-nothing congress had a few hearings and did nothing. No-one did the math, nor did they want to!

Now, along come the mid-term elections and the big oil companies who are supporting the current politicians in power are very worried. If their guys and gals get voted out, all of the money they spent helping them get elected will have been wasted and their gravy train might come to a halt. The answer: Lower the price of gasoline to make the public happy...in spite of record deficits, a needless war and a culture of corruption. So, with oil wells being capped in the Gulf of Mexico until prices rise again, the oil giants and politicians briefly stop picking our pockets to affect the election figuring that they can get it all back later...and then some!

Here's some more math: At $3.00 a gallon, we pay $1.80 for the crude oil priced at $70 a barrel. With oil at $57 a barrel, the cost of oil for a gallon of gas drops by 33 cents: $1.80 X $57 divided by $70 = $1.47 or $2.67 a gallon. Instead, regular gas has dropped to $2.15, a 250 percent difference!!!! Is someone yanking our chains in hopes that we'll be so happy to not get mugged by these jerks for a few weeks that we'll vote their puppets back into office and not hold the current administration accountable?

Now you may think that I am one of those conspiracy nuts but I am just a consumer who is "mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!!" If you are smart enough to see through the latest hoax from Washington and their friends in big oil, throw the bums out on November 7th! Maybe we'll get our country back and stop getting ripped off and manipulated by people who will do and say anything to stay in power. Ironically, like George Bush tried to say, "Fool me once, shame on you...full twice...um.....wawa won't get fooled again!"