What's so bad about foreign oil?

And yet the candidates talk as if the U.S. were one giant energy-buying socialist entity that can choose exactly where all its oil comes from. The U.S. market consists of millions of individual global transactions, some of which you make at the gas station. According to the federal Energy Information Administration, last year, the U.S. bought oil from 90 countries and exported oil to 73.

A country is not stronger if it produces everything itself. Econ 101 teaches you that everyone benefits when people who are good at one thing, such as having oil, can exchange it with people who are good at something else, such as sitting in offices and surfing the Web.

And even if we cut down on imported oil, we're still dependent on other nations. We import electricity from Mexico and Canada. We import 20% of our natural gas and 80% of the uranium for nuclear reactors. All of our solar power is directly imported from the sun.

If being independent from foreign oil is good, so would being independent from foreign fish, foreign cars, foreign beer and foreign movies. Do you want to live in a world without Spanish mackerel, Priuses, Guinness or Mr. Bean?

Self-sufficiency won't make us safer either. Sure, if we went to war with Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and Russia and Mexico and Canada at once, moving our armies around would be tough, but that would be the least of our worries: We'd have some kind of mob-funded, hockey-goon, masked-wrestler army at our door. Outside that scenario, energy interdependence makes us more secure. When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit in 2005, for instance, we got oil to the ravaged Gulf Coast by buying extra from Venezuela and the Netherlands.

Robert Bryce, the author of the new book "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence," is sure the presidential candidates know all of this. "The rhetoric is helping to support multibillion-dollar boondoggles like the ethanol scam," he said. "When they say, 'energy independence,' they mean, 'Vote for me.' It's all it means."

The only solution to our energy panic, I believe, is to get monthly bills for gasoline, just like we do for water, electricity and cellphone minutes. All that staring at those hundredths of a cent speeding by on a gauge is bound to make people crazy, lashing out at foreigners and large corporations. If bartenders attached one of those things to their taps, we'd have candidates promising independence from foreign beer too.

--

jstein@latimescolumnists.com