> Oh, good grief. The second sentence of your cite is "Up to the early 1950s, the United States produced most of the energy in consumed." Let me repeat: The US was self-sufficient in oil until the 1960s.

Good Greif to me?!?! You're saying that America making enough oil for the 70mn registered cars in 1960 [0] is evidence that it could make enough oil for the 225mn cars registered in 1999? [1] Don't even get me started on miles driven!

Aramco began Saudi nationalizion in 1950, and you claim that the US chose to up its reliance on them during that period? You have a very interesting understanding of O&G, my friend.

>You know exactly what I meant.

Lol. Ok. I guess I do, then.

>Even if you weren't trying to insinuate with the word "subsides" that the US wasn't actually giving out huge handouts to oil companies, that's what 99% of readers would take away from your statement.

Lol. Ok. I guess that's true, then.

>"Pricing externalities" implies that there is some sort of closer relationship in other countries between the price of gas and its "actual" cost (in terms of long-term environmental impact), including solutions for same.

Again, my entire point is you have no idea what you're talking about here. All that consumption taxes do is disincentive consumption. Per my last comment, often to make the taxes more popular, proceeds are used to "address" the underlying problem, but that's theater/bad governance that ignores the fungibility of tax revenue.

>As for affecting behavior in the here and now, higher gas taxes in, say, rural France or Ireland does not mean that French or Irish farmers are less willing to use gas-fueled trucks to carry produce to markets, because they have no alternative (at least right now; maybe this will change in the future with EV trucks). It means that they pay more per gallon to do so than their American counterparts. Period.

Boy I love a good binary. You don't think higher fuel costs encourage them to sell to more local distributors with lower transportation costs? I mean, we ship roses on airplanes from Ecuador en masse because of cheap fuel! [2]

>Feel free to tell people about how the US government distorts the gas market at three cents a gallon. I fear that the scale of their reaction will disappoint you.

Again, it's amazing to me that you think that these subsidies are direct consumer-facing price supports and I don't know how to explain more clearly that they are not.

>This is you rapidly beating a retreat.

What? Where's the contradiction? I don't care about your politics, I just want you to understand the situation better.

>You began your first reply to me with

Oh fun! I love when people Dunning-Kruger themselves on accounting (I literally just sat up straight in my chair!)

Yeah, because you made false claims about accounting? Are we just entering the "who is going to win" mode? Because then, by all means you've won if that's important to you, but please don't let it cloud your ability to incorporate new information (even if that new information goes against claims you made earlier. That's OK! That's learning!)

>Based on your missing the second sentence of the EIA document you cited above, the answer remains "No, I do not believe that you actually read the EESI paper before citing it the first time". You are, of course, by now realizing that although you know more about accounting than me, all you have done is to "prove" that US gas is "subsidized" by the munificent sum of three cents per gallon. I thank you for doing so.

This is tough to follow too, but again, small brain over here. I guess once I see the light about how (in your opinion) small subsidies aren't subsidies and subsidies to suppliers are best understood in consumer-facing terms, then I'll understand.

BTW, if corn is subsidized by like $5bn/year in the US, what's that per kernel? I bet a really small number!

[0] https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/summary95/mv200.pdf
[1] https://www.bts.gov/content/number-us-aircraft-vehicles-vess...
[2] https://www.routesonline.com/airports/7699/corporacion-quipo...