Wingnuts fail math and logic -- and anything else requiring a brain

I just got this e-mail from my pet wingnut:


-- quote from wingnut email making the rounds
Keep your eyes peeled for our ever vigilant media to jump on this one
– yeah, right.

A vehicle at 15 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 800 gallons a year
of gasoline.

A vehicle at 25 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 480 gallons a
year.

So, the average clunker transaction will reduce US gasoline
consumption by 320 gallons per year.

They claim 700,000 vehicles – so that's 224 million gallons / year.

That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.

5 million barrels of oil is about ¼ of one day's US consumption.

And, 5 million barrels of oil costs about $350 million dollars at $75/
bbl.

So, we all contributed to spending $3 billion to save $350 million.

How good a deal was that ???

They'll probably do a great job with health care though!!
-- end quote


First, they didn't even get their own arithmetic right on the surface,
because 5 Million X $75 is not $350 million, it's $375 million.

However, more importantly, they got the production figures wrong.

A barrel of oil produces only 19.5 gallons of gasoline, so that 224
million gallons of gasoline requires 11.5 million barrels of oil. At
$75 per barrel, that amounts to $862,500,000 per year saved.

That means in 3.4 years we break even, on gas saved alone.

However that doesn't include the hidden costs of pollution and
accidents that will presumably be reduced, in addition to jobs created
which then go on to contribute taxes overall.

I wouldn't be surprised if this paid for itself in 2.5 years. Even
less if we allow for cars greater than 25 mpg being purchased, or more
like 15,000 miles per year, etc.

.

Relevant Pages

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