It’s all math, my friend Lenny and I used to joke.  No matter what the subject, the understanding of it was always based on math.  Numbers settled everything.  Take E = MC², for example.  Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.  Or, put another way, as the speed of a mass approaches the speed of light, the energy needed to move it at the speed of light approaches infinity.  Pretty simple, eh?  Let’s look at some other numbers and do a little more math today, then.

The United States population at the moment is approximately 310 million, and we have about 240 million automobiles amongst us.  There are approximately 6.6 billion people on the planet, meaning we represent about 5% of the world’s peoples.  We also use about 25% of the world’s energy.

China’s population is a little over 1.3 billion, and so for the moment is the world’s largest and most populous country.  China represents a full 20% of the world’s population, so one in every five people on the planet is a resident of China.

In 2006, China overtook Japan to become the world’s second largest car market, second only to the United States, with sales up more than 25% year on year.  China was also the world’s third largest vehicle producer, after Japan and the United States.

One more, and then we’ll do a little calculating.

In the next few decades, India, the world’s second most populous country, will surpass China in population.  By 2040, India’s population is expected to be 1.52 billion; that same year, China’s will be 1.45 billion, and India will become the world’s most populous country on the planet.

India has experienced a 24% annual growth in auto sales in recent years, too.  Perhaps you’ve heard of or seen the Tata?  Goldman Sachs estimates that India will have the largest number of cars by the year 2050.

Gas consumption world-wide is going to increase as a consequence, as will demand. More people driving more cars, with each number rising over time, and we have ourselves a little bit of a pickle when it comes to supply and price.  China holds a lot of U.S. paper – - it is heavily invested in the U.S. economy, owning major pieces of major pieces of it, and with that paper in hand, the price of a gallon of gas in Beijing can be $20 and they’ll pay it.  That level of consumption and demand is not going to drive the price of oil down, frankly, or at least that is what the numbers and the math tell us.

Barack Obama and John McCain are helpless at the moment, and can’t win for losing.  Opening up our off-shores for new drilling won’t help with the price of gas next month, next year, or even during the first term of whoever of the two is elected.  Estimates are that it will take six years for any oil drilled off Florida to reach the pumps as gas, and the same goes for the Arctic Wild Life Reserve.  Doing nothing during the winner’s first term would have the very same effect.

Let’s remember, too, that the U.S. has not built a new refinery in more than 33 years (1976, Garyville, Louisiana).  Even if the oil could be brought out of the ground next month, existing refineries have been at 100% capacity for a couple of decades.  Think about it for a moment, though, too – - if an oil company could sell to the overseas market where the demand was greatest at any price, do you believe they’d give the United States market a break in price just because it’s the U.S.?  Price is price, business is business, math is math.

So what do the numbers add up to?  What fun can we have with math today?  It would seem nothing the next president does is going to have any true benefit for us at the pumps; it would seem we’re never going to see lower gas prices; and it seems the United States is not driving the bus when it comes to consumption and demand anymore.

Decreasing U.S. dependency on foreign oil sounds great, a wonderful buzz phrase, but it is illusory.  So long as we insist on gas-powered automobiles and a oil-driven energy policy, the math says we’re always going to be subject to the influences of the world market, especially as China and India assert themselves as more ravenous consumers in the coming decades.

It will take great courage for either of the presidential candidates to talk about this and to present their vision for the United States in light of the math.  McCain’s position is to try anything and everything now; Obama’s position at the moment is to say no to anything and everything.  Each needs to do the math better than that, and then step up.  The math is easy, frankly, but it will not be easy to listen to meaningful long-term solutions, and they’ll be even harder to accept.  Alternative energy sources and drastic changes in habit and expectation are all understatements, according to the numbers.

As Lenny and I always said, though, it’s all math.  Politicians might lie, but numbers never do, and I’ll be thinking of the latter when I say my prayers today.