38 million barrells of oil are being extracted from the ground daily. 1/4 of it goes to the us the rest of it?

Question

I know that I do live in Germany, 2/3 of the gas price is tax, but good news is here a gas tank usually lasts about 2 weeks and not 1 day, not having to drive 2 hours to work.

Answer 1

China and India are 3 billion strong. China is where a lot of that goes. It could be worse. Europeans pay $9 a gallon for gas.

Answer 2

Yes, in the end, a dollar is only useful because it can be used to buy something from the U.S. But as long as a dollar is useful, other people will accept dollars for purchases too, so not all that money has to come back to the U.S.

Furthermore, adding all the daily dollars to get a yearly sum doesn't quite work either.

The U.S. currently about 1.1 trillion dollars worth of goods and services a year. That means that 1.1 trillion dollars gets spent by people outside the U.S. for goods and services the U.S. provides. How do they get that money? by selling things to people who pay in dollars.

Suppose the U.S. buys $1 worth of some product from country A. Country A can take that $1 and buy some oil from country B. Country B can take that $1 and buy something from the U.S., but it can also buy something from country D with that $1. Country D can go back and buy oil for that $1; buy something from the U.S. with that $1; buy something from some other seller that will accept dollars; or even hold it just in case it wants to use it later.

So before that $1 gets back to the U.S. it could have bought countless other products, even countless barrels of oil.