December 18, 2025 • 61 mins
For most of modern history, the world has run on oil. In the US and abroad, the price of gasoline is often the subject of intense concern, and prices at the pump vary widely. The difference of a few dollars per gallon can incite widespread unrest. But there's a question rarely asked: How much should gas actually cost?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow conspiracy realist in an earlier episode that we recorded.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
We recorded just now.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Uh dolet you guys remember you were setting me up
for a classic like Jerry Seinfeld thing, Oh.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
You know, a good old what's the deal with?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
And Okay, the question came up as to whether he
ever actually said that, but I.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Think yeah, I think it was the sixty Minutes guy
Andy Rooney said, what's the deal with anyway?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Uh, what's the deal with gasoloid? Uh? It's expensive, that's
what Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Uh. Do you guys get gas on a regular basis
for your vehicles or endeavors.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
It's usually after eating wealth of beans. That's when I
find it to be the worst.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Matt's Oh no, no, we're talking about the kind of
goes in your cah see that you pocked it habbit.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I like to tie my gas trips with Costco because
the guess is maybe slightly less expensive there, though the
jury is maybe a little out on whether Costco is
a good deal or not.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Wait, do you have a cost Co membership?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I do.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I have an executive membership, Ben, What is it like
At the time I truly entered the ranks of adulthood.
I quite enjoy a good cost co adventure, and they
do have gas, and it does seem to hold to
a slightly different pricing model than what you might see
at the pump.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Which can be a little willy and or nilly.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
And that's based on a lot of factors that we're
going to talk about in this classic episode.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
Ooh, that's right.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
What are the factors that go into that price at
the pump?
Speaker 5 (01:28):
That's what this episode's about.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
I know that it doesn't sound that exciting, but oh,
let's assure you it is.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
It's also very topical given the political climate that we
find ourselves in and a lot of the promises about
how these prices can be controlled for the better and
whether or not they actually are.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, and this is from twenty twenty However, now more
than ever you might be interested in this conversation. Also
check out our episode recently from twenty twenty five on
Russia's shadow Fleet.
Speaker 6 (02:05):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
A production of.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
IHEARTRADI welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
My name is Nol.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul. Mission control decands, most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. We hope that this
episode finds you well and relatively sane despite all the
plot twists of what is still somehow twenty twenty. Today's
(02:55):
episode is inspired by one of our fellow conspiracy realist
and Hello radio man, Come to find Mike out there
in Vancouver. Mike, you called us to say.
Speaker 7 (03:06):
This, Hi guys, I like your show a lot. I
challenge you to do a show on the full true
cost of gas. For background, there was a time when
all our tanks and jeeps were painted green. We were
defending Europe and maintaining that ability. Then one day all
(03:26):
our tanks and everything started being painted sand tanned color,
indication that the military industrial complex was all about getting oil.
I am somebody who specializes and works in the field
of energy efficiency and thinks it's ridiculous that we're still
(03:48):
using oil for energy. Neil de Grassi Tyson has a
quote that said if aliens landed, it'd be embarrassed to
admit that we still use carbon energy from the ground.
The full true cost of gas on our healthcare system,
on our environment, on the taxpayer's checkbook is astronomical. I
(04:14):
challenge you to find that full true cost gas per
for a gallon of gas. It's around forty five dollars easily. Anyway,
Love your show, Love to listen to you guys, banter,
your great COVID companions, Take care and all the best
to all of you. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
So this is a fantastic question, Mike. As any economists
can tell us, the price at your local pump can
make a huge difference in the day to day function
of not just your town, not just your neck of
the global woods, but the state of your nation, and
on a macro scale, the state of the world empires
(04:58):
have collapsed if they have collapsed again, all to ensure
that when you roll up to our local speedway, as
the most common gas station in the US, by the way,
you'll be able to top off that car. And petroleum,
of course, isn't just used for gas. It's used for
a multitude of other things, and electric cars are an
(05:18):
increasingly viable alternative, but the world still has had serious
problems moving away from fossil fuels, and that's not a coincidence.
We have massively powerful vested interest and globe trotting institutions
dedicated to the maintenance and growth of the oil industry
for one reason or another. This industry employs millions of people,
(05:41):
it generates billions of dollars, and for decades people have
been raising concerns about that Texas tee, that black gold
powering the world. But today's question, to your point, Mike,
how much does gas actually cost? Here are the facts.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well, as of.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Twenty sixteen, the United States consumed more gasoline than any
other country in the world, and the average household has
spent about two thousand dollars a year on gas. Individual
drivers used pre pandemic and average of five hundred and
fifty seven gallons of gas each year and today being
July tenth, as we record this, the average cost of
(06:24):
a gallon of gas, which is about three point eight
liters for our metric system folks out there, is two
dollars and eighteen cents two point one eighty four dollars.
That's according to Triple A. There's certainly a lot lower
than it's been in recent years. I think when we
saw a decrease in driving due to the pandemic. I'm
(06:46):
not sure exactly how that supply and demand system works,
but gas prices definitely went way down. So remember back
in twenty eleven when gas was about four dollars a gallon,
And you know, you guys all know that this definitely
varies from state to state, especially out west, where things
tend to be.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
A good bit higher.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Yeah, and there's so much variability in fact, just within
the United States, but there are a lot of other
things that affect that price. We're going to get into
a little bit later. Prices, you know, if you're out west,
tend to be about twenty percent higher than that national
average that we're talking about here. And specifically if you're
in California, and anyone who has lived there at any
(07:27):
point or lives there now can tell you and assure
you that those prices can be a lot higher, maybe
fifty percent higher than that national average. But you know,
and then again, if you're traveling around the country, let's
say you're in the Midwest or in the South, the
prices actually tend to be about five to ten percent
lower than what you'd find on the national average. You know,
(07:49):
I think the three the four of us here at
stuff they want, you know, can attest to that part.
If you go to the Northeast, though, prices are only
I mean, you're a little bit higher, maybe about five
percent higher than the national average. So you really tell
that there's a lot of variants. But there's also a
lot of other stuff, like we said, that goes into
that price.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
It seems to kind of follow cost of living type things.
You know, are taxes, I mean, taxes in California are
higher in general, and cost of living in California in
general is a lot higher. I don't know, that's just observationally,
it seems to follow to follow those trends. But there
absolutely are a lot of other factors like economic unrest,
global shortages, and even seasonal variations that can really have
(08:32):
an impact on the price that you pay at the pump.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
And yes, as you pointed out there we're going to
talk about later, offsetting the price by paying for gasoline
in essentially roundabout ways or other ways is a major
factor in how cheap gas is in the US. And
we're going to talk about that.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And let's let's let's admit this is going to be
a bit US centric because we have so much data there.
But we also have to acknowledge Europe. As you might
imagine or have unfortunately experienced, Gasoline or petrol, whatever you
want to call it in Europe tends to be higher
than gas in the States or in Canada. This is
(09:11):
due to higher rates of taxation, and it makes prices
historically around three to four times higher than in the US.
But we can flip it in other parts of the world.
Consider many oil rich countries. Some other countries have subsidized
gas costs. That makes it cheaper for people to buy
gas than taxation. You know, taxation makes it naturally more expensive.
(09:36):
Places like you know, you can already imagine some of
these places off the top of your head, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Venezuela,
and so on. They've all subsidized gas at some point.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
In the US and the.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
US, ecuadors on the list, Bolivia's on the list. But
these have subsidized more. Well, it's tricky. They have done
more direct subsidizzation than the US. Perhaps this makes sense
to the leaders of these countries because subsidizing this cost
makes it easier cough cough, cheaper cough cough to transport
(10:12):
people and goods. But it also means that people are
going to be less efficient with gas, and it can
spell huge problems down the line, both in terms of
the climate obviously, but also in terms of the economy.
We have to remember, a country too dependent on a
single resource is never truly safe. And then, of course,
(10:32):
we did US and Canada, we did Europe, we did
oil rich countries. We have to think about the rest
of the world because saying the cost of gas at
the pump is it feels safe and it feels correct,
but it's inaccurate.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
It's correct been the price at the pump metric that
we're talking about here doesn't factor in all kinds of
things like let's say a person's income or a family's
a household's income. So let's let's make up an example
here with some made up numbers. Let's say gas costs
in some made up country ten dollars per gallon. Sounds
(11:08):
sounds intense, but let's say ten dollars per gallon for gasoline.
Let's say everybody in this country makes an exact wage
of four hundred thousand dollars a year. Woo, right, Okay,
that seems like a lot of money to me at least.
But if you're you know, if you make that much
money and you have to pay ten dollars per gallon,
(11:30):
that's not that big of a deal. It's not going
to break your bank. You're you're not going to be
worried about going into debt because you have to buy
ten dollars gas. Sure, it's all relative, and we really
do have to consider this relationship between how much in
this case we would say a household makes right because
there's going to be shared income, shared expenses, we really
(11:50):
have to consider that relationship between all the money that
a household takes in and how much they have to
expend on gasoline. So it may be more helpful, I guess,
in this instance to really think about gasoline in terms
of local affordability.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, yeah, so's There's a really interesting Bloomberg report from
twenty sixteen that looks at not the average price of
gas at the pump around the world, but the most
affordable gas in the world. And they arrive at this
calculation by comparing gas prices in different countries to the
average national paycheck. Right and back in twenty sixteen, before
(12:31):
a lot of things change. Venezuela had the world's most
affordable gas, which is interesting. A lot of people may have,
you know, somewhat plausibly assumed it would be a Middle
Eastern country, But in twenty sixteen, gas in Venezuela was
the equivalent of two cents a gallon two cents US
and this was in a country where the average daily
(12:51):
wage how they defined paycheck there was about sixteen dollars
and fourteen cents. Obviously this changed as the past few
years have been to put it diplomatically, incredibly tough on
the country. But just with that we can already see
how the price at any given pump does not tell
you the full story about the cost. So what determines
(13:13):
the price it is spoiler alert, it's definitely not that
person working behind the counter at your local sitco. Please
give them a break. Gas stations make most of their
money off of the snacks and other things that they
sell you. The gas is just to get you in
the door.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Have you guys ever seen that show Nathan for you?
Oh yeah, there's a really great episode where he you know,
the whole conceit is that he's trying to, you know,
improve the earnings of like small businesses or whatever with
these hair brain schemes, And one of them is that
he goes to a gas station and gets them to
like offer an absurdly low gas price in California, as
(13:54):
we will flock to it. But you only get that
price with a rebate, so you have to pay the
full price. But to get the rebate, you have to
like do this like quest up to the top of
this mountain to find like this box where you put
in the rebate, and it ends up being like, you know,
people take this shuttle to the foot of the mountain,
and then people gradually drop off, and then it ends
(14:16):
with him and like three of the people that stick
around kind of becoming the best of friends, only for
him to come.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Clean and say there is no rebate.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
But yeah, that's to your point, Ben, I mean, you know,
it's like it's all set. I actually worked at a
gas station, and you know how we would change our
gas prices.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
We would look at the other gas station across the
street and just match it or make it like a
cent lower. It was very very rudimentary.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
But no, it's definitely you know, determined by a whole
lot of factor's taxes, supply chain, supply and demand, capacity
of refineries, and even the time.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Of year all have huge impacts.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Our former parent company, how Stuff Works has a fantastic
article explaining this whole calculation and how gas prices work,
and here's a quote from that.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Price increases generally occur when the world crude oil market
tightens and lowers inventories. Also, growing demand can sometimes outpace
refinery capacity. In the spring, refineries perform maintenance, which can
place a pinch on the gasoline market. By the end
of May, refineries are usually back to full capacity.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Is it kind of a similar calculus to like the
way the Fed kind of controls interest rates and stuff, Like,
when you know, they make a decision to lower the
interest rate, you know, than that changes a lot of
things within the system. I mean, that's sort of a
rough example, but it's sort of a similar.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, Well, they're definitely they're definitely interrelated because when the
FED considers that, they are also considering crude oil prices.
