I'm not sure if the math is accurate, but I guess they don't realize the point was not to save money on oil, but to reduce pollution and spur sales of new cars in order to help the auto industry. But whatever, you try arguing that to her.
"The Cash for Clunkers results
Oilfield Math;
Working in the oilfield with others such as myself and a wealth
of combined experience we understand the accuracy of the following.
Think of it this way:
A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year.
A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a year.
So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline
consumption by 320 gallons per year.
They claim 700,000 vehicles so that's 224 million gallons saved per year.
That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.
5 million barrels is about 5 hours’ worth of US consumption.
More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars
So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.
We spent $8.57 for every dollar we saved.
I'm pretty sure they will do a great job with our health care, though."
um... The average decent car can run for 10-15 years. So your government spent 3billion to save 3.5billion over 10years or 5.25 billion over 15years saving 10's of thousands of jobs in the process.
ReplyDeleteSounds like good, sound, long-term thinking.
And according to easy-to-access figures on the web that's closer to 6hrs consumption.
You should let them handle your health-care.