Stopped for gas on the way home last night.

Pilgrim

Pilgrim

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A girl was running from pump to pump changing the prices. I asked why didn't she wait until they closed, why do it when there are about 20 cars at every pump. She said they change it days and nights and that this was the second time that day that she had changed the prices.

The same gas is in the tanks all this time.

It's more than the mfg's that are making a killing here.
 
Pilgrim said:
A girl was running from pump to pump changing the prices. I asked why didn't she wait until they closed, why do it when there are about 20 cars at every pump. She said they change it days and nights and that this was the second time that day that she had changed the prices.

The same gas is in the tanks all this time.

It's more than the mfg's that are making a killing here.
Click to expand...

Isn't that complete BS? Oh well unless it's a monopoly they can do what they want I guess.
 
Pilgrim said:
The same gas is in the tanks all this time.
Click to expand...
When you sell you house do you base the price on the cost you paid plus a reasonable markup, or charge the highest price for whihc you can find a willing buyer?

Assuming you won't be offering a "cost based house price" when selling, why should the rules be different when you a a buyer than when you are selling?

Alternatively, if you are at the range and a buddy wants to buy a few boxes of ammo you bought way back when it was cheaper, are you going to charge the replacement price or the price you paid before the increase?
 
It sucks. But supply and demand is what makes this economy work. Can't we just kill whales and make engines that run on blubber?

Hey isn't Blubber a movie too? [devil2]
 
When you sell you house do you base the price on the cost you paid plus a reasonable markup, or charge the highest price for whihc you can find a willing buyer?
Click to expand...

Willing to pay the gas prices?? HAVE TO ! There is no competition. I can't shop around to find it more affordable somewhere else like with a house.

But supply and demand is what makes this economy work
Click to expand...

Supply and demand used to work. Now, it's more like "we've got them by the nads and we'll make them pay...where else are they going to get it? By the way, I want a $400 million dollar bonus."
 
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Yea, it sucks that gas is a futures product. And I hate that they are saying that because of the Iran scare, gas is going to be 4 bucks a gallon by the summer.

But what sucks even more is milk is already over 3 bucks a gallon. And when the price of gas goes up, so will the price of everything else.


What pisses me off Rob is that it's gouging. Yea, we can chose to sell our house for the highest price that we can. But me buying food, medicine and clothes doesn't depend on me buying a house a few times a week.

They know that people like me, live far from work, have no choice but to pay gas because there's not an easy way for me to commute to work on public transportation. So, I have to drive.

Meanwhile, the gas companies are reporting profits in the billions. BILLIONS! It means that gas is over priced. PROFITS, not operation cost, PROFITS!

Yea, it's good that they are making a profit. That's free enterprise. I'm all for it.

But if I'm a business owner, and I see that I'm making a profit now....but in a few months, I see that I'm hurting my customers I would rethink my pricing so I can still make a godly amount of money....but keep my customers from getting a sour taste in thier mouth.

My grandfather had his own business. He's been driving an olds his whole life. He was making a good amount of money and bought a Caddy. All the union guys saw the new caddy and striked because they weren't bringing in the money.

He sold the caddy and bought another Olds. Didn't matter that the Olds cost about the same. It wasn't a Caddy. That ended up costing him a fortune because he had to give all the union guys raises. He never bought another caddy, and still made a bunch of money.

Free enterprise can work, and you can make money. Just no reason to rock the boat.

When you hear that CEOs are getting 400 millon dollar bonuses, and they are making profits in the billions. There's no reason to keep people from feeding thier family because they have to choose gas over meals so they can go to work to pay for a roof over thier heads.

It's just pissing me off.
 
Pilgrim said:
Thanks,

I'll drive the 75 miles to and 75 back from Andover to save the $1.50 on my next fillup.[rolleyes]
Click to expand...

You put in your local zip code and compare YOUR local prices. (Look and think outside the box.)
 
Remember; when you fill up, the price you pay isn't based on what the station paid for the gas in their tanks. It is based on the replacement cost of the gas in their tanks.

Face it; we live in a market economy. The local station has nothing to do with the price of gas. It's all determined by Wall Street. The smart money invested in Exxon, Mobile, Irving, etc. a while ago (alas, I have neither smarts nor money).
 
Pilgrim said:
A girl was running from pump to pump changing the prices. I asked why didn't she wait until they closed, why do it when there are about 20 cars at every pump. She said they change it days and nights and that this was the second time that day that she had changed the prices.

The same gas is in the tanks all this time.

It's more than the mfg's that are making a killing here.
Click to expand...


On the other hand what seems devious up front might be some sort of
"buffering" effort on the part of the gas station. EG, it may allow them
to stretch out offering a "mid point" price to the customers if they increase
the price as soon as they know what the new prices are going to be...

The gas stations sometimes do gouge, but most of them are within a
few cents of one another.

Another thing to keep in mind.... the places with the cheapest gas will
often sell the most gas... this means whatever they have in their tank is
going to go faster... and thus the cheapest stations are going to be the
ones to get the newest shipment of gas at the higher price.... so often
times youll see the cheapo stations price gap being closed for a few days
or a week until the expensive stations tanks get depleted.

The problem with fuel is we're slaves to it. It's a -need- based
product. It's not like housing, cars, etc, where we can just settle for
whatever it is that we have, or shop in different markets, etc.... gas is
this commodity type thing where the market is pretty much
normalized, at least on this contintent. Some places have drastically
higher prices than others, but this is typically due to taxes or other
sorts of communism. (eg California's gas policy).

It's also HARD for us to reduce demand. All we can do is reduce
"optional" driving, shipping, etc. Maybe change cars, etc.. but
even that only will double the mileage, at best, for most
people. Then there are trucks and airplanes- two categories of
vehicles which reducing consumption by a noticeable amount is a lot
more difficult to pull off.

It's one of the few things in life where theres not a whole lot of
choice. It's not as if there are 5 different fuels one can easily run
their car off of. The only real "choice" we have in the matter is
to move closer to where we work and buy crap, and that has its own
set of costs. (In my case, I commute 90 miles a day. If I moved
closer, gas would be less, but I'd be paying $400 more a month for
rent... which far outstrips the cost of even paying $4 a gallon for
gasoline.

To top this off, even in the face of domestic reductions in consumption,
that might not be enough.... there are a few billion chinese folks who are
getting sick of riding their bicycles, and are probably going to be riding
around in cars running on government subsidized/refined/untaxed gasoline.

It's not just the US anymore that are going to be gas pigs... China and
India are bringing up the rear. This will increase global oil demand over
time.

I think the -biggest- single factor right now with US gas prices is the
fact that we have a severe lack of refining capacity. The last refinery
in the US was built in like.... 1978? This causes price spikes all on
its own independent of whatever the price of crrude is. Katrina proved
this in a big way.... a refinery was offline, prices soared temporarily until
it started producing product again.

-Mike
 
derek said:
It sucks. But supply and demand is what makes this economy work. Can't we just kill whales and make engines that run on blubber?

Hey isn't Blubber a movie too? [devil2]
Click to expand...

You can be in charge of "tapping" Hillary Clinton.
 
Gas prices will keep on going up until they're people find other means of transportation. It's an obvious fact, but the sooner people start walking down to the corner store instead of driving, the sooner we'll all save money.
 
Kalahari said:
Gas prices will keep on going up until they're people find other means of transportation. It's an obvious fact, but the sooner people start walking down to the corner store instead of driving, the sooner we'll all save money.
Click to expand...

unlikely. You cut back on use and therefore the puchasing of fuel or any item and the companies have to raise prices to keep their profits up to where they were during the period of high pricing.

I read somewhere where Oregon, I think, depends like all states on taxes from fuel sales. Sales went down, the resulting taxes went down so they have to find another way to tax the consumer or increase the tax on gas sales to make up the difference.

They get you coming and going.
 
Rob Boudrie said:
When you sell you house do you base the price on the cost you paid plus a reasonable markup, or charge the highest price for whihc you can find a willing buyer?

Assuming you won't be offering a "cost based house price" when selling, why should the rules be different when you a a buyer than when you are selling?

Alternatively, if you are at the range and a buddy wants to buy a few boxes of ammo you bought way back when it was cheaper, are you going to charge the replacement price or the price you paid before the increase?
Click to expand...

Bad analogy. Try this: A gun shop buys a quantity of ammo at $10.00 per box and puts it on the floor for sale for $15.00. As you are waiting in line to buy some of this ammo, the price increases to $18.00 per box. Does this bother you? I would understand an increase if the ammo sells out and a new shipment comes in costing the shop $13.00 per box. Assuming the shop owner can survive on a $5.00 per box profit, $18.00 in this case is not unreasonable. I would even understand a percentage based increase which would make the cost to the consumer $20.50 per box. Fortunately ammunition prices are not media manipulated and subject to the greed and opportunistic tendencies of big oil.

Chris
 
derek said:
It sucks. But supply and demand is what makes this economy work. Can't we just kill whales and make engines that run on blubber?

Hey isn't Blubber a movie too? [devil2]
Click to expand...

I like the whale idea. Do you think my 180g Speer Gold Dots in a 40 s/w would work? Or should I use this as my excuse to pick up a BMG?
 
Coyote33 said:
here ya go:
Click to expand...
Dave Givens drives 370 miles to work and back every day and considers his seven-hour commute the best answer to balancing his work with his personal life.

http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jh...ddlyEnoughNews

Givens, a 46-year-old electrical engineer, has an extreme commute between home in Mariposa, California, and his job in San Jose. He leaves home before dawn and returns after dark.

