Two magic words get the public drool, tax cuts and jobs. The former is used by the government and the latter used by corporations. And both are big lies. What the government gives in the right, they take in the left; they control the value of everything you have. What the corporation claim to give, is usually taken from one group, “taxed” and a little portion of it is given out.
Take two examples that happened relatively recently. The $110 arms deal that Trump made with Saudi Arabia in late May of 2017 (http://abcnews.go.com/International/truth-president-trumps-110-billion-saudi-arms-deal/story?id=47874726). Couple that with the “tax breaks” that were announce by the end of 2017 and presented to the American people as the deal of the century. Both got extensive coverage in the media, but what did not get in the news at all is that WTI oil prices jumped from low 40s late May to high 50s by the end of 2017. Brent actually jumped to $65 a barrel.
Where did you think the Saudis are going to come up with the money? Let us take a little bit of look at the Saudi equation. The cost of extraction of a barrel of oil in Saudi Arabia is about $10 (https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Are-We-Nearing-A-Transition-Point-In-Oil-Production.html). Saudi Arabia Budget for 2018 is estimated at 260 billion dollars. Assuming that they export every barrel they get out, and assuming they extract around 10 million barrel a day, their average almost, they need to satisfy the following equation for the price of barrel.
(P – $10) * 10 * 106 * 356 = 260 * 109. This leads to about $82 for barrel. The official numbers are between $60 and $100 based on whose numbers you take.
What happens if the price of barrel of oil increased by $15, which it already did. The United States consumes about 20 million barrel of oil daily. That means the above increase in the price will cost 20*106*15 = $300 million dollars a day. If we divide by the 300 million Americans, rough math, this leads to $1 a day per person. And considering that the average house hold size is 2.6 people (https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=db2ab608ba0a473d9731d87fa215cb8b) it means each house hold cost is about $2.5 a day, or roughly again about $900 a year. It is actually worse since your $900 is post tax. So it probably cost you about $1100 or $1200 in reality.
So now let us go back to this historical tax break story. Even the biggest supporters of this plan will admit that the benefit to most Americans including the middle class, is couple of hundred dollars a year. So you were handed couple of hundreds and lost $900. That is just from the oil “inflation” not counting all the other arguments involved with the tax cuts.
The 100 billion dollars is going to the big corporation, Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed, etc. That will “trickle” after the government takes roughly 30% in corporate and individual taxes. Then there is cost of goods, big wigs bonuses, congress persons and senators kickbacks (oh sorry donations/contribution), and overhead here and there, about 20% makes it to the actual workers. Remember there was 100 billion paid by the collective, that is us, and we get back 20% in “jobs”; it is a great deal by a great “negotiator” after all. That is the math of the of yet another “deal of the century.”
And as you see as long as the system is rigged, talking about numbers is useless. They can easily suck up your disposable income at will. That is from gas only. Do not forget health insurance, reducing social security benefit, cutting back on services, raising interest rates (if you are a new home buyer) and the list goes on and on.