Local price gouging of gasoline and how to deal with it - NOT Kamala's way | Eastern NC Now
Speedway imposes huge price hike while oil prices are falling nationally
Kamala Harris proposed a typical socialist solution to a non-problem in calling for price controls on food, something that has led to bread lines and rationing everywhere it has been tried. She did this in accusing the food industry, which has a meager 2% profit margin of "price gouging" (well her actual words were "price gauging").
Locally, we have an actual case of price gouging but on gasoline prices. Kamala's "solution" would likely lead to gas lines and rationing. There is a better way to tackle this.
The latest example hit this morning. While radio news broadcasts were reporting a fall in oil prices here and around the world as a resutlt of the latest news from the Middle East, the usual suspect, Speedway,hiked their gas prices by a whopping thirty cents. Usually most competitors will follow, and then the more consumer friendly stations like Murphy's and Quality Plus will start cutting. Others like Duck Thru are followers and will follow the other either up or down.
Over and over again, this has happened. Speedway is always the first with very large increases, usually between 20 and 30 cents at a whack, and with nothing to justify it in the overall energy market. It is just pure price gouging. It seems to happen more frequently these days, every few weeks.
The solution is more consumers to use their market power to punish this behavior. If consumers simply stopped shopping at the price gougers, even when their price was comparable to others, and instead only shopped at the more consumer friendly gas stations, it would cure this behavior one way or another. The bad actors would either stop the price gouging or they would go our of business.
Government does not stop price gouging but consumer action can.
Here is what has been happening to prices in the oil market the last few days (the red circled area on the chart). This is the time that Speedway thinks we need a more than ten per cent increase in retail gasoline prices????
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Will Simmons said:
( November 1st, 2024 @ 9:45 pm )
I’m glad to hear you do walk the talk Big Boo.
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Big Bob does indeed drive an electric hybrid. 50 MPG means Bob does not cry when gas prices fluctuate
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I got the context lol
I’m saying put your money where your mouth is. If you are an avid supporter of all things renewably green, and if you are so starchily opposed to fossil fuel as you say, then why are you not driving an electric car? Or at the very least a small hybrid, ok I’ll even give you a 4 cylinder. A climate alarmist that drives a V8. There’s a word for this. |
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Tell it to your bud Elon.
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I think you missed the context of the post. It was mostly sarcasm. Big Bob would never dump 6 quarts of oil into the river.
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Who wants one of those lousy, overly expensive electric cars? Polling in the US shows that a very substantial majority of Americans don't want them. Insurance data in Germany shows that a third of the people who have bought electric cars go back to gas or diesel when they get their next car. Yet Biden and Harris want to force these things we don't want upon us. That is dictatorship.
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So when did you get your electric car Bob? You made a comment a while back about dumping 6qts of oil on the ground after a change.
This would not only indicate that you have a gas or diesel vehicle, but being a 6qt engine would also mean you have a full size guzzler. The Coke machine isn’t the only thing you’re getting a “Big Gulp” from at the Wilco.  Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. |
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Jeff - of course all that is true. All the more reason to lessen the dependence. As long as we remain junkies addicted to fossil fuel, we will pay no matter what.
The trick is to get off it. Hard to do, but we should explore every possibility. The idiots that think we should maintain our addiction either work for Exxon or are so hopelessly hooked they cant see straight. Just like a crack addict. |
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