Just a couple of days ago on Larry Kudlow, I again read "gas prices are down."  Even the leading minds in the economy have bought in to this.  But in reality, gasoline prices are not down.  The whole gasoline affair is a successful con that the Biden administration has so far pulled on Americans.

The essence is this: for passenger cars, which dominate the nation's highways and city streets, ethanol alcohol is not fuel.  It takes up space in your tank; over time, it corrodes the engine.  Other than that, it evaporates.  You will not get any mileage out of ethanol; diluted ethanol is simply vodka, and if you fill your tank with vodka, it will not run.  The engines of our passenger cars are designed to run on petrol, a product made out of oil and not out of quickly fermented wheat, sugarcane, and the like, as is ethanol.

The difference in mileage is quite significant — ca. 25%.  Nobody notices because one cannot get pure gas anymore, and thus comparison of the mileage is eliminated.

I noticed the con while driving a familiar route, from Mt. Shasta, Calif. to Ashland, Ore.  This usually takes me one hour and approximately 1/8 of a tank of gasoline.  When I put Biden's ethanol gasoline into the tank, the amount of gasoline it took to reach Ashland was half a tank.  I couldn't believe my eyes; something must have gone wrong here.  I drive a BMW x1, which takes premium gasoline, so I filled the tank with commercial pure premium 93 (at $9.20 per gallon), and verified the effect by driving from Mt. Shasta to Berkeley and back: it took a full tank of Bidengas versus ca. 5/8 of a tank of commercial pure premium.  Upon further experimentation, I found that one gets approximately 25% less mileage out of a tank of Bidengas by comparison with mileage on pure gasoline, depending on the terrain.

Why doesn't anybody complain?  It's because you cannot easily run a comparison.  The administration promptly eliminated the possibility of comparison: pure gas is found nowhere in the nation except for some very rare stations, not to be found in the majority of states, which sell pure premium 91 at the pump.  They sell it because stubborn bikers refuse to wreck their expensive Harleys with vodka, so somebody has to sell the pure gas to them.  It goes at $6.57 per gallon, which is the real price of real gasoline whose octane number is slightly below what BMW x1 and other high-end passenger vehicles need to run — 92 premium.  As for the rest of the crowd, who do not use premium but use regular, add at least 25% to what you pay at the pump — this will be the real figure of what you pay for the same mileage as a couple of months ago.

Rumor has it ethanol also corrodes the engine.  The rumor, unsurprisingly, comes from those who have a bare view of what happens to car engines that run on ethanol — i.e., mechanics and those of us who often make basic repairs themselves — those who drive tractors, agricultural equipment, use gasoline-run small equipment for their yards, etc.  Many of such people are now forced to purchase commercial-grade premium 93 at the jaw-breaking price of $9.20 per gallon.  The only way one can get ethanol-free premium nowadays is by purchasing it wholesale in cans, not at the pump.  Incidentally, California eliminated the access of passenger car drivers to this gas by banning gas canisters that fit the passenger car tank snout.  Crafty!

So, on the face of it, the Biden administration is getting at least two advantages :

1. Creating an impression that gas prices went down.  To speak metaphorically, this amounts to selling a mix of water and milk for the price of milk and saying that milk prices are down.  God alone knows how much the real percent of ethanol you get at the pump is: 10–15% is a large margin.  Notice that first, the administration mandated 10%; then, as the scam seemed to pass unnoticed, the figure was increased to 15%.
2. The second advantage is even better.  As the Bidengas silently robs you of mileage, it also shortens the life of your engine, which was designed to run on specific octanes of pure petrol.  The gas engine is a polluter, so "down with the polluters!"  As more gas engines die, the brighter the future becomes for foisting electrical vehicles on the population.

One more scam to add to the long list. 

Image: Tony Webster.