Are We the Victims?

I was watching some kind of all-news channel this morning.  Someone who, it was said, was an expert on energy, petroleum, the economy, etc, was on the show telling about how the price of gasoline will reach $3.00 per gallon by summer, and stay there for awhile.
He then said that we actually spend about $6.00 a gallon for our fuel when we consider the massive amount of money we spend to appease the countries that have the oil, protect with our military the oil supplies we tap, and pay for the balance of trade deficit.
I’m not at all surprised by that statement and suspect it is mostly true.  The cost may or may not be $6.00 a gallon, but we spend a considerable amount of money per barrel of oil beyond the actual cost of that barrel.
Think of what life would be like if we could tomorrow tell Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria and others that we no longer will purchase ANY oil from them.  Instead, we in North America (U.S., Canada, and Mexico) will be self-sufficient.  Think of the political ramifications of such a statement.  Think of the improvement to our economy that would happen overnight as we realize that the dollars we send overseas will instead be spent here at home.  Think of the massive military stand-down we could have and how many of our beloved troops could come home and spend their military careers on U.S. soil.
Think of the overnight improvement in our balance of trade.  We could tell China what they could do with their surplus of trade.  We could invigorate our domestic economy like never before.  Over 200 billion dollars annually would suddenly become available to domestic enterprises as we spent our money on energy at home instead of shipping those dollars by the boatload to the Arab sheiks.
In the next blog, I’ll tell you a sad, sad story of incompetence, greed, and failure.  And Americans are the victims.  Stay tuned.