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Dear Mr. Berko:

W.C., Waterloo, Iowa

Dear W.C.:

In the 1960s, Big Oil had accumulated mountains of debt, earnings were generally weak, and the future looked barren with oil trading at $5 and $6 a barrel. So the Energy Crisis of 1971-72 was a warning shot across the bow that Congress, for reasons that may be criminally suspect, blithely chose to ignore.

The United States trudged through a painful recession and the price of crude tripled while Big Oil raped the consumer and produced record profits. Then in 1981, we had our Second Energy Crisis. The cover of National Geographic portrayed an oil derrick beneath a headline that screamed, “Oil at $100 a Barrel Possible.” Oil tripled again to $50-$60 a barrel, and while Congress twiddled its thumbs, Exxon, BP, Shell, etc. ransomed their oil to Americans, reported obscene profits and the economy tanked into the great recession of 1981-1982.

The Third Energy Crisis began in 1991 as a result of the Persian Gulf War. Big Oil cozened record profits from the crisis while our representatives sat in their congressional “snivel” chairs and the economy writhed through another recession.

And it happened again in 2007: Oil at $125 a barrel, gas at $4 a gallon, Big Oil’s enormous profits are sucking the consumer dry and the economy may be sinking into its most severe recession since the Great Depression.

Four major energy crises and Congress has done nothing in the past 37 years to reduce our oil dependency. It’s enough to convince folks that most members of Congress and Big Oil are joined at the lips and hips. Rep. Edward Markey, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence, was forced to admit that “Exxon Mobil is resisting the renewable energy revolution,” and I will remind you that Exxon is the same company that helped Germany produce enormous supplies of gasoline from coal during World War II.

There are many reasons Congress won’t approve funding for synthetic fuel plants, most of which are political, not economic. The governors of Montana (120 billion tons of coal) and Wyoming (64 billion tons of coal) want to build synthetic fuel plants in their states, which would cost about $6 billion each. However, Congress refuses to help with the financing, will not help the states remove some of the environmental roadblocks or assist in the permitting process. It certainly seems that there are strident and powerful opposition groups with more influence in Washington than the 150 million voters who are paying $4 a gallon to fill up their tanks. And, yes, synthetic fuel plants are economically feasible if oil remains above $35-$38 a barrel.

Well perhaps it’s time to consider the old-fashioned barter system that served so well before the adoption of universal coinage. We should tell our good Saudi brothers and other OPEC friends that from this day forward, we will no longer pay for your oil with cash or gold. However, we will trade one bushel of our wheat, or a bushel of our corn or a bushel of our soybeans for one barrel of oil, and you pay the shipping costs from our port to yours.

“Silly,” you say. Well, consider the following. The United States is the world’s largest producer of corn and soybeans, and only China and India grow more wheat than we do, but they consume almost every grain they produce. And we are the world’s largest exporter of these products, as well as cereal brans, sorghum, millet and other farm products.

Last year, Syria imported 890,000 metric tons (mt) of corn/maize, 147,000 mt of wheat and 483,000 mt of soybeans. Our friends in Iran imported 1.8 million mt of soybeans, 1.8 million mt of corn/maize, and 231,000 mt of wheat. And Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Nigeria and Russia import enormous quantities of grains from the United States to feed their people.

Of course, the prices of these products wouldn’t change a centime for U.S. consumption. And I suspect the world’s other large grain exporters — Australia, Canada, France, Argentina, Germany and the United Kingdom — would agree on the advantages of a grain cartel. Even radio commentator Paul Harvey likes this idea. And although the U.N. General Assembly would throw a serious “spit fit,” there will be a couple billion people in North and South America, Europe, Asia and the Pacific Rim who would applaud the results of a grain cartel.

But I doubt that Congress will allow us to be that ruthless, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is counting on our timidity and Congress’ incestuous relationship with Big Oil.

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 1416, Boca Raton, Fla. 33429 or e-mail him at malber@comcast.net. © Copley News Service