Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Is Newt Gingrinch Stupid?

On the Sean Hannity wing-nut gabfest the other night, old Newt was up to his old tricks. This time, he was wildly claiming that Barack Obama's suggestion that we properly inflate our tires as one way to get better gas mileage was actually lining the pockets of Big Oil.

The Logic of Newt posits that air has a much higher profit margin than gasoline, so sending everyone to fill up their tires means more profit for the oil companies. I'll pause a moment here to let you ponder that.

First of all, I would suppose that service station owners make the money from selling air, if it's not free, in exchange for having those compressor machines. I don't know any service station owners, so if there are any out there that have to send any portion of their air revenue to their parent company, please drop me a note so I can pass that info along.

Secondly, of course there would be more profit in air, because AIR IS FREE. A large part of the cost of a gallon of gasoline comes from the gasoline itself, plus advertising, etc. I can't remember a service station running an ad for air. So one would expect to make more money from selling air. Newt puts this concept forth like he's found the 11th Commandment.


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