But it's sort of like, at the risk of offending economists,
predicting the actions and results of systems this large, it's
(16:01):
very similar to trying to figure out what the weather
is going to be like, if you're a meteorologist back
in the seventies, you can make good guesses, you can
have things you want to happen, but there's so many
intervening variables, and that's why it's tough to ask ourselves
what does gas actually cost? And then necessarily the question follows,
(16:21):
what should it cost? This quickly becomes an expensive, complicated question,
and in some cases this cost also becomes the stuff
they don't want you to know. But who are they?
We'll dive into this after a word from our sponsor.
(16:46):
Here's where it gets crazy. So the true cost of
gasoline depends almost entirely on what we allow to factor
into the equation, and the way people approach or ignore
those factors can create a vast range of conclusions anywhere
(17:07):
from fifteen dollars per gallon to as you said, Mike,
forty five dollars or distressingly more. And there are powerful
forces that in the past and maybe even the present,
don't want you to know the full cost of gasoline.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
And we do have to point out here we've talked
about it on this show before, We've talked with people
who know about this kind of thing. In the past,
we have seen that large oil interests have worked together,
whether it's you know, in something like opek where it's
a little more forward facing where you can, you know,
(17:46):
you can kind of see it happening, or if it's
you know, behind closed doors, they've worked together to downplay
the full cost all the other things that factor into
that oil price. I mean, if you think about it,
there are lobbyists out there, attorneys out there who have
made millions of dollars taking action like this, and they're
(18:07):
also an ethical scientists who've cherry picked data. We've seen
that before. We talked about it on a previous episode.
Politicians are out there on television and the radio, spinning
the language, spinning the facts like dervishes from that you
know that Madonna video you remember great, Oh it really
was great.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Tornado work actually wrote that song never mind, move on.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Yes, they they are tornadoes of slight misinformation.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Just as bulls. That's the word you're looking for.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
So so let's let's consider this because if we think
about the true cost of casoline, we have to examine
what economists sometimes call externalities. Externalities is just a fancy
it's a fancy word. Wearing a tie that means this
associated costs that are borne by society at large but
(19:05):
are not directly included in the price you pay at
the pump. One of the first ones.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Obviously, would be.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
The environmental costs. Let's take an example from California, since
we already mentioned some stuff about California's higher than average prices.
A single gallon of gas in California produces about twenty
five pounds of what are called greenhouse gases. Longtime listeners,
(19:35):
you've heard us talk about this before. These aren't a conspiracy,
but there have been conspiracies surrounding the degree of their
effects on the environment. Greenhouse gases are things like carbon dioxide, methane,
nitrous oxide, fluorinated gases, and also just to be fair
water vapor. For a fun comparison, think about this five pounds.
(20:01):
It's about the same weight as a small to medium dog,
like a cocker spaniel.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
It's also, it's always crazy to me to think about
these kinds of emissions measured in pounds. It's just like,
you know, because it's relatively If you think of like
the weight of a gas, you think it's like, okay,
that's basically.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Weightless, but it's not.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
And it's massive amounts of impact on the environment and
on the atmosphere.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
When you think about that number, it's pretty mind boggling.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
And don't forget that the average US driver buys about
five hundred and fifty seven gallons of gas per year.
Multiply that by two hundred and thirty eight million cars,
you know, and not to mention like the much less
fuel efficient and more polluting trucks and SUVs and hummers,
and man, that's a lot of poundage of this stuff
(20:51):
being pumped out into into the atmosphere day in and
day out, an absolute crap ton of gas.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
I just want to shout out Sarah Terry Cobo and
the Center for Investigative Reporting for making a video about
this topic where we're getting a lot of this information.
Is really just a great video you can check out
right now. It's called The Price of Gas. Check it
out when you get a chance.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
So, with all of this driving, with all this gas buying,
a single driver on average within the United States creates
or generates, let's say, through that use, about ten thousand
pounds of greenhouse gas pollution each year.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
And to continue these whimsical zoological comparisons, ten thousand pounds
is about three thousand pounds less than an African bush elephant,
a male or bull African bush elephant. So think of
it like, every every year, if you're an average driver
(21:54):
in the US, you're putting out a small elephant's weight
worth of greenhouse gas pollution. Doesn't matter where you drive,
how you drive, what kind.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Of vehicle you drive, and it takes almost an entire
acre of forests to absorb that level of pollution. So
for a cocktail Napkin estimate, let's say for Earth to
handle the annual gas related pollution from cars plus those
trucks and SUVs.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Let's keep in.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Mind that that's just the daily average of driving vehicles
in the United States. It could take a forest the
size of the entire state of California and Nevada and
another smaller state to absorb this level of pollution. So
the question becomes, if we're looking at this hypothetical gallon
(22:42):
of gas situation in California, how did we get here?
So why, Like all things that we try to do
on the show, let's take it back to the source,
the source of the oil itself. That crude in Saudi Arabia.
According to the Center for Investigative Reporting. This is how
the process works. The crude oil, which is, like the
(23:02):
name implies, this has been unrefined raw material. You should
not put this stuff in your gas tank. It's pumped
into these gigantic, massive oil tankers. The biggest one holds
a believe up to two million barrels of oil. This
process releases about two pounds of greenhouse gas for every
(23:22):
gallon of what will ultimately become gasoline. That ship travels
about eleven thousand miles to California, the site of our
hypothetical situation here. When the crude reaches a refinery in California,
it's mixed with oil from other parts of the world.
Then it's heated, melted, burned to make different types of
fuel and other industrial products petroleum based products.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So this process creates about three and a half pounds
of greenhouse gas for every gallon of gas you get
at the pump. For comparison here, you know, I can't
come up with an animal off the top of my head,
but it's like the weight of a maybe a two
(24:08):
sliced toaster. So you get a toaster for every gallon
every one of those two million gallons now we're shipping
that refined gas from the refinery to the station, right,
Because it doesn't directly go through a pipe from a
refinery to your local stuckies. I'm just going to see
(24:30):
how many gas stations I can name in this episode.
You Instead, it goes through a tanker, right, It's transported
by a truck. You see them all the time. On average,
these tankers are going to travel about fifty miles in
the US to deliver the cargo. And when it's transferring
the gas from the tanker to the tank at the
(24:52):
gas station, some of that gas evaporates. It makes more
greenhouse gas as well as benzene, and benzene is one
of those things you smell when you pull up into
a gas station. When you remove the gas cap, there's
more evaporation. When you pick up the pump, there's more evaporation.
But now finally you have the gas. You have a
(25:14):
small piece of that gas all the way from Saudi Arabia,
and you start driving maybe to another gas station, like
a quick trip or a circle k.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Yeah, and then you just you know, continue on down
the line because there's always more environmental cost to be
paid with this kind of thing. And it really does
depend a lot on what vehicle you've chosen to drive.
You may be essentially pre paying for some of the
environmental costs and the energy production for your electric car
or if you are in a you know, a gas
(25:46):
powered vehicle. There's going to be things like the weather
that are going to affect how you're driving, things like
your mood even or the music you're listening to. I
know that sounds strange, but that might affect how much
it goes in to this. And also the type of gas, right,
how refined is it? Is it regular or is it
that premium good stuff or what's the middling one called like, okay.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Mid grade, I guess.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
The mid stuff. On average. When you're looking at this
extra environmental cost, you're talking about a little over nineteen
maybe twenty pounds of greenhouse gas pollution per gallon, And
this part, the driving around section, that's where you're actually
letting off the most pollution, around three quarters of the total.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Which is crazy because you know, often in the past
different factors have been blamed for the pollution, but we
have to keep in mind it's the daily driver who
is burning the fuel, right, It's us. We are three
fourths of that cocker spaniel when we get behind the wheel,
which out of context is a very strange statement to say,
(27:00):
holds up. And so when we think about pollution, we
have to remember we're talking about a long term price.
It's almost like a layaway costs. Something everyone on earth
has to pay for in some way over the course
of their time here, even if they never drive, never
touch a car, and you know, later generations descendants of
(27:23):
this species will pay some part of that price as well.
It just might not feel as steep right now because
the bill doesn't come due immediately, and it doesn't come
due through a single avenue.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah, And it's like, you know, unfortunately, there are coalitions
that would would have us take these hidden costs into account,
and the idea of you know, creating some kind of
consensus globally about how much you know, we want to
put out there, how much greenhouse gases we want to
put out there, But a lot of that stuff is
not enforceable. A lot of that stuff is just sort
(27:58):
of like an honor system kind of situation, and our
country in particular right now, because of leadership.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Is moving even further and further away from that.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
So you know, to our callers point about aliens coming
and being embarrassed that we're still deriving our energy from
this dinosaur juice that comes out of the ground, It's
kind of true. And it really does feel like a
lot of it is just stacked against us because of
those corporate interests and because I mean, this is all
kind of statingly obvious. But yeah, and you know, Ben,
(28:30):
to your point, and once you wrote here in the outline,
this isn't just tree hugger kind of flim flammering.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
They should not be just dismissed.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
There's absolutely a cost in terms of human lives, in
terms of cost of our environment and the habitability of
our planet.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah. Yeah, and I think you make a good point
about the problems of cooperation. It also goes into the
problems of inequality. Imagine your developing nation, right, and other
developed nations like US or Western Europe are all of
a sudden changing the rules of the game. So now
you are not allowed the same industrial revolution that these
(29:09):
other countries encountered earlier. Of course you're going to be
irritated at that. That's halfway through the basketball game or
the football game. Someone moves the goalpost it feels a
lot like stacking the odds against you. This works on
a microeconomic scale too. It is deceptively easy for someone
(29:31):
in a higher socioeconomic status, someone who can individually bear
the increased costs of a fossil fuel free lifestyle, to
kind of look down their nose at the rest of
the world, a world I should mention in which, by
the way, the average household makes less than the equivalent
of ten thousand dollars US a year, and look down
(29:51):
their noses people are less fortunate and say, well, just
do better. First, that's a dick move, and worse than
being a dick move, it's incorrect. There has to be
some kind of transition, some kind of plan. A world
that found itself suddenly without oil would almost immediately collapse.
And even if you feel pretty secure right now, that
(30:13):
collapse is gonna rock your two. No one would be immune.
And honestly, the militaries of the world know this. That
is why, in a very real way, the modern history
of oil is also the modern history of war. What
are we talking about. We'll tell you after a word
from our sponsor, and we're back.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
So you know you've probably listened to this show once
or twice. Maybe this is your first time, congratulations, But
if you've been around for a while, you're probably familiar
with the concept that world militaries, governments, large corporations. There's
a lot of truth to the stereotype, specifically that governments
(31:05):
and militaries within those governments are controlled by those governments,
are pretty wasteful when it comes to spending at times.
