Gas Price Gougers #&@%!

[tallyho8]

Hurricane Gustav seems to be headed straight for New Orleans and last night the news told people to be ready to evacuate and fill their gas tanks. I had just filled my tanks yesterday but I went back to the station to fill my cans with gas and diesel for the generator and tractor. The stations in our area raised the price of gas 40 cents a gallon overnight! The Louisiana attorney general announced that price-gouging at gas stations would be cracked down on during hurricane evacuations but the stations are saying that some oil rigs in the gulf had to shut down for the hurricane and it raised the price of oil and drove their prices up. If this is true, it raised the price of your gas too even if you are far away from the hurricane threatened area. For those of you who live hundreds of miles from the gulf, did your gas go up 40 cents a gallon last night?

 

[smfcpacfp]

No it didn't, but don't whine about it. Vote with your feet, and don't buy gas from vendors that don't meet your needs, or start your own gas station and don't raise prices.

The problem with this country is that we have too many whiners who want someone to take care of them when they are unhappy.

 

[JESSE1]

I've noticed an increase of 10-20 cents per gallon. All motels/hotels in this area are already booked up for the next week.

 

[Skyco]

Oh yeah gas shot up 30+ cents a gallon overnight here in the middle of SC at some stations. I figured it was a combination of Gustav and the holiday weekend coming, they ream us on those holiday weekends every year.

 

[thatguy]

Keep in mind that some gas stations price their fuel based on what their next load will cost them, not what the load they are selling costs...

With the recent hurricanes I saw on the new that gas prices jumped considerably. SO they may not be gouging, just normal procedure..

But i doubt any station ever lowers their prices below their actual fuel cost no matter what the next load is going to cost..

Brian

 

[AlanB]

Not 40 cents, but yes, we were just discussing this.

My wife and I find it amazing that there is a "threat" to the gas supply and the price INSTANTLY goes up.

But when the price of oil DROPS, it takes a considerable amount of time for it to drop.

While it aggravates me, I have to agree with the above poster SMFCPACFP (even if he won't fix the worlds best wheelie video ) but I think folks are not just whining. I think you have seen more action to move away from oil dependence in the last 6 months, then I saw in the previous 6 years.

I think we have a combination of complain while we are fixing and adapting going on.

And yes, at some point, it just comes down to price gouging. And they are getting by with it, so why stop?

 

[DocHeb]

Went up $0.20 last week just talking about a possible hurricaine.

To stay in business, the gas stations need to sell their current inventory at a price that allows them to buy more gas in the future. It is not a viable option to sell the gas in their tanks for less than the future gas wholesale price since they will not have enough cash flow to maintain their inventory.

A busy filling station may get two deliveries a week. It is certainly possible that gas might go up 10% ($0.40) within the next week due to local conditions for that station. This is not gouging, it is staying in business.

Gas prices drop more slowly than they go up since the inventory throughout the entire system has to be sold at the higher prices so that they don't sell at a loss (another bad business plan.)

Politicians that rail against "gouging" or "excess profits" are pandering to the electorate.

 

[jdbower]

I wonder, price increases should help the equally despicable consumer-side practice of hording. Perhaps the choice is paying 40 cents more for gas or having no gas available at the same price it was before because everyone decides to horde just before the storm instead of being prepared all the time.

 

[EddieWalker]

No it didn't, but don't whine about it. Vote with your feet, and don't buy gas from vendors that don't meet your needs, or start your own gas station and don't raise prices.

The problem with this country is that we have too many whiners who want someone to take care of them when they are unhappy.

Seems like you're a little harsh here. There is a big difference between whining and venting when life gets difficult and having to deal with it. A .40 cent increase in fuel overnight sucks, and it's only going to get worse.

Eddie

 

[dmccarty]

Last night the price of diesel was at 4.15 where it has been for a week or so. Did not drive by this morning so it could have gone up.

For the most part the stations I drive by seem to raise and lower the price at about the same rate. There is one station that has a location where there is not another place to get fuel for 5-10 miles and he gets lots of contractor traffic. His price is always higher than other places. He is at least 10-20 cents higher per gallon but he has the location and no competition.

Later,
Dan

 

[tallyho8]

No it didn't, but don't whine about it. Vote with your feet, and don't buy gas from vendors that don't meet your needs, or start your own gas station and don't raise prices. The problem with this country is that we have too many whiners who want someone to take care of them when they are unhappy.

Pardon me. I did not realize that you label someone a whiner when they make a post on something of concern to them on a tractor forum. Perhaps none of us should ever whine when our John Deere clutch goes out or our Kubota hydraulics fail.

