DENVER

ASK THE AVERAGE MAN in the street who actually owns “big oil” and you are likely to get such answers as “corporate executives and insiders” or “millionaire fat cats.” Polls reveal that few voters know the facts — that oil executives and insiders own less than 1.5 percent of the shares of “big oil,” and that 41 percent of the big oil companies is owned by pension funds and retirement accounts, including a large percentage of labor-union pension funds. Another 43 percent is owned by mutual funds and small investors.

Demagogues and politicians currently running rampant in the media, calling for an “excess-profits” tax on big oil and other energy taxes, should be required to clarify their proposals by answering five simple questions.

First, exactly which owners of big oil should be required to pay these proposed discriminatory taxes? The big labor unions that own so many shares in big oil? The workers who depend on those pensions for retirement? The pension funds of government and municipal employees? The small investor trying desperately to save for retirement in a 401(k) account (now that many companies do not provide defined-benefit pension options)?

Second, what is the basis is for imposing such special taxes on big oil? Is it the fact that current oil-company profits are less than 6-to-9 pennies per gallon, and that big oil’s anemic profit margin of 8.6 percent is less than the 8.9 percent average for all of manufacturing (excluding the sputtering car makers), and far less than the profit margins for computers (13 percent), electronics (14.5 percent), pharmaceuticals (18.4 percent) and beverages (19.1 percent)?

Third, what has big oil done wrong, other than to sell gas at a price about half what Europeans pay, and at a price lower in real terms than the cost of gasoline in the U.S. 60 years ago? Is it the fact that during the period 2000-2005 U.S. oil firms invested over $100 billion in alternative energy technologies?

Fourth, how will an “excess-profits” tax affect gas prices at the pump? Every Econ 101 student learns that when the cost of an input of production rises, the ultimate price to the consumer rises accordingly (which is why when the price of steel rises, this increase is reflected in the price of the car made from that steel). And an increased tax increases the total cost of production to a producer no less than an increase in the rise of any other input, such as steel.

In other words, ask the politician demanding higher taxes on big oil why he doesn’t just call the proposed tax what it really is — a gasoline tax. That’s what they call it in Europe, and that is why European governments impose taxes on big oil companies where it hurts big oil the most — right at the pump, siphoning off at least $4 that would otherwise go straight to the coffers of the oil companies. .

Thus, if politicians want to campaign on a platform of raising gasoline taxes in the U.S. to the point where gasoline would cost $8-to-$9 a gallon (the current pump price in European countries), let them say so directly, rather than using the transparent euphemism of a “tax on big oil.”

Finally, ask the politicians if they themselves have recently bought any stock in big oil. After all, if those labor-union members and small investors are making so much money on their oil stock, why not become an owner yourself and get in on the gravy train?

The most likely response would be that “investing in oil companies is simply too risky.” Indeed, perhaps the politician asked that question made the mistake of investing in big oil in the 1980s when owners of big oil lost their shirts, and he now knows better than to take that risk again. And apparently no politicians were calling for a “deficient profits rebate” in the 1980s to compensate all those big-oil owners who lost their life savings.

Ah, yes, risk.

Perhaps some politicians overlooked that chapter when they took Econ 101; or they did read but are hoping that the voters didn’t.

Robert Hardaway is a professor of law at the University of Denver College of Law.