Corruption it just runs wild within these organizations, and you know,
especially at the tops, and you know, one of the
we've talked about before, one of the major reasons for
(31:26):
that is the need to increase budgets over time. That's
why you'll see what we would consider maybe wasteful spending
because you always have to get a little bit more
for the next time around. And you can really apply
this thinking and this observation when it comes to gasoline
(31:47):
and oil usage within militaries.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
It reminds me of, to your point, Matt, that story
about how the Air Force spent thirteen dollars apiece for
these like reheating coffee cups because because they were like
poorly built and their handles would break, so they just
dropped like hundreds and thousands of dollars hundreds of thousands
(32:10):
of dollars on these things with absolutely no oversight. And finally,
of course, when it, you know, reaches the public, oh,
put the we'll put a stop to that or whatever.
But that's that kind of stuff unchecked happens, you know,
all the time. And I really want to refer back.
I've I've been wanting to mention this the whole episode.
I thought our callers point about changing the colors of
the humvies and stuff was really interesting and I never
(32:32):
thought of it that way because I think he's really
saying more on the symbolic level. But it I think
it's it's apt, right, Like, so, you know, we used
to go to war and like jungle regions and all
of that, and then our you know, in our in
our tanks and stuff, we're camouflaged green. And now that's
that that switch to the sand colored camouflage really has
(32:53):
signified the shifts towards where our motivations truly lie.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Which is what this section of the S is about.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
I mean, it's beyond symbolism, right, because the green camo
won't work in the desert. They could spot you from
kilometers away. But it's I think it's a very I
agree with you, guys. I think it's a very astute observation.
Of course, it changed, and it changed for a reason,
and you know, think about this. So everybody listening now
(33:24):
has presumably survived April and May of twenty twenty, hopefully,
And if you are listening to this from beyond the grave,
beyond this mortal veil, please send us an email where
conspiracy adiheartradio dot com. But if you're alive, then you
know full well that in April of this year, gas
(33:45):
prices plummeted. Plummeted is not even an adequate word, and
in some cases crude for a time, crude oil took
on a negative value. This was a real problem for
speculators who control a lot of the oil and oil
futures market because they were starting to run out of
(34:05):
places to store all this excess oil. No one was
driving to your point Nol due to a pandemic, and
a lot of businesses were closed. In May of this year,
when a barrel of something like West Texas Intermediate Crew
cost around twenty bucks twenty bucks twenty bucks for a
barrel that works out to about fifty cents US for
(34:27):
a gallon. Uncle Sam was still paying slightly over ten
dollars per gallon for some types of fuel. Now hold on,
you might say, I see the three card Monte switcheroo
that you guys just pulled. Armies pay for different types
of fuel, right, some of which is specialized. This is
(34:47):
therefore not a fair comparison. Hell yeah, okay, you caught us.
The military is paying ten dollars and four cents per
gallon for a type of fuel called JPL eight as
jet propulsion fuel eight psyche as they used to say
in the nineties. Kidding again, the.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Rascal, we're the rascals.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
The global average price for JPL eight isn't supposed to
be ten dollars. It's supposed to be two to three
dollars per gallon. And where does all this money to
pay these inflated gas costs come from? If you pay
taxes in the United States, it comes from you.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
But unfortunately, while the the problem that we're dealing with
in twenty twenty might just be a symptom of mismanagement
and of course corruption and a lot of these lobbies
that we're talking about, the long standing problem goes way
way deeper, and it's at least in part a function
(35:48):
of all of those logistics and supply chains and opening
up the supply and closing it down like we were
talking about with that fed effect. So back in nine
the Pentagon report that the quote fully burdened cost of fuel.
I love that term burdened there. It's very telling, meaning
that cost once you factor in all of these things,
(36:10):
including those I believe ben including those externalities, right like
the cost of hospital stays and things like that.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Or no, not necessarily, no.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
No, no, they were factoring that, or may they may
have factored it. Actually, they may have factored in maybe
cost of injury for people who are transporting fuel, but
probably not.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Probably not.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
So let's be conservative here and just assume that this
refers mainly to the cost of the refinement process and
for moving it from A to B from where the
crude comes out of the ground to where it gets
refined to how it's then transported to the pumps and
an into your car.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
I would say they might they might bring in the
cost of securing certain areas maybe or military basis. I
don't know, just saying that might actually be a part
of it.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
It's a good point, and that's the kind of stuff
that we probably aren't gonna see like in ledgers. You
know what I mean, because to your point been earlier,
there is so much stuff that I want you to
know about this whole process. Uh, for good reason as
far as Uncle Sam's concerned. But that number, to backtrack
a little bit, cost of refinement, transport and.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Who knows what else.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
But let's just assume that this refinement transport and you
know the process of getting it from the refineries to
the actual point of sale, would be four hundred dollars
a gallon.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
Wow, sikes well, and the you know, the the problem
here is if that is true, then how the heck
is that paid for?
Speaker 7 (37:46):
Right?
Speaker 4 (37:46):
How does that four hundred dollars per gallon turn into
two fourteen at the pump near your house or something? Well,
it's it's America. It's the the financial systems within America
that make it go around that who pays for it
and the average American through taxes in probably the easiest
(38:11):
way to think about it, is paying for that bill.
And you know, the we haven't even gotten into the
concept of the government subsidizing the oil through taxes to
get that gas at the pump price lower. This is
all this is all kind of a part of it.
It's very very odd to imagine the way money essentially
(38:31):
just gets kind of moved around, and we pretend that
it's paying for one thing when it's actually paying for another,
and we delay costs by paying in taxes once a year.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Well, sure, it's just very strange.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Sure, I mean, corporations do this as well. That's why
different departments or different divisions have separate accounting lines on
their spreadsheet. Right, you distribute the costs, or in the
case of many corporations, you distribute the losses and you
(39:05):
keep the gains for the profits. But just for some
quick math here, to pull a compared to walk these
numbers out so we can really feel the impact. Here,
a hum V has a twenty five gallon fuel tank capacity,
So if it's ever in a situation where the fully
(39:27):
burdened cost of the fuel is considered here, that means
that to fill up one hum V it could cost
ten thousand dollars US. And to your point, Matt, yeah,
that money doesn't fall from the sky. It comes from
the taxpayers. And this is just an average. That's the
(39:47):
weird thing about the four hundred dollars mark in some
places government officials themselves, people work for the US government,
have noted that the price can climb as high as
one thousand dollars per gallon, and you know, like something
you have to transport, maybe via helicopter, into inaccessible terrain
in the middle of nowhere. And look, yes we're using
(40:10):
the United States as an example, but this, to be
crystal clear, this is a problem common to any globe
trotting military, any Blue Water Navy, and longtime listeners you
already know blue Water, Greenwater, Brown Water Navy. Blue Water
is the one that goes around the world. So whether
we're talking about Russia, whether we're talking about China, whether
(40:33):
we're talking about International Justice League type avenger coalitions like
or some would call them brotherhoods of evil mutants like NATO,
we're going to see the same pattern playing out. As
a matter of fact, you won't see this on mainstream
news unless you dig in kind of deep into some
(40:54):
trade publications. But China just inked, or maybe reinvigorated is
a better word, a new leg of a secretive multi
decade deal with Iran and essentially the too long, didn't
read version of it. Is this in exchange for what
amounts to about a thirty to thirty two percent discount
(41:16):
on all fossil fuel resources produced by Iran. China is
going to take an increasingly larger hold of infrastructure related
to refineries and transport of fossil fuels, as well as
having a closer military partnership. They're moving pieces on the chessboard.
The great game never ever ended.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
But what in a similar way ben to the way
the United States has moved in Middle easterner countries for
a long time, right, We're absolutely just briefly mentioned there,
the cost of securing oil supplies in other countries ends
up being a factor, and it's China making that move
in Iran, one of the only places in the Middle
(41:59):
East where the United States hasn't officially invaded and inserted itself.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, good point, Matt, And pull up the map, folks.
If you're reading along at home, just just do a
cursory Internet search on your OS demon browser choice and
ask how many US bases are bordering Iran. You'll see
it's literally a ring. The strait of horror moves is
(42:25):
one of for a long time. That's what a lot
of people thought would be the flash point for World
War three again. As you know, World War three might
end up being over water. Who knows. But this is
just an example, right of a bigger issue, and it's
not to pick on China, as you said, Matt, other
countries have done this before, much more blatantly belligerent ways,
(42:51):
like the UK, like Britain in the Middle East. Right,
this all means that if we sincerely seek to understand
the true price of gasoline, at some point we also
have to start factoring in the cost of regional instability,
and we have to factor in the price of war.
(43:13):
And this, I mean, this takes us. This is an
incredibly important point that doesn't get talked about near often enough.
But it's also not the only point. You know, they're
hidden costs. We talked about these long term bills. What
happens when these bills come due, Like you know, you
mentioned a little bit about whether or not the Pentagon
(43:34):
factored in medical care and that fully burdened cost. Is
that another externality? What else is out there?
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Yes, so we've talked about these hidden costs, these externalities
and whether or not these are actually factored in a
meaningful way, But there are other ones that we haven't
mentioned too, that are much more difficult to quantify. Let's
think about oil spills. I mean in a very callous
and calculated way.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
I'm sure there are some.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Money people that would consider these the cost of doing business.
You know, the occasional disaster that you have to pay
a lot of money in pr and in cleanup efforts
to get rid of. It's ultimately worth it at the
end of the day, considering how much money is generated
from that product that you're having to clean up. Let's
think about things like respiratory illnesses. Let's think about loss
(44:26):
productivity when people in places like California, Los Angeles, Atlanta
that have like things called orange small alerts that literally
the air quality is so bad that if you have
a pre existing condition or some kind of respiratory sensitivity,
you're not gonna be able to go outside. It's just
the reality of the world we live in, and it's
(44:46):
not something that's factored in. And if it is, it's
certainly not factored in a meaningful way in my opinion,
and I think in Matt and Ben's possibly as well.
But let's give a little bit of a snapshot here.
Let's talk about Los Angeles alone. Like I mentioned, the
overall cost of air pollution adds up to something in
the neighborhood of one hundred thousand, two hundred and fifty
(45:09):
dollars per person per year, and that's because of things
like emergency room visits, that loss productivity we talked about
lost work or missing school for children. So, Ben, you
want to let's extrapolate something from this.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Yeah, if we.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Build out from these conclusions, a couple of different studies,
including Center for Investigative Reporting that we mentioned earlier, including
some medical nonprofits and so on. It's not a surprise
studies have such a wide range on the cost of
these externalities. One study, in fact, found they concluded that
(45:51):
this per year cost five hundred and fifty billion dollars.
Throw up your what is it, doctor, evil pinky there
or as much as one point seven trillion dollars, which
for most people is cognitively impossible to think of as
a real number. And that's in the US alone. If
you add that to the price of the pump, that's
(46:14):
where you'll see the conclusions that the true cost breaks
down to something like fifteen dollars per gallon. But again,
like we said, it all depends on your methodology, what
variables do you admit and how do you factor them?
How do you weight them? In countries that appear that
appear to have a higher cost at the gas station, Yes,
(46:36):
we're looking at you, Europe.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Then part of that higher at the pump cost comes
from taxation, And that's interesting to the circle that you're
talking about, Matt, because some of those taxes are in
theory at least dedicated to fighting to mitigating the problems
we described above. So if you're in Germany, you're paying
let's say you're paying eight dollars per gallon, pulling that
(47:01):
out of the ether here, you're paying eight dollars per gallon. Well,
a portion of that is not reflecting maybe the cost
of refineries. It's reflecting the cost of combating greenhouse gas emissions,
for example.
Speaker 4 (47:14):
And it's interesting because that would theoretically at least reduce
the demand for the gasoline, which should lower that price further.
But you're still seeing, like you know, the equivalent of
eight dollars or more per gallon in a lot of
those countries. Again, the one of the major things here,
in one of the last crucial things that we're going
(47:36):
to be talking about in this episode, is that variance.
There's so many factors that go into calculating how much
gas actually costs, and when you're you know, especially when
we're trying to research for this episode, you're looking at
contradictions made in how people and different organizations are calculating
(47:56):
these numbers and how they're getting there. It could be
really tough when you're thinking about all of these different
possible factors.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Agreed, this is an increasingly fluid situation. I'm sorry, that's terrible,
and and their indication fluid. Sorry, oh god, the reviews
are going to kill us, you guys, before before the
fossil fuel industry does what if we get disappeared by
(48:27):
people who hate terrible jokes? What a way to go it?
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Would? I would?
Speaker 3 (48:32):
I would honestly go into that good night, you know,
knowing that we'd made a difference.
Speaker 4 (48:36):
I would just say, for being the one non Dad
on this show as a host, you make the best.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Dad jokes Ben dad game, Sean.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
I learned it from growing up in the dad joke game.
Under you guys, Yeah, we're here for your dad joke needs.
As the world burns down, so there is light at
the end of the tunnel, though kind of electric vehicles
are on the rise, and yet maybe they're not perfect,
maybe they're not as much of a silver bullet or
(49:05):
panacea as some people would claim. But the technology is there,
it's evolving at a significant pace. More importantly, the infrastructure
to support those vehicles is evolving as well.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Dude.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
Remember just a handful of years ago, you wouldn't see
charging stations at like grocery stores, you know, and like
outside of Atlanta. You even see them in Georgia. Now,
you know, it's not as much of like a bougie
kind of you know, only for the rich thing anymore.
And even Tesla, the prices are going down for like
a nicer you know, a nicer electric car. And they're
(49:39):
faster now too, which I think was a big barrier
to some gear heads was like, oh, I don't want
an electric car because it was like, you know, sort
of embarrassing and you couldn't really get a lot of
juice out of them. But some of these new ones
are super powerful.
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Yeah, but no where are you getting all that power
to power them electrical vehicle batteries? Huh Oh, that's you're
burning coal.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Son.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
That's a good point too. It's a good point you
make it's all. I mean, that's the problem you guys.
With great power comes great responsibility or black there.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
I mean, it's true, that's a really that's that's a
really good point. You know, for for a long time,
depending on where you were in the world, if you
drove an electric car, you were driving a coal powered car,
and people didn't want to admit that. But also, I
don't know about you, guys, I'm super envious of when
I see a Tesla drive by, especially when one of
the slick ones, but you know, the car car love aside,
(50:39):
We're we're correct that forms of alternative energy are increasing
in countries across the planet. Yeah, a lot of them
are developed countries, you know, the socioeconomic equivalent of the
global one percent, and they can afford to subsidize research
and subsidize infrastructure. But still it's a good time, you know,
(51:00):
for for a long time. Here in the US as well,
research into these technologies, deployment of them is stymy by
a ton of factors, industrial political opposition, plain old hard
technological limits. Like you mentioned Nolan, who wants to buy
a car that doesn't car very well? Right, if we
want to make that a verb, we also had had
(51:23):
problems figuring out how best to store solar energy, make
a solar battery powering something, and also make it able
to work at night with stored energy. There's this, there's
also this huge tremendous cost of making large scale switches
from fossil fuel to something new.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
Quick question for you, gentlemen, is really quickly when you say,
you know, the processes that go into making the batteries
of these electric cars, you know burns all kinds of
you know, fossil fuels as well. Is it so much
that it's not worth the fact that you're not having
to burn it every time you use it? You just
have to like, you know, there's that, there's that sunk
cost of making it, of the manufacturing process, and then
(52:01):
you've got the thing that presumably will last you a
long time. I don't know the answer, and I don't
know if you if you guys know.
Speaker 4 (52:08):
We're not talking about manufacturing. We're talking about the actual
energy that goes from the outlet into the battery to
charge the vehicle so that it can drive the energy.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
Yes, yes, yes, I'm such a dummy, of course, yeah,
of course.
Speaker 4 (52:25):
No, No, it's it's I mean, I can totally understand.
Manufacturing the batteries is also not.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
And it's also problematic, right.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
Oh god yeah, oh the rare minerals.
Speaker 7 (52:37):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
One of the big things for electric vehicles right now
is also just in terms of efficiency. It's trying to
get the weight of that battery down. That was a
huge problem and it's still you know, it's still a
speed bump today. So all together, it seems like the
old theory of international politics from Wu Tang holds true,
(53:00):
and geopolitics and international energy infrastructure as well as in
hip hop cream cash rules everything around me sounds so look, yes,
it's a fantastic song, but it also it's also true
large scale moves away from fossil fuel and all the
associated costs with fossil fuel and the associated costs with
(53:23):
moving from it only become more and more likely when
there is a financial benefit to doing so.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
There's not.
Speaker 1 (53:31):
There might be a CEO somewhere who says, altruistically, I'm
gonna move away from fossil fuel because it's the right
thing to do. I think Louis Pasteur was right to
spread his innovation around the world. I don't know, call
me a pessman. I don't think it's gonna happen. I
think it's gonna have to be something in a budget medium.
Speaker 4 (53:52):
What do you guys think, Yeah, unlikely, that's what I
would say. Unlikely that somebody goes through just changes the
world because it's the right thing to do. But it
doesn't have to be the case. If you're listening to
this and you're running a multinational corporation and you've got
(54:13):
love in your heart. Change The word.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Isn't that song from ghost But don't they use that
in Ghostbusters at the end of Ghostbusters two when the
statue of Liberty is I'll take him from Vigo.
Speaker 4 (54:30):
Somebody check that and get back to us, please.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
I don't know why I'm looking at Noel. Noel, I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to like nominate you to be in
charge of knowing everything about Ghostbusters.
Speaker 3 (54:40):
I don't remember this song from the end of Ghostbusters.
I actually my memory recollections of Ghostbusters too are pretty spotty.
Speaker 1 (54:49):
Uh, not a good.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
I liked the little I like his little What am
I dead to you now? I like I like his
little toady.
Speaker 6 (55:00):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
I'd like that character actor and his uh his Eastern
European accent.
Speaker 2 (55:06):
Is hilarious.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
But no, I actually don't even know what song you're
talking about. Ben, put a little love in your heart,
Put a little love in your heart.
Speaker 4 (55:16):
I know.
Speaker 1 (55:16):
Wait, oh wait, hang on, I think I might be
wrong in the world.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
You know.
Speaker 1 (55:21):
No, it's the end of Scrooge. Another amazing dil Murray.
Speaker 4 (55:27):
You know, genuinely, I was thinking about farting Preacher. I
think he has a line where he says, if you've
got love in your heart, let it out.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
And then presumably he farts. Oh.
Speaker 3 (55:38):
Speaking of which, you guys, everyone out there, pro tip
if you have an Alexa device, you can make.
Speaker 2 (55:45):
Her fart go crazy.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Yeah, And she gets into this like crazy fart loop
uh and it's very it's very difficult to get her
out of it, like you'll be You'll be like, please stop.
She's like, would you like a wet fot? What kind
of fart do you require?
Speaker 2 (56:03):
Master, I'm not kidding.
Speaker 3 (56:05):
And then at the end she tries to sell you
a premium bundle of farts. It's all like an upsell thing.
I felt like I had stumbled upon some sort of
hidden treasure, but then it just wouldn't stop.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
So Jeff Bezos is trying to get into the professional
flatgalism game. I'm not surprised. Don't let people fart shame
you folks either. The average the average person emits seventeen
to twenty three farts per day, and you actually, you
actually probably don't notice several of them. Also, also in
(56:39):
your defense, so brain stuff things coming out. Also in
your defense, it's not really you that's farting. It's your
gut flora that lives inside you emitting gas. So if
you want to think about, you know, you hear the
argument about farts from humans or cows or other mammals
producing pollution.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
It's the gut flora.
Speaker 1 (57:00):
It's not you, it's them.
Speaker 4 (57:02):
So speaking of emissions.
Speaker 1 (57:04):
And cycles and cycles like Alexa, right, we have to
remember they're powerful invested interest, right, They're countries, empires, global corporations, and,
in some cases not necessarily naming names in this episode,
impossibly wealthy individuals who owe their entire current status to
(57:26):
the existing fossil fuel energy infrastructure. They will pay enormous
cost to maintain that infrastructure. If they cannot secure a
comparable position in a new energy economy, they will fight,
make no mistake, to keep the status they currently have.
It's kind of a rain in hell versus you know,
(57:48):
having a middle class job in heaven kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (57:50):
Absolutely, So, first of all, thank you so much Mike
for sending us that message and getting us to look
into this entire thing. I hope you are doing well
up there in Vancouver, Washington. Hey, so what do you
think about this whole subject? What do you think about
the true cost of gas? How much does it cost
(58:11):
where you are, and what do you think it would
actually cost if you were paying for everything at the pump.
What's the future of gasoline? Do you think we're going
to continue to, you know, drive these cars around, especially
now after you know the pandemic situation and all of
our new at home lives that we've got going on.
(58:33):
And also, what do you think should be factored in
at the pump when you're paying. Is there anything specific
that we talked about today that you think is the
most important thing and how would we pay for it?
We want answers. We're going to change this whole system
from our desks at our houses, or at least we're
going to advise someone somewhere listening through your ideas. So
(58:55):
please please please write to us find us. You can
find us all across social media.
Speaker 3 (58:59):
Ye, either conspiracy stuff, conspiracy Stuff show, some combination of those.
In Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. You can find our
Facebook group it's called Here's where it gets crazy. A
lot of fun activity on there. Just have to answer
a couple basic questions to just prove to us that
you're not Russian bots.
Speaker 2 (59:19):
And then you're in.
Speaker 3 (59:20):
Like Flynn, you can also find this as individual human
people on social media. I am at how Now Noel
Brown on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (59:26):
And you can find me at Ben Bolan hsw on Twitter.
Where you can find me at Ben Bolan on Instagram.
Anybody conspiracy realists, longtime listeners, first time listeners, anybody writing
the email right now. I usually never do this on
the fly, but it was important to figure it out.
I know that this song and the Ghostbusters too soundtrack
(59:48):
when they're in the Statue of Liberty is higher and higher.
Your love keeps lifting me higher and higher, like you
have to Yeah, don't feel like you have to send
us the Ghostbusters hate mail about it. We figured it
out a powerful lobby. Guys. There are some things that
even this show is not going to mess with.
Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
So do you have any idea. How many people have
not listened to this part yet but have already written
you a message.
Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
Oh God, don't don't punish. Don't punish us collectively. We
got there. We got there at the end, and we
do want to hear from you. We do want to
hear from you. If you don't care for social media,
that wholly makes sense, you can go old school with us.
We have a phone number that you can call literally
any anytime.