We especially should not whine about anything as trivial as the gas stations in their area immediately raising the price of gas 40 cents a gallon when a major evacuation order is issued for 1,000,000 to flee the area for their lives. So what if every gas station has lines a block long already and we only have half a tank of gas and don't know if the gas station in the next town will be out of gas by the time we get there. These station owners are only following the great American concept of making more money anytime, anyway that they can. So what if a few thousand people are unable to pay the higher prices and can not evacuate. It can't be any worse than Katrina, can it? Only a few thousand dead, but they don't count because they are the poor who can't afford to help you reach your record profit potential anyway.

I guess if you're a doctor and someone is lying in front of you facing imminent death unless they get that injection, then it is ok to charge $1,000,000 for the injection. If they don't like it they can just go to another doctor, huh?

I don't need anybody to take care of me and I have never accepted a penny of charity in my life and hope to never have to but I don't look down on all those who do need help in adverse situations.

And if there are any whiners out there who I might be able to help in some way, please feel free to pm me. I will be glad to help you if I can.

 

[Skyco]

Well said! Where's the little emoticon with clapping hands....

 

[Bird]

As DocHeb said, they have to charge enough for what they have on hand to buy the next load. Did they raise their price more than that? I don't know. But if their cost is going up, would you rather they'd leave their selling price down, in which case, they'd go out of business and you couldn't get gas there at any price? I noticed today that the only posted price I was was $.17 a gallon more than I paid 4 days ago. But, as with most of us, I don't know whether the price increase was justified or not.

 

[Bird]

I was just now reading this story in which some are saying gasoline may shoot up to $5 a gallon.

 

[tallyho8]

I was just now reading this story in which some are saying gasoline may shoot up to $5 a gallon.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! That article says that the price of oil FELL Thursday and that the price FELL again Friday! It states that the price of gas FELL 1.15 cents on the Nymex exchange down to $3.00 a gallon. It states that AAA says the average price of gas in America went up 1 cent a gallon today but in the evacuation area it went up 40 cents at many gas stations.

The article goes on to say that IF the hurricane damages hundreds of oil rigs and refineries that the price of gas could go up to $5. That's a BIG IF!

Since the price of oil and the price of gas on the exchange did NOT go up, the 40 cent increase is price gouging during a disaster when the people have no choice and no other options.

 

[Bird]

I undertand, Dudley, and I don't like it anymore than anyone else, but I'm not sure who is to blame, or even whether anyone is to blame. It's been nearly 50 years since I worked with my Dad in his service stations, so I don't know what kind of profit there is now, but I doubt that it's very high. I know back then 50% of the service stations nation wide went broke or changed hands each year. And of course, I don't even know whether we're talking about independent stations or company stations owned by big oil companies. But even if prices fell on the exchange, that doesn't mean a lot for an independent service station owner. What he has to go by is what his supplier tells him, and if that supplier told him his next delivery may be 40 or 50 cents a gallon higher, then I really can't blame him for trying to stay in business.

So, yep, they may be unfairly gouging, but I wouldn't bet on it.

 

[tallyho8]

I didn't mean that it was necessarily the service station itself that was price gouging. It could be his distributor or the refinery or some broker in between. But if the price of oil is decreasing and the price of gas on the exchange is decreasing and the price of gasoline suddenly shoots up 40 cents a gallon overnight during an emergency situation, then SOMEONE in the supply line IS price gouging.

 

[MikePA]

Since the price of oil and the price of gas on the exchange did NOT go up, ...

I see this kind of statement posted in every thread on every forum where people complain about fuel prices, which is almost everywhere on the Internet.

Please explain what the price/barrel of oil on an exchange today has to do with the retail price of fuel?

That's like saying the price/bushel of corn dropped on the Chicago board and the price of Fritos should drop in my local grocery store.

 

[sandman2234]

Went up $0.20 last week just talking about a possible hurricaine.

To stay in business, the gas stations need to sell their current inventory at a price that allows them to buy more gas in the future. It is not a viable option to sell the gas in their tanks for less than the future gas wholesale price since they will not have enough cash flow to maintain their inventory.

Not trying to pick on DocHeb about this, he was just one of many that have posted something similar to this.

Poor business planning and poor cash management or just a better way to "explain away" the right to rip off the general public? Sound business practices would allow for a better way to make money without having to rely on your distributors theory on what the next truckload is going to cost you. The whole oil distribution thing in this world is set up wrong and the people that need to fix it are making money at it, so why should they want it to change?
David from jax
David from jax

 

[tallyho8]

I see this kind of statement posted in every thread on every forