Federal Reserve economists destroy Biden's excuse | Eastern North Carolina Now

economists at the Federal Reserve of Dallas this week published an analysis debunking the Democrats’ “profiteering” excuse for high gas prices. Senior economic analysts Garrett Golding and Lutz Kilian explained that profiteering and price gouging are not contributing to the staggering price of gas.

While U.S. retail gasoline prices in many regions have remained stubbornly high since March, this situation reflects frictions in the retail gasoline market rather than the supply of oil or the price of oil.

Gas station operators set prices: “Gas station operators set retail prices based on their expected acquisition cost for the next delivery of fuel from the local distributor, federal and state tax rates, and a markup that covers operating expenses, such as rent, delivery charges and credit card fees.”

Nearly every gas station is owned by a company that does not produce oil: “Since only 1 percent of service stations in the U.S. are owned by companies that also produce oil, U.S. oil producers are in no position to control retail gasoline prices.”

I’ll try to avoid the deep weeds, here, but according to Golding and Kilian, the cost of crude oil accounts for roughly 59 percent of the price of gasoline, so a 34 percent increase in the price of oil should reflect a 20 percent increase in the retail price of gas.

https://redstate.com/mike_miller/2022/05/13/federal-reserve-economists-destroy-bidens-excuse-of-oil-companies-profiteering-for-skyrocketing-gas-prices-n564066