Suffice it to say that every American consumer pays twice the going world rate for oil and gasoline products. A barrel of sweet east Texas crude costs $3.98 delivered by tanker to New York. That same barrel from abroad costs $2 at the same place. until the quota system doubles its priceto you. The oil industry obviously believes cash broadens the soultheir souls. The free world today is practically swimming in a glut of cheap foreign oil controlled almost entirely by major American oil companies. These same organizations made approximately 30 percent of their profits here and 70 percent abroad before the oil import quota system was established. Since then. as mass importation of cheap foreign oil has been dammed up. their profit sources have been almost exactly reversed. Most American oil companies now make about 70 percent of their profits domestically and only about 30 percent abroad. It is in their private vested interest to maintain U.S. prices artificially high through the quota system. Beside what they rake in from this privilege. the chicanery of the 271/2percent depletion allowance is petty larceny. This year. however. has been one of indignant outcry over tax reform. In the process. at last the rock was lifted and the Nation had a chance to see what our oil industry has been concealing. We began to understand the oil import quota system. which has been revealed for what it isthe most effective way of plundering the public since John Dillinger was forcibly retired from his labors. It has been quite a year for oil stories. There is the major strike in Alaska. which insures us a major supply of cheap petroleum. although the oil industry would have us believe otherwise.
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quota system