Speaker 4 (01:00:33):
That's right. Our number is one eight three three st
d w y t K. If you don't want to
do that stuff, though, but you still want to write
to us with your amazing idea, we're ready for you.
Just send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 4 (01:01:09):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow conspiracy realist in an earlier episode that we recorded.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
We recorded just now.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Uh dolet you guys remember you were setting me up
for a classic like Jerry Seinfeld thing, Oh.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
You know, a good old what's the deal with?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
And Okay, the question came up as to whether he
ever actually said that, but I.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Think yeah, I think it was the sixty Minutes guy
Andy Rooney said, what's the deal with anyway?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Uh, what's the deal with gasoloid? Uh? It's expensive, that's
what Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Uh. Do you guys get gas on a regular basis
for your vehicles or endeavors.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
It's usually after eating wealth of beans. That's when I
find it to be the worst.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Matt's Oh no, no, we're talking about the kind of
goes in your cah see that you pocked it habbit.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I like to tie my gas trips with Costco because
the guess is maybe slightly less expensive there, though the
jury is maybe a little out on whether Costco is
a good deal or not.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Wait, do you have a cost Co membership?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I do.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I have an executive membership, Ben, What is it like
At the time I truly entered the ranks of adulthood.
I quite enjoy a good cost co adventure, and they
do have gas, and it does seem to hold to
a slightly different pricing model than what you might see
at the pump.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Which can be a little willy and or nilly.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
And that's based on a lot of factors that we're
going to talk about in this classic episode.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
Ooh, that's right.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
What are the factors that go into that price at
the pump?
Speaker 5 (01:28):
That's what this episode's about.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
I know that it doesn't sound that exciting, but oh,
let's assure you it is.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
It's also very topical given the political climate that we
find ourselves in and a lot of the promises about
how these prices can be controlled for the better and
whether or not they actually are.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, and this is from twenty twenty However, now more
than ever you might be interested in this conversation. Also
check out our episode recently from twenty twenty five on
Russia's shadow Fleet.
Speaker 6 (02:05):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
A production of.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
IHEARTRADI welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
My name is Nol.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul. Mission control decands, most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. We hope that this
episode finds you well and relatively sane despite all the
plot twists of what is still somehow twenty twenty. Today's
(02:55):
episode is inspired by one of our fellow conspiracy realist
and Hello radio man, Come to find Mike out there
in Vancouver. Mike, you called us to say.
Speaker 7 (03:06):
This, Hi guys, I like your show a lot. I
challenge you to do a show on the full true
cost of gas. For background, there was a time when
all our tanks and jeeps were painted green. We were
defending Europe and maintaining that ability. Then one day all
(03:26):
our tanks and everything started being painted sand tanned color,
indication that the military industrial complex was all about getting oil.
I am somebody who specializes and works in the field
of energy efficiency and thinks it's ridiculous that we're still
(03:48):
using oil for energy. Neil de Grassi Tyson has a
quote that said if aliens landed, it'd be embarrassed to
admit that we still use carbon energy from the ground.
The full true cost of gas on our healthcare system,
on our environment, on the taxpayer's checkbook is astronomical. I
(04:14):
challenge you to find that full true cost gas per
for a gallon of gas. It's around forty five dollars easily. Anyway,
Love your show, Love to listen to you guys, banter,
your great COVID companions, Take care and all the best
to all of you. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
So this is a fantastic question, Mike. As any economists
can tell us, the price at your local pump can
make a huge difference in the day to day function
of not just your town, not just your neck of
the global woods, but the state of your nation, and
on a macro scale, the state of the world empires
(04:58):
have collapsed if they have collapsed again, all to ensure
that when you roll up to our local speedway, as
the most common gas station in the US, by the way,
you'll be able to top off that car. And petroleum,
of course, isn't just used for gas. It's used for
a multitude of other things, and electric cars are an
(05:18):
increasingly viable alternative, but the world still has had serious
problems moving away from fossil fuels, and that's not a coincidence.
We have massively powerful vested interest and globe trotting institutions
dedicated to the maintenance and growth of the oil industry
for one reason or another. This industry employs millions of people,
(05:41):
it generates billions of dollars, and for decades people have
been raising concerns about that Texas tee, that black gold
powering the world. But today's question, to your point, Mike,
how much does gas actually cost? Here are the facts.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well, as of.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Twenty sixteen, the United States consumed more gasoline than any
other country in the world, and the average household has
spent about two thousand dollars a year on gas. Individual
drivers used pre pandemic and average of five hundred and
fifty seven gallons of gas each year and today being
July tenth, as we record this, the average cost of
(06:24):
a gallon of gas, which is about three point eight
liters for our metric system folks out there, is two
dollars and eighteen cents two point one eighty four dollars.
That's according to Triple A. There's certainly a lot lower
than it's been in recent years. I think when we
saw a decrease in driving due to the pandemic. I'm
(06:46):
not sure exactly how that supply and demand system works,
but gas prices definitely went way down. So remember back
in twenty eleven when gas was about four dollars a gallon,
And you know, you guys all know that this definitely
varies from state to state, especially out west, where things
tend to be.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
A good bit higher.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Yeah, and there's so much variability in fact, just within
the United States, but there are a lot of other
things that affect that price. We're going to get into
a little bit later. Prices, you know, if you're out west,
tend to be about twenty percent higher than that national
average that we're talking about here. And specifically if you're
in California, and anyone who has lived there at any
(07:27):
point or lives there now can tell you and assure
you that those prices can be a lot higher, maybe
fifty percent higher than that national average. But you know,
and then again, if you're traveling around the country, let's
say you're in the Midwest or in the South, the
prices actually tend to be about five to ten percent
lower than what you'd find on the national average. You know,
(07:49):
I think the three the four of us here at
stuff they want, you know, can attest to that part.
If you go to the Northeast, though, prices are only
I mean, you're a little bit higher, maybe about five
percent higher than the national average. So you really tell
that there's a lot of variants. But there's also a
lot of other stuff, like we said, that goes into
that price.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
It seems to kind of follow cost of living type things.
You know, are taxes, I mean, taxes in California are
higher in general, and cost of living in California in
general is a lot higher. I don't know, that's just observationally,
it seems to follow to follow those trends. But there
absolutely are a lot of other factors like economic unrest,
global shortages, and even seasonal variations that can really have
(08:32):
an impact on the price that you pay at the pump.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
And yes, as you pointed out there we're going to
talk about later, offsetting the price by paying for gasoline
in essentially roundabout ways or other ways is a major
factor in how cheap gas is in the US. And
we're going to talk about that.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And let's let's let's admit this is going to be
a bit US centric because we have so much data there.
But we also have to acknowledge Europe. As you might
imagine or have unfortunately experienced, Gasoline or petrol, whatever you
want to call it in Europe tends to be higher
than gas in the States or in Canada. This is
(09:11):
due to higher rates of taxation, and it makes prices
historically around three to four times higher than in the US.
But we can flip it in other parts of the world.
Consider many oil rich countries. Some other countries have subsidized
gas costs. That makes it cheaper for people to buy
gas than taxation. You know, taxation makes it naturally more expensive.
(09:36):
Places like you know, you can already imagine some of
these places off the top of your head, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Venezuela,
and so on. They've all subsidized gas at some point.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
In the US and the.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
US, ecuadors on the list, Bolivia's on the list. But
these have subsidized more. Well, it's tricky. They have done
more direct subsidizzation than the US. Perhaps this makes sense
to the leaders of these countries because subsidizing this cost
makes it easier cough cough, cheaper cough cough to transport
(10:12):
people and goods. But it also means that people are
going to be less efficient with gas, and it can
spell huge problems down the line, both in terms of
the climate obviously, but also in terms of the economy.
We have to remember, a country too dependent on a
single resource is never truly safe. And then, of course,
(10:32):
we did US and Canada, we did Europe, we did
oil rich countries. We have to think about the rest
of the world because saying the cost of gas at
the pump is it feels safe and it feels correct,
but it's inaccurate.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
It's correct been the price at the pump metric that
we're talking about here doesn't factor in all kinds of
things like let's say a person's income or a family's
a household's income. So let's let's make up an example
here with some made up numbers. Let's say gas costs
in some made up country ten dollars per gallon. Sounds
(11:08):
sounds intense, but let's say ten dollars per gallon for gasoline.
Let's say everybody in this country makes an exact wage
of four hundred thousand dollars a year. Woo, right, Okay,
that seems like a lot of money to me at least.
But if you're you know, if you make that much
money and you have to pay ten dollars per gallon,
(11:30):
that's not that big of a deal. It's not going
to break your bank. You're you're not going to be
worried about going into debt because you have to buy
ten dollars gas. Sure, it's all relative, and we really
do have to consider this relationship between how much in
this case we would say a household makes right because
there's going to be shared income, shared expenses, we really
(11:50):
have to consider that relationship between all the money that
a household takes in and how much they have to
expend on gasoline. So it may be more helpful, I guess,
in this instance to really think about gasoline in terms
of local affordability.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, yeah, so's There's a really interesting Bloomberg report from
twenty sixteen that looks at not the average price of
gas at the pump around the world, but the most
affordable gas in the world. And they arrive at this
calculation by comparing gas prices in different countries to the
average national paycheck. Right and back in twenty sixteen, before
(12:31):
a lot of things change. Venezuela had the world's most
affordable gas, which is interesting. A lot of people may have,
you know, somewhat plausibly assumed it would be a Middle
Eastern country, But in twenty sixteen, gas in Venezuela was
the equivalent of two cents a gallon two cents US
and this was in a country where the average daily
(12:51):
wage how they defined paycheck there was about sixteen dollars
and fourteen cents. Obviously this changed as the past few
years have been to put it diplomatically, incredibly tough on
the country. But just with that we can already see
how the price at any given pump does not tell
you the full story about the cost. So what determines
(13:13):
the price it is spoiler alert, it's definitely not that
person working behind the counter at your local sitco. Please
give them a break. Gas stations make most of their
money off of the snacks and other things that they
sell you. The gas is just to get you in
the door.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Have you guys ever seen that show Nathan for you?
Oh yeah, there's a really great episode where he you know,
the whole conceit is that he's trying to, you know,
improve the earnings of like small businesses or whatever with
these hair brain schemes, And one of them is that
he goes to a gas station and gets them to
like offer an absurdly low gas price in California, as
(13:54):
we will flock to it. But you only get that
price with a rebate, so you have to pay the
full price. But to get the rebate, you have to
like do this like quest up to the top of
this mountain to find like this box where you put
in the rebate, and it ends up being like, you know,
people take this shuttle to the foot of the mountain,
and then people gradually drop off, and then it ends
(14:16):
with him and like three of the people that stick
around kind of becoming the best of friends, only for
him to come.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Clean and say there is no rebate.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
But yeah, that's to your point, Ben, I mean, you know,
it's like it's all set. I actually worked at a
gas station, and you know how we would change our
gas prices.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
We would look at the other gas station across the
street and just match it or make it like a
cent lower. It was very very rudimentary.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
But no, it's definitely you know, determined by a whole
lot of factor's taxes, supply chain, supply and demand, capacity
of refineries, and even the time.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Of year all have huge impacts.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Our former parent company, how Stuff Works has a fantastic
article explaining this whole calculation and how gas prices work,
and here's a quote from that.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Price increases generally occur when the world crude oil market
tightens and lowers inventories. Also, growing demand can sometimes outpace
refinery capacity. In the spring, refineries perform maintenance, which can
place a pinch on the gasoline market. By the end
of May, refineries are usually back to full capacity.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Is it kind of a similar calculus to like the
way the Fed kind of controls interest rates and stuff, Like,
when you know, they make a decision to lower the
interest rate, you know, than that changes a lot of
things within the system. I mean, that's sort of a
rough example, but it's sort of a similar.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, Well, they're definitely they're definitely interrelated because when the
FED considers that, they are also considering crude oil prices.
