The national average cost of a gallon of gasoline reached $3.53 today. Crude oil closed today at $118.30 per barrel.To give you a little perspective of these ridiculously high costs, in January of 2001, gasoline was $1.63 per gallon and a barrel of oil was meager $28. As you can see, the price of gasoline has increased 117% but the price of oil has increased by a whopping 323% since the oil boys, Bush and Cheney took office.
What this proves about gasoline is that its higher costs are not because of refining capacity. In fact, one of the biggest fallacies, actually, it's an outright lie; about refining capacity is that, 'the U.S. hasn't increased its capacity to refine gasoline in 30 years'. This is a lie perpetrated by liars like Rush Limbaugh and then of course, regurgitated (cut and pasted) by his band of uneducated morons who are incapable of researching the facts on their own. But, you don't have to take my word for it you can get that information from of all sources, ExxonMobil;
The industry has increased [gasoline] refining capacity through the expansion of existing plants, adding the equivalent of a large new refinery every year for the last decade.- (page 5)Of course consumption, demand, has dramatically increased in the last few years and that certainly has a lot to do with the higher costs of oil.
The increased world consumption usually evokes the same Limbaugh sheep to whine about the lack of oil exploration in the U.S. and they always use ANWR as the basis of that. But if you read 'done that', you know what a red-herring that is.
Consumption is certainly a major factor in the increased cost of oil, but the biggest factor, especially over the last year, has been the drastic fall in the value or the dollar and that is a direct result of failed Republican fiscal policies that are directly attributable to $8.3 trillion of the $9.3 trillion U.S. debt.
To give you another perspective, the Euro was worth 94 cents when George W. Bush took office. Today it closed at $1.59. The dollar is the world currency that is used to purchase oil, so of course when it falls like it has under Bush, OPEC is going to increase the amount they will accept.
Bush has done so much damage to our economy and our dollar, that OPEC is now threatening to discontinue accepting it and if and when they do, $3.53 will be a bargain!
And you can thank the failed economic policies of Republicans for that.
