Yeah, it’s a real steal. In this case, literally.
It costs Saudi less that a dollar to pump a barrel of oil out of the sand. They are selling that oil for $85.
That's a steal at $2.05/gal.
Then there are a whole sh!t load of people who invest time, money, risk, effort and equipment in transporting that crude, processing it into a host of chemicals (including such things as plastics, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, dyes, solvents, waxes, tar, asphalt and on and on). These people expect to get paid for all the work and value they add to the crude.
The tanker ship company and pipeline owners get about 4¢/gal
The refinery gets about 40¢/gal
It gets hauled to your local gas station by a trucker who also wants to get paid enough to cover the cost of his truck, the fuel he burns, the insurance, and licensing, with enough left over to feed and clothe his nagging wife and runny nosed kids.
The trucker gets about 35¢/mile. Call it 5000 gal per delivery, 50 miles round trip yields a cost at 0.4¢/gal
Your neighbor who owns the station has to pay the Big Oil company its franchise fee, pay rent/mortgage on the station, taxes, insurance, cover the occasional drive off, set aside enough to remediate any damage a leaking tank might cause and live on whatever is left over.
For taking on all these risks and expenses, and the occasional armed robbery he gets to pocket 3¢/gal.
So where is the second real steal?
Who assumes none of the risk, invests in none of the equipment, pays none of the salaries, and not only contributes nothing to the process of getting that gas into your car, but actively tries to make that process as difficult and expensive as possible??
That would be the government.
State Underground Storage Tank Fee 1¢/gal
State and Local Sales Tax 23¢/gal
State Excise Tax 18¢/gal
Federal Excise Tax 18¢/gal
For a total government burden of 60¢/gal
And the democrats want to add a 50¢/gal carbon tax to that!