But it's sort of like, at the risk of offending economists,
predicting the actions and results of systems this large, it's
(16:01):
very similar to trying to figure out what the weather
is going to be like, if you're a meteorologist back
in the seventies, you can make good guesses, you can
have things you want to happen, but there's so many
intervening variables, and that's why it's tough to ask ourselves
what does gas actually cost? And then necessarily the question follows,
(16:21):
what should it cost? This quickly becomes an expensive, complicated question,
and in some cases this cost also becomes the stuff
they don't want you to know. But who are they?
We'll dive into this after a word from our sponsor.
(16:46):
Here's where it gets crazy. So the true cost of
gasoline depends almost entirely on what we allow to factor
into the equation, and the way people approach or ignore
those factors can create a vast range of conclusions anywhere
(17:07):
from fifteen dollars per gallon to as you said, Mike,
forty five dollars or distressingly more. And there are powerful
forces that in the past and maybe even the present,
don't want you to know the full cost of gasoline.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
And we do have to point out here we've talked
about it on this show before, We've talked with people
who know about this kind of thing. In the past,
we have seen that large oil interests have worked together,
whether it's you know, in something like opek where it's
a little more forward facing where you can, you know,
(17:46):
you can kind of see it happening, or if it's
you know, behind closed doors, they've worked together to downplay
the full cost all the other things that factor into
that oil price. I mean, if you think about it,
there are lobbyists out there, attorneys out there who have
made millions of dollars taking action like this, and they're
(18:07):
also an ethical scientists who've cherry picked data. We've seen
that before. We talked about it on a previous episode.
Politicians are out there on television and the radio, spinning
the language, spinning the facts like dervishes from that you
know that Madonna video you remember great, Oh it really
was great.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Tornado work actually wrote that song never mind, move on.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Yes, they they are tornadoes of slight misinformation.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Just as bulls. That's the word you're looking for.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
So so let's let's consider this because if we think
about the true cost of casoline, we have to examine
what economists sometimes call externalities. Externalities is just a fancy
it's a fancy word. Wearing a tie that means this
associated costs that are borne by society at large but
(19:05):
are not directly included in the price you pay at
the pump. One of the first ones.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Obviously, would be.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
The environmental costs. Let's take an example from California, since
we already mentioned some stuff about California's higher than average prices.
A single gallon of gas in California produces about twenty
five pounds of what are called greenhouse gases. Longtime listeners,
(19:35):
you've heard us talk about this before. These aren't a conspiracy,
but there have been conspiracies surrounding the degree of their
effects on the environment. Greenhouse gases are things like carbon dioxide, methane,
nitrous oxide, fluorinated gases, and also just to be fair
water vapor. For a fun comparison, think about this five pounds.
(20:01):
It's about the same weight as a small to medium dog,
like a cocker spaniel.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
It's also, it's always crazy to me to think about
these kinds of emissions measured in pounds. It's just like,
you know, because it's relatively If you think of like
the weight of a gas, you think it's like, okay,
that's basically.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Weightless, but it's not.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
And it's massive amounts of impact on the environment and
on the atmosphere.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
When you think about that number, it's pretty mind boggling.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
And don't forget that the average US driver buys about
five hundred and fifty seven gallons of gas per year.
Multiply that by two hundred and thirty eight million cars,
you know, and not to mention like the much less
fuel efficient and more polluting trucks and SUVs and hummers,
and man, that's a lot of poundage of this stuff
(20:51):
being pumped out into into the atmosphere day in and
day out, an absolute crap ton of gas.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
I just want to shout out Sarah Terry Cobo and
the Center for Investigative Reporting for making a video about
this topic where we're getting a lot of this information.
Is really just a great video you can check out
right now. It's called The Price of Gas. Check it
out when you get a chance.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
So, with all of this driving, with all this gas buying,
a single driver on average within the United States creates
or generates, let's say, through that use, about ten thousand
pounds of greenhouse gas pollution each year.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
And to continue these whimsical zoological comparisons, ten thousand pounds
is about three thousand pounds less than an African bush elephant,
a male or bull African bush elephant. So think of
it like, every every year, if you're an average driver
(21:54):
in the US, you're putting out a small elephant's weight
worth of greenhouse gas pollution. Doesn't matter where you drive,
how you drive, what kind.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Of vehicle you drive, and it takes almost an entire
acre of forests to absorb that level of pollution. So
for a cocktail Napkin estimate, let's say for Earth to
handle the annual gas related pollution from cars plus those
trucks and SUVs.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Let's keep in.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Mind that that's just the daily average of driving vehicles
in the United States. It could take a forest the
size of the entire state of California and Nevada and
another smaller state to absorb this level of pollution. So
the question becomes, if we're looking at this hypothetical gallon
(22:42):
of gas situation in California, how did we get here?
So why, Like all things that we try to do
on the show, let's take it back to the source,
the source of the oil itself. That crude in Saudi Arabia.
According to the Center for Investigative Reporting. This is how
the process works. The crude oil, which is, like the
(23:02):
name implies, this has been unrefined raw material. You should
not put this stuff in your gas tank. It's pumped
into these gigantic, massive oil tankers. The biggest one holds
a believe up to two million barrels of oil. This
process releases about two pounds of greenhouse gas for every
(23:22):
gallon of what will ultimately become gasoline. That ship travels
about eleven thousand miles to California, the site of our
hypothetical situation here. When the crude reaches a refinery in California,
it's mixed with oil from other parts of the world.
Then it's heated, melted, burned to make different types of
fuel and other industrial products petroleum based products.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So this process creates about three and a half pounds
of greenhouse gas for every gallon of gas you get
at the pump. For comparison here, you know, I can't
come up with an animal off the top of my head,
but it's like the weight of a maybe a two
(24:08):
sliced toaster. So you get a toaster for every gallon
every one of those two million gallons now we're shipping
that refined gas from the refinery to the station, right,
Because it doesn't directly go through a pipe from a
refinery to your local stuckies. I'm just going to see
(24:30):
how many gas stations I can name in this episode.
You Instead, it goes through a tanker, right, It's transported
by a truck. You see them all the time. On average,
these tankers are going to travel about fifty miles in
the US to deliver the cargo. And when it's transferring
the gas from the tanker to the tank at the
(24:52):
gas station, some of that gas evaporates. It makes more
greenhouse gas as well as benzene, and benzene is one
of those things you smell when you pull up into
a gas station. When you remove the gas cap, there's
more evaporation. When you pick up the pump, there's more evaporation.
But now finally you have the gas. You have a
(25:14):
small piece of that gas all the way from Saudi Arabia,
and you start driving maybe to another gas station, like
a quick trip or a circle k.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Yeah, and then you just you know, continue on down
the line because there's always more environmental cost to be
paid with this kind of thing. And it really does
depend a lot on what vehicle you've chosen to drive.
You may be essentially pre paying for some of the
environmental costs and the energy production for your electric car
or if you are in a you know, a gas
(25:46):
powered vehicle. There's going to be things like the weather
that are going to affect how you're driving, things like
your mood even or the music you're listening to. I
know that sounds strange, but that might affect how much
it goes in to this. And also the type of gas, right,
how refined is it? Is it regular or is it
that premium good stuff or what's the middling one called like, okay.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Mid grade, I guess.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
The mid stuff. On average. When you're looking at this
extra environmental cost, you're talking about a little over nineteen
maybe twenty pounds of greenhouse gas pollution per gallon, And
this part, the driving around section, that's where you're actually
letting off the most pollution, around three quarters of the total.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Which is crazy because you know, often in the past
different factors have been blamed for the pollution, but we
have to keep in mind it's the daily driver who
is burning the fuel, right, It's us. We are three
fourths of that cocker spaniel when we get behind the wheel,
which out of context is a very strange statement to say,
(27:00):
holds up. And so when we think about pollution, we
have to remember we're talking about a long term price.
It's almost like a layaway costs. Something everyone on earth
has to pay for in some way over the course
of their time here, even if they never drive, never
touch a car, and you know, later generations descendants of
(27:23):
this species will pay some part of that price as well.
It just might not feel as steep right now because
the bill doesn't come due immediately, and it doesn't come
due through a single avenue.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah, And it's like, you know, unfortunately, there are coalitions
that would would have us take these hidden costs into account,
and the idea of you know, creating some kind of
consensus globally about how much you know, we want to
put out there, how much greenhouse gases we want to
put out there, But a lot of that stuff is
not enforceable. A lot of that stuff is just sort
(27:58):
of like an honor system kind of situation, and our
country in particular right now, because of leadership.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Is moving even further and further away from that.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
So you know, to our callers point about aliens coming
and being embarrassed that we're still deriving our energy from
this dinosaur juice that comes out of the ground, It's
kind of true. And it really does feel like a
lot of it is just stacked against us because of
those corporate interests and because I mean, this is all
kind of statingly obvious. But yeah, and you know, Ben,
(28:30):
to your point, and once you wrote here in the outline,
this isn't just tree hugger kind of flim flammering.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
They should not be just dismissed.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
There's absolutely a cost in terms of human lives, in
terms of cost of our environment and the habitability of
our planet.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah. Yeah, and I think you make a good point
about the problems of cooperation. It also goes into the
problems of inequality. Imagine your developing nation, right, and other
developed nations like US or Western Europe are all of
a sudden changing the rules of the game. So now
you are not allowed the same industrial revolution that these
(29:09):
other countries encountered earlier. Of course you're going to be
irritated at that. That's halfway through the basketball game or
the football game. Someone moves the goalpost it feels a
lot like stacking the odds against you. This works on
a microeconomic scale too. It is deceptively easy for someone
(29:31):
in a higher socioeconomic status, someone who can individually bear
the increased costs of a fossil fuel free lifestyle, to
kind of look down their nose at the rest of
the world, a world I should mention in which, by
the way, the average household makes less than the equivalent
of ten thousand dollars US a year, and look down
(29:51):
their noses people are less fortunate and say, well, just
do better. First, that's a dick move, and worse than
being a dick move, it's incorrect. There has to be
some kind of transition, some kind of plan. A world
that found itself suddenly without oil would almost immediately collapse.
And even if you feel pretty secure right now, that
(30:13):
collapse is gonna rock your two. No one would be immune.
And honestly, the militaries of the world know this. That
is why, in a very real way, the modern history
of oil is also the modern history of war. What
are we talking about. We'll tell you after a word
from our sponsor, and we're back.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
So you know you've probably listened to this show once
or twice. Maybe this is your first time, congratulations, But
if you've been around for a while, you're probably familiar
with the concept that world militaries, governments, large corporations. There's
a lot of truth to the stereotype, specifically that governments
(31:05):
and militaries within those governments are controlled by those governments,
are pretty wasteful when it comes to spending at times.
Corruption it just runs wild within these organizations, and you know,
especially at the tops, and you know, one of the
we've talked about before, one of the major reasons for
(31:26):
that is the need to increase budgets over time. That's
why you'll see what we would consider maybe wasteful spending
because you always have to get a little bit more
for the next time around. And you can really apply
this thinking and this observation when it comes to gasoline
(31:47):
and oil usage within militaries.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
It reminds me of, to your point, Matt, that story
about how the Air Force spent thirteen dollars apiece for
these like reheating coffee cups because because they were like
poorly built and their handles would break, so they just
dropped like hundreds and thousands of dollars hundreds of thousands
(32:10):
of dollars on these things with absolutely no oversight. And finally,
of course, when it, you know, reaches the public, oh,
put the we'll put a stop to that or whatever.
But that's that kind of stuff unchecked happens, you know,
all the time. And I really want to refer back.
I've I've been wanting to mention this the whole episode.
I thought our callers point about changing the colors of
the humvies and stuff was really interesting and I never
(32:32):
thought of it that way because I think he's really
saying more on the symbolic level. But it I think
it's it's apt, right, Like, so, you know, we used
to go to war and like jungle regions and all
of that, and then our you know, in our in
our tanks and stuff, we're camouflaged green. And now that's
that that switch to the sand colored camouflage really has
(32:53):
signified the shifts towards where our motivations truly lie.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Which is what this section of the S is about.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
I mean, it's beyond symbolism, right, because the green camo
won't work in the desert. They could spot you from
kilometers away. But it's I think it's a very I
agree with you, guys. I think it's a very astute observation.
Of course, it changed, and it changed for a reason,
and you know, think about this. So everybody listening now
(33:24):
has presumably survived April and May of twenty twenty, hopefully,
And if you are listening to this from beyond the grave,
beyond this mortal veil, please send us an email where
conspiracy adiheartradio dot com. But if you're alive, then you
know full well that in April of this year, gas
(33:45):
prices plummeted. Plummeted is not even an adequate word, and
in some cases crude for a time, crude oil took
on a negative value. This was a real problem for
speculators who control a lot of the oil and oil
futures market because they were starting to run out of
(34:05):
places to store all this excess oil. No one was
driving to your point Nol due to a pandemic, and
a lot of businesses were closed. In May of this year,
when a barrel of something like West Texas Intermediate Crew
cost around twenty bucks twenty bucks twenty bucks for a
barrel that works out to about fifty cents US for
(34:27):
a gallon. Uncle Sam was still paying slightly over ten
dollars per gallon for some types of fuel. Now hold on,
you might say, I see the three card Monte switcheroo
that you guys just pulled. Armies pay for different types
of fuel, right, some of which is specialized. This is
(34:47):
therefore not a fair comparison. Hell yeah, okay, you caught us.
The military is paying ten dollars and four cents per
gallon for a type of fuel called JPL eight as
jet propulsion fuel eight psyche as they used to say
in the nineties. Kidding again, the.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Rascal, we're the rascals.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
The global average price for JPL eight isn't supposed to
be ten dollars. It's supposed to be two to three
dollars per gallon. And where does all this money to
pay these inflated gas costs come from? If you pay
taxes in the United States, it comes from you.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
But unfortunately, while the the problem that we're dealing with
in twenty twenty might just be a symptom of mismanagement
and of course corruption and a lot of these lobbies
that we're talking about, the long standing problem goes way
way deeper, and it's at least in part a function
(35:48):
of all of those logistics and supply chains and opening
up the supply and closing it down like we were
talking about with that fed effect. So back in nine
the Pentagon report that the quote fully burdened cost of fuel.
I love that term burdened there. It's very telling, meaning
that cost once you factor in all of these things,
(36:10):
including those I believe ben including those externalities, right like
the cost of hospital stays and things like that.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Or no, not necessarily, no.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
No, no, they were factoring that, or may they may
have factored it. Actually, they may have factored in maybe
cost of injury for people who are transporting fuel, but
probably not.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Probably not.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
So let's be conservative here and just assume that this
refers mainly to the cost of the refinement process and
for moving it from A to B from where the
crude comes out of the ground to where it gets
refined to how it's then transported to the pumps and
an into your car.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
I would say they might they might bring in the
cost of securing certain areas maybe or military basis. I
don't know, just saying that might actually be a part
of it.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
It's a good point, and that's the kind of stuff
that we probably aren't gonna see like in ledgers. You
know what I mean, because to your point been earlier,
there is so much stuff that I want you to
know about this whole process. Uh, for good reason as
far as Uncle Sam's concerned. But that number, to backtrack
a little bit, cost of refinement, transport and.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Who knows what else.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
But let's just assume that this refinement transport and you
know the process of getting it from the refineries to
the actual point of sale, would be four hundred dollars
a gallon.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
Wow, sikes well, and the you know, the the problem
here is if that is true, then how the heck
is that paid for?
Speaker 7 (37:46):
Right?
Speaker 4 (37:46):
How does that four hundred dollars per gallon turn into
two fourteen at the pump near your house or something? Well,
it's it's America. It's the the financial systems within America
that make it go around that who pays for it
and the average American through taxes in probably the easiest
(38:11):
way to think about it, is paying for that bill.
And you know, the we haven't even gotten into the
concept of the government subsidizing the oil through taxes to
get that gas at the pump price lower. This is
all this is all kind of a part of it.
It's very very odd to imagine the way money essentially
(38:31):
just gets kind of moved around, and we pretend that
it's paying for one thing when it's actually paying for another,
and we delay costs by paying in taxes once a year.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Well, sure, it's just very strange.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Sure, I mean, corporations do this as well. That's why
different departments or different divisions have separate accounting lines on
their spreadsheet. Right, you distribute the costs, or in the
case of many corporations, you distribute the losses and you
(39:05):
keep the gains for the profits. But just for some
quick math here, to pull a compared to walk these
numbers out so we can really feel the impact. Here,
a hum V has a twenty five gallon fuel tank capacity,
So if it's ever in a situation where the fully
(39:27):
burdened cost of the fuel is considered here, that means
that to fill up one hum V it could cost
ten thousand dollars US. And to your point, Matt, yeah,
that money doesn't fall from the sky. It comes from
the taxpayers. And this is just an average. That's the
(39:47):
weird thing about the four hundred dollars mark in some
places government officials themselves, people work for the US government,
have noted that the price can climb as high as
one thousand dollars per gallon, and you know, like something
you have to transport, maybe via helicopter, into inaccessible terrain
in the middle of nowhere. And look, yes we're using
(40:10):
the United States as an example, but this, to be
crystal clear, this is a problem common to any globe
trotting military, any Blue Water Navy, and longtime listeners you
already know blue Water, Greenwater, Brown Water Navy. Blue Water
is the one that goes around the world. So whether
we're talking about Russia, whether we're talking about China, whether
(40:33):
we're talking about International Justice League type avenger coalitions like
or some would call them brotherhoods of evil mutants like NATO,
we're going to see the same pattern playing out. As
a matter of fact, you won't see this on mainstream
news unless you dig in kind of deep into some
(40:54):
trade publications. But China just inked, or maybe reinvigorated is
a better word, a new leg of a secretive multi
decade deal with Iran and essentially the too long, didn't
read version of it. Is this in exchange for what
amounts to about a thirty to thirty two percent discount
(41:16):
on all fossil fuel resources produced by Iran. China is
going to take an increasingly larger hold of infrastructure related
to refineries and transport of fossil fuels, as well as
having a closer military partnership. They're moving pieces on the chessboard.
The great game never ever ended.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
But what in a similar way ben to the way
the United States has moved in Middle easterner countries for
a long time, right, We're absolutely just briefly mentioned there,
the cost of securing oil supplies in other countries ends
up being a factor, and it's China making that move
in Iran, one of the only places in the Middle
(41:59):
East where the United States hasn't officially invaded and inserted itself.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, good point, Matt, And pull up the map, folks.
If you're reading along at home, just just do a
cursory Internet search on your OS demon browser choice and
ask how many US bases are bordering Iran. You'll see
it's literally a ring. The strait of horror moves is
(42:25):
one of for a long time. That's what a lot
of people thought would be the flash point for World
War three again. As you know, World War three might
end up being over water. Who knows. But this is
just an example, right of a bigger issue, and it's
not to pick on China, as you said, Matt, other
countries have done this before, much more blatantly belligerent ways,
(42:51):
like the UK, like Britain in the Middle East. Right,
this all means that if we sincerely seek to understand
the true price of gasoline, at some point we also
have to start factoring in the cost of regional instability,
and we have to factor in the price of war.
(43:13):
And this, I mean, this takes us. This is an
incredibly important point that doesn't get talked about near often enough.
But it's also not the only point. You know, they're
hidden costs. We talked about these long term bills. What
happens when these bills come due, Like you know, you
mentioned a little bit about whether or not the Pentagon
(43:34):
factored in medical care and that fully burdened cost. Is
that another externality? What else is out there?
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Yes, so we've talked about these hidden costs, these externalities
and whether or not these are actually factored in a
meaningful way, But there are other ones that we haven't
mentioned too, that are much more difficult to quantify. Let's
think about oil spills. I mean in a very callous
and calculated way.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
I'm sure there are some.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Money people that would consider these the cost of doing business.
You know, the occasional disaster that you have to pay
a lot of money in pr and in cleanup efforts
to get rid of. It's ultimately worth it at the
end of the day, considering how much money is generated
from that product that you're having to clean up. Let's
think about things like respiratory illnesses. Let's think about loss
(44:26):
productivity when people in places like California, Los Angeles, Atlanta
that have like things called orange small alerts that literally
the air quality is so bad that if you have
a pre existing condition or some kind of respiratory sensitivity,
you're not gonna be able to go outside. It's just
the reality of the world we live in, and it's
(44:46):
not something that's factored in. And if it is, it's
certainly not factored in a meaningful way in my opinion,
and I think in Matt and Ben's possibly as well.
But let's give a little bit of a snapshot here.
Let's talk about Los Angeles alone. Like I mentioned, the
overall cost of air pollution adds up to something in
the neighborhood of one hundred thousand, two hundred and fifty
(45:09):
dollars per person per year, and that's because of things
like emergency room visits, that loss productivity we talked about
lost work or missing school for children. So, Ben, you
want to let's extrapolate something from this.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Yeah, if we.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Build out from these conclusions, a couple of different studies,
including Center for Investigative Reporting that we mentioned earlier, including
some medical nonprofits and so on. It's not a surprise
studies have such a wide range on the cost of
these externalities. One study, in fact, found they concluded that
(45:51):
this per year cost five hundred and fifty billion dollars.
Throw up your what is it, doctor, evil pinky there
or as much as one point seven trillion dollars, which
for most people is cognitively impossible to think of as
a real number. And that's in the US alone. If
you add that to the price of the pump, that's
(46:14):
where you'll see the conclusions that the true cost breaks
down to something like fifteen dollars per gallon. But again,
like we said, it all depends on your methodology, what
variables do you admit and how do you factor them?
How do you weight them? In countries that appear that
appear to have a higher cost at the gas station, Yes,
(46:36):
we're looking at you, Europe.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Then part of that higher at the pump cost comes
from taxation, And that's interesting to the circle that you're
talking about, Matt, because some of those taxes are in
theory at least dedicated to fighting to mitigating the problems
we described above. So if you're in Germany, you're paying
let's say you're paying eight dollars per gallon, pulling that
(47:01):
out of the ether here, you're paying eight dollars per gallon. Well,
a portion of that is not reflecting maybe the cost
of refineries. It's reflecting the cost of combating greenhouse gas emissions,
for example.