II submit that Dave Givens is an idiot, or that he only works 3 hours a day.
 
Or try this one: You've got a gun that you bought a while back for $250 that you're not interested in keeping. Considering inflation, storage costs, a fair return on investment, whatever, (there's no wear and tear or depreciation involved here) we could justify saying that it should be worth $400 now. So here's the question -- do you
  1. sell it to the first person who offers you $400, and not take more than that,
  2. sell it to your neighbor who's willing to pay $500 for it, or
  3. sell it to some stranger who's offering $750 for it?


If you say (1), then you're doing exactly what everybody is saying the oil companies should do [and you're a damn liar to boot].

If you say (2), then you're gouging your neighbor for $100 in unjustified, immoral excess profit, and the government ought to jump in and take tax those profits away, just like they did to the oil companies under Carter.

If you say (3), then you're just like those bastards running Exxon/Mobil and the other evil oil companies are doing.

The simple reason that gas is so expensive is supply and demand, regardless of how many times somebody screams that "supply and demand don't apply here, because gas has become a necessity." It costs as much as it does because somebody else is willing to pay that much for it, in this case those rotten Chinese and other countries who refuse to have the decency of staying in their assigned roles as third world subsistance farming cultures forever. Even so, once you adjust for inflation we're paying roughly the same as we did at it's previous peak in the early 80's. Food and shelter more easily fit the definition of "necessities" than gas ever will, but I don't hear anybody demanding that the government take over the grocery business and supply us with our "needs", or that they institute price controls on housing to prevent people who bought their homes 30 years ago for what we'd now consider chump change from "gouging" buyers willing to pay 20 times as much today.

Do I like it? Hell, no! But don't assume that that means too much. I still think gas should cost 24.9 cents a gallon, a new home on the southern California coast should cost around $25K, I should be able to get a burger, fries and Coke at McDonalds for about 50 cents, and surplus M1911's should be readily available through mail order for under $50 with no paperwork beyond a signed statement that you're over 18.

Ken
 
If nobody buys the gas, the oil companies won't raise the prices. That will just deter possible consumers even more.
 
Pilgrim said:
A girl was running from pump to pump changing the prices. I asked why didn't she wait until they closed, why do it when there are about 20 cars at every pump. She said they change it days and nights and that this was the second time that day that she had changed the prices.

The same gas is in the tanks all this time.

It's more than the mfg's that are making a killing here.
Click to expand...

Price gouging, the Iraq war, inflation, call it result of whatever ya want, bottom line is the average piss ants like us will pay the price because we want/need stuff. Take 7.62x39 ammo for example. Theres a little here and there and look what happened at the last Marlboro show... $160 at the opener, $199 an hour later. Yeah the guys that got the first price were like "Whew! Glad I got it when I did!" but later on i'm sure there were people walking out the door $199 less in their wallet and 1000 rounds heavier. Just like Sunday i'll put in my now usual $20 from $15 worth of gas just so I can get back and forth to work and maybe a few range trips during the week.
Actually now that I think about it its about 25 miles to and from the range for me roundtrip. Shooting my SKS rifles at almost $200 a case..... [thinking]
I may just have to run amok at some point to justify the expenses.
Now that I really think about it, you shoulda shot the girl running to the pumps in the leg before she got to yours. [laugh]
 
Gas Pricing

I think the girl was giving a line of bull. Most states have statutes that allow a price change only one a day. I'm guessing that it stems from back in the 70's during the gas shortages.[thinking]
 
Kalahari said:
Gas prices will keep on going up until they're people find other means of transportation. It's an obvious fact, but the sooner people start walking down to the corner store instead of driving, the sooner we'll all save money.
Click to expand...
Yea, that sounds good in theory, but many of us live where there is no other form of transportation than our own cars - and I'm a walker, always have been, that's why you'll see me logged on in the early AM, I'm eating my breakfast before going out for my power walk. I could walk home from Myettes with a gallon of milk, but do you really expect me to carry a week's worth of groceries home? Be realistic.

I do believe, though, that there's a better way of fueling individual transportation. It isn't going to happen easily.....the economy of the country, and the world, runs on oil. Totally on oil. That's going to be a hard thing to break. Maybe even impossible. [thinking]
 
We walked around for thousands and thousands of years, no reason why we can't today. I understand there's always going to be a need for easier transportation, but kids can take a bus or bike to school, you can carpool with co-workers, and public transportation can suffice in many situations, etc. The small things add up.
 
I got an email today that had a good idea

"I hear we are going to hit close to $ 4.00 a gallon by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down?

We need to take some intelligent, united action. The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas.

It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.
BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can Really work. Please read on and join with us!


By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $2.79 for regular unleaded in my town.

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace..not sellers.

With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action.

The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves.

How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas.

But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL.

If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices.

If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit."
 

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