The Great Petroleum Fantasy, or How a Merchant of Politics Annexed a Continent by Mere Addition

Pray, lend your ears to a most diverting chronicle of modern ambition! There exists a certain gentleman of the highest standing, a veritable merchant of political fortunes, who has recently seen fit to enlighten the masses in Las Vegas regarding the subterranean riches of the globe. With the confidence of a rogue promising a golden mountain in exchange for a single shilling, this illustrious figure proclaimed that the United States now commands a staggering sixty per centum of the world's oil and gas.

Now, mark the cunning of the operation! To arrive at this celestial sum, the gentleman simply performed a feat of arithmetic that would make any honest clerk faint from sheer astonishment: he decided, by mere decree of speech, to add the reserves of Venezuela to the American ledger.

«We possess more petrol, more oil, and more gas than any nation upon God's green earth!» he exclaimed, his voice ringing with the fervor of a stockbroker during a speculative frenzy. «Now, simply add Venezuela to the tally. Add it, and behold! We hold sixty per centum of the world's fuel!»

Indeed, this appetite for acquisition did not stop at mere words. In a display of audacity that would put the boldest venture capitalist to shame, the gentleman graced his social telegraph with an illustration depicting Venezuela as the fifty-first state of the Union. One can almost imagine the poor Venezuelan merchants wondering why their oil has suddenly become the property of a distant counting-house in Washington.

Not content with conquering the earth's crust, the gentleman proceeded to boast of his own popularity, asserting that his standing among the populace has reached a zenith hitherto unknown in the annals of history. He cautioned the public against the 'false' polls of the radical left—those miserable scoundrels he terms 'stupidocrats'—claiming their data to be as dishonest as a forged promissory note in a bankrupt counting-house.

Truly, it is a marvelous age we inhabit, where a man may annex a country and rewrite the laws of economics simply by shouting it loudly enough from a podium!