Speaker 4 (47:14):
And it's interesting because that would theoretically at least reduce
the demand for the gasoline, which should lower that price further.
But you're still seeing, like you know, the equivalent of
eight dollars or more per gallon in a lot of
those countries. Again, the one of the major things here,
in one of the last crucial things that we're going
(47:36):
to be talking about in this episode, is that variance.
There's so many factors that go into calculating how much
gas actually costs, and when you're you know, especially when
we're trying to research for this episode, you're looking at
contradictions made in how people and different organizations are calculating
(47:56):
these numbers and how they're getting there. It could be
really tough when you're thinking about all of these different
possible factors.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Agreed, this is an increasingly fluid situation. I'm sorry, that's terrible,
and and their indication fluid. Sorry, oh god, the reviews
are going to kill us, you guys, before before the
fossil fuel industry does what if we get disappeared by
(48:27):
people who hate terrible jokes? What a way to go it?
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Would? I would?
Speaker 3 (48:32):
I would honestly go into that good night, you know,
knowing that we'd made a difference.
Speaker 4 (48:36):
I would just say, for being the one non Dad
on this show as a host, you make the best.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Dad jokes Ben dad game, Sean.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
I learned it from growing up in the dad joke game.
Under you guys, Yeah, we're here for your dad joke needs.
As the world burns down, so there is light at
the end of the tunnel, though kind of electric vehicles
are on the rise, and yet maybe they're not perfect,
maybe they're not as much of a silver bullet or
(49:05):
panacea as some people would claim. But the technology is there,
it's evolving at a significant pace. More importantly, the infrastructure
to support those vehicles is evolving as well.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Dude.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
Remember just a handful of years ago, you wouldn't see
charging stations at like grocery stores, you know, and like
outside of Atlanta. You even see them in Georgia. Now,
you know, it's not as much of like a bougie
kind of you know, only for the rich thing anymore.
And even Tesla, the prices are going down for like
a nicer you know, a nicer electric car. And they're
(49:39):
faster now too, which I think was a big barrier
to some gear heads was like, oh, I don't want
an electric car because it was like, you know, sort
of embarrassing and you couldn't really get a lot of
juice out of them. But some of these new ones
are super powerful.
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Yeah, but no where are you getting all that power
to power them electrical vehicle batteries? Huh Oh, that's you're
burning coal.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Son.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
That's a good point too. It's a good point you
make it's all. I mean, that's the problem you guys.
With great power comes great responsibility or black there.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
I mean, it's true, that's a really that's that's a
really good point. You know, for for a long time,
depending on where you were in the world, if you
drove an electric car, you were driving a coal powered car,
and people didn't want to admit that. But also, I
don't know about you, guys, I'm super envious of when
I see a Tesla drive by, especially when one of
the slick ones, but you know, the car car love aside,
(50:39):
We're we're correct that forms of alternative energy are increasing
in countries across the planet. Yeah, a lot of them
are developed countries, you know, the socioeconomic equivalent of the
global one percent, and they can afford to subsidize research
and subsidize infrastructure. But still it's a good time, you know,
(51:00):
for for a long time. Here in the US as well,
research into these technologies, deployment of them is stymy by
a ton of factors, industrial political opposition, plain old hard
technological limits. Like you mentioned Nolan, who wants to buy
a car that doesn't car very well? Right, if we
want to make that a verb, we also had had
(51:23):
problems figuring out how best to store solar energy, make
a solar battery powering something, and also make it able
to work at night with stored energy. There's this, there's
also this huge tremendous cost of making large scale switches
from fossil fuel to something new.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
Quick question for you, gentlemen, is really quickly when you say,
you know, the processes that go into making the batteries
of these electric cars, you know burns all kinds of
you know, fossil fuels as well. Is it so much
that it's not worth the fact that you're not having
to burn it every time you use it? You just
have to like, you know, there's that, there's that sunk
cost of making it, of the manufacturing process, and then
(52:01):
you've got the thing that presumably will last you a
long time. I don't know the answer, and I don't
know if you if you guys know.
Speaker 4 (52:08):
We're not talking about manufacturing. We're talking about the actual
energy that goes from the outlet into the battery to
charge the vehicle so that it can drive the energy.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
Yes, yes, yes, I'm such a dummy, of course, yeah,
of course.
Speaker 4 (52:25):
No, No, it's it's I mean, I can totally understand.
Manufacturing the batteries is also not.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
And it's also problematic, right.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
Oh god yeah, oh the rare minerals.
Speaker 7 (52:37):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
One of the big things for electric vehicles right now
is also just in terms of efficiency. It's trying to
get the weight of that battery down. That was a
huge problem and it's still you know, it's still a
speed bump today. So all together, it seems like the
old theory of international politics from Wu Tang holds true,
(53:00):
and geopolitics and international energy infrastructure as well as in
hip hop cream cash rules everything around me sounds so look, yes,
it's a fantastic song, but it also it's also true
large scale moves away from fossil fuel and all the
associated costs with fossil fuel and the associated costs with
(53:23):
moving from it only become more and more likely when
there is a financial benefit to doing so.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
There's not.
Speaker 1 (53:31):
There might be a CEO somewhere who says, altruistically, I'm
gonna move away from fossil fuel because it's the right
thing to do. I think Louis Pasteur was right to
spread his innovation around the world. I don't know, call
me a pessman. I don't think it's gonna happen. I
think it's gonna have to be something in a budget medium.
Speaker 4 (53:52):
What do you guys think, Yeah, unlikely, that's what I
would say. Unlikely that somebody goes through just changes the
world because it's the right thing to do. But it
doesn't have to be the case. If you're listening to
this and you're running a multinational corporation and you've got
(54:13):
love in your heart. Change The word.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Isn't that song from ghost But don't they use that
in Ghostbusters at the end of Ghostbusters two when the
statue of Liberty is I'll take him from Vigo.
Speaker 4 (54:30):
Somebody check that and get back to us, please.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
I don't know why I'm looking at Noel. Noel, I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to like nominate you to be in
charge of knowing everything about Ghostbusters.
Speaker 3 (54:40):
I don't remember this song from the end of Ghostbusters.
I actually my memory recollections of Ghostbusters too are pretty spotty.
Speaker 1 (54:49):
Uh, not a good.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
I liked the little I like his little What am
I dead to you now? I like I like his
little toady.
Speaker 6 (55:00):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
I'd like that character actor and his uh his Eastern
European accent.
Speaker 2 (55:06):
Is hilarious.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
But no, I actually don't even know what song you're
talking about. Ben, put a little love in your heart,
Put a little love in your heart.
Speaker 4 (55:16):
I know.
Speaker 1 (55:16):
Wait, oh wait, hang on, I think I might be
wrong in the world.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
You know.
Speaker 1 (55:21):
No, it's the end of Scrooge. Another amazing dil Murray.
Speaker 4 (55:27):
You know, genuinely, I was thinking about farting Preacher. I
think he has a line where he says, if you've
got love in your heart, let it out.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
And then presumably he farts. Oh.
Speaker 3 (55:38):
Speaking of which, you guys, everyone out there, pro tip
if you have an Alexa device, you can make.
Speaker 2 (55:45):
Her fart go crazy.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Yeah, And she gets into this like crazy fart loop
uh and it's very it's very difficult to get her
out of it, like you'll be You'll be like, please stop.
She's like, would you like a wet fot? What kind
of fart do you require?
Speaker 2 (56:03):
Master, I'm not kidding.
Speaker 3 (56:05):
And then at the end she tries to sell you
a premium bundle of farts. It's all like an upsell thing.
I felt like I had stumbled upon some sort of
hidden treasure, but then it just wouldn't stop.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
So Jeff Bezos is trying to get into the professional
flatgalism game. I'm not surprised. Don't let people fart shame
you folks either. The average the average person emits seventeen
to twenty three farts per day, and you actually, you
actually probably don't notice several of them. Also, also in
(56:39):
your defense, so brain stuff things coming out. Also in
your defense, it's not really you that's farting. It's your
gut flora that lives inside you emitting gas. So if
you want to think about, you know, you hear the
argument about farts from humans or cows or other mammals
producing pollution.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
It's the gut flora.
Speaker 1 (57:00):
It's not you, it's them.
Speaker 4 (57:02):
So speaking of emissions.
Speaker 1 (57:04):
And cycles and cycles like Alexa, right, we have to
remember they're powerful invested interest, right, They're countries, empires, global corporations, and,
in some cases not necessarily naming names in this episode,
impossibly wealthy individuals who owe their entire current status to
(57:26):
the existing fossil fuel energy infrastructure. They will pay enormous
cost to maintain that infrastructure. If they cannot secure a
comparable position in a new energy economy, they will fight,
make no mistake, to keep the status they currently have.
It's kind of a rain in hell versus you know,
(57:48):
having a middle class job in heaven kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (57:50):
Absolutely, So, first of all, thank you so much Mike
for sending us that message and getting us to look
into this entire thing. I hope you are doing well
up there in Vancouver, Washington. Hey, so what do you
think about this whole subject? What do you think about
the true cost of gas? How much does it cost
(58:11):
where you are, and what do you think it would
actually cost if you were paying for everything at the pump.
What's the future of gasoline? Do you think we're going
to continue to, you know, drive these cars around, especially
now after you know the pandemic situation and all of
our new at home lives that we've got going on.
(58:33):
And also, what do you think should be factored in
at the pump when you're paying. Is there anything specific
that we talked about today that you think is the
most important thing and how would we pay for it?
We want answers. We're going to change this whole system
from our desks at our houses, or at least we're
going to advise someone somewhere listening through your ideas. So
(58:55):
please please please write to us find us. You can
find us all across social media.
Speaker 3 (58:59):
Ye, either conspiracy stuff, conspiracy Stuff show, some combination of those.
In Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. You can find our
Facebook group it's called Here's where it gets crazy. A
lot of fun activity on there. Just have to answer
a couple basic questions to just prove to us that
you're not Russian bots.
Speaker 2 (59:19):
And then you're in.
Speaker 3 (59:20):
Like Flynn, you can also find this as individual human
people on social media. I am at how Now Noel
Brown on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (59:26):
And you can find me at Ben Bolan hsw on Twitter.
Where you can find me at Ben Bolan on Instagram.
Anybody conspiracy realists, longtime listeners, first time listeners, anybody writing
the email right now. I usually never do this on
the fly, but it was important to figure it out.
I know that this song and the Ghostbusters too soundtrack
(59:48):
when they're in the Statue of Liberty is higher and higher.
Your love keeps lifting me higher and higher, like you
have to Yeah, don't feel like you have to send
us the Ghostbusters hate mail about it. We figured it
out a powerful lobby. Guys. There are some things that
even this show is not going to mess with.
Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
So do you have any idea. How many people have
not listened to this part yet but have already written
you a message.
Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
Oh God, don't don't punish. Don't punish us collectively. We
got there. We got there at the end, and we
do want to hear from you. We do want to
hear from you. If you don't care for social media,
that wholly makes sense, you can go old school with us.
We have a phone number that you can call literally
any anytime.
Speaker 4 (01:00:33):
That's right. Our number is one eight three three st
d w y t K. If you don't want to
do that stuff, though, but you still want to write
to us with your amazing idea, we're ready for you.
Just send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 4 (01:01:09):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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