When I went to school in the mid sixties I remember a discussion about oil and the teaching was that supplies would be exhausted by the turn of the century.

When I entered the U.S. in November of 1999 a gallon of petrol in Oklahoma fetched the princely sum of $1.00 per gallon and I told of $10.00 per gallon in England.

Now as a barrel of oil is only marginally less than Roman Abramovich’s transfer budget for Chelsea football club my local petrol station is current offering petrol at $3.80 per gallon.

Now the truck drivers across Europe are becoming restless and who can blame them?

The last time this happened in Blighty I had the privilege of taking talk show host Neil Boortz to task on his nationally syndicated radio program. He was “on air” sprouting about the “left wing” and how these truck drivers should capitulate etc. I told him a few home truths that his extensive research had somehow managed to miss.

He was unaware that in Great Britain the tax on a gallon of petrol was levied somewhere around 82% of the cost of a gallon. He was also unaware that the excuse given by respective governments for this high rate of taxation was “to cut pollution.” I offered the British public opinion that they were paying so that China and the U.S.A. could pollute at will and be subsidised by Britain to do it!

Let’s make no mistake here it is time for all citizens around the globe to stop following the government spin and start making the effort to be better informed.

In the U.S. the public are told that China is responsible for the shortage of oil.

Fact: China’s economy (whilst ramping up) is currently only about the size of the Italian economy.

Fact: There is no shortage of oil in the world at this time.

What there is is a shortage of refining capacity caused by short sighted governments and over greedy oil companies.

If we could all power our cars and trucks on hot air then we would have free global power supplies until they build a ski slope in hell because all we would need to do is tap the vast energy of our various government assemblies.

Am I advocating the overthrow of governments or promoting anarchy? No I am merely suggesting that the people should be better informed so that they can make the proper judgements about some of the supposed problems of our world.

I was recently on vacation in Rio and was surprised that this so called polluting country actually offered no less than four different fuels at its filling stations and that our guide was actually running his “people mover” on pressurised gas. During our visit we learned  that Rio’s population is around 17,000,000 and yet the only time we saw a traffic jam was coming away from a derby (two local teams for my American readers) football match where the attendance was near 100,000.

So where am I going with this?

Back in that rundown English school almost 50 years ago that boasted that Lord George Brown had been a pupil it was common knowledge that the supply of oil would eventually run out. So why in almost fifty years has research not been prioritised to find new forms of fuel that the citizens of this 21st century could use? Why is the world only now beginning to think about it when it is too late?

We are told day after day that the “free market economy” works…… Is it working now?

t.t.f.n.