Fuel prices continuing to rise ultimately could cause a serious depression. The oil companies have decided to handcuff the world and make them bow to their wishes. Money could become worthless as fuel credits would become the new monetary exchange. The oil companies roll in the dough and laugh at the rest of us as we cry out in our misery.
BZZZT.... Sorry, wrong answer. You can thank your federal government for the rising fuel costs over here. On average you pay about 45% in taxes, per gallon, depending on where your at (2002 stats, I can only guess they went up). So say my rate was indeed 45%, with a current price of about $3.70 per gallon. That means for every gallon of gas I put in, I pay $1.48 in taxes. Seems a bit high me thinks. So if the UK is paying $8 a gallon, sounds about right that their taxes are at 80%. Btw, these taxes are on top of what you already pay in taxes taken out of your paycheck.
Now if high taxes aren't enough to convince you government is not on our side, consider this. Oil is world commodity, meaning its traded on depending on several factors, one of which is how much is produced. Since most of the oil being pumped out is in the middle east (a violent and unstable region) that only drives prices of crude oil higher. Add on to the fact that now India and China are becoming more and more industrialized, which means they consume more and more oil, again, driving prices higher. Tack on inflation, and its no wonder oil is at $125+ a barrel. Now, by now your thinking, were doomed. Actually no. It is estimated that between 1-3 TRILLION barrels of crude oil lies within our borders, and with a barrel holding about 50+ gallons, that comes to alot of gallons of gas for our cars, trucks, SUVs, planes, ect ect.
Ok, thats great right? so why aren't we drilling it. Ehhhh, you can thank your closest tree hugging nut for this problem. Because certain groups (greenpeace for one) have made a religion out of the environment, they've come to the conlcusion that we can't drill for our own oil, because it would kill some animal in alaska, or wreck our coasts or some other ill concieved notion.
Fact #1: ANWR, or Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge does contain alot of oil, however the area that we want to drill in is only the size of a postage stamp on a football (american) field. Thats not much, I'm positive we can make some sort of arrangement for the wildlife if it means energy independence.
Fact #2: We are not ruining the coast with our oil rigs, and very little of the actual sea life is hurt by our newer methods of drilling. In fact, in some cases, its helpful. Most oil rigs have huge concrete or other such pillars. Since this is in the water, coral and other wildlife tends to attach itself to the pillars, and behold a new reef is born. There was one rig that had to halt deconstruction because they found a rare coral that had started to grow on the bases, and it wasn't just one or two, it a whole bunch of the stuff.
Fact #3: Newer methods of drilling for oil in land is alot cleaner than it was 50 years ago.
Fact #4: The reason oil companies make so much, look at the sheer volume of gas that they sell in any given quarter. They are already taxed to death, they don't need "windfall" taxes. Just think, say we do impose "windfall" taxes, what happens to the gas prices, well they won't go down I'll tell you that much. They will probably go up, and to which the liberals will enforce "price caps", this is of course, not what our country was based on, and the market will collapse. Which creates even worse problems for this country.
So, before you go complaining about "big oil", start looking at your elected officials, Supply and demand bud, The way I see it, we need to start drilling for own oil instead of relying on the middle east (who aint our friends by any imagination) to supply our oil. I say down with the tree huggers and yes to our own energy independence via drilling for it.
Oh, and if anyone wants to argue with me on the tree-hugging issue, and how we must save the environment, here is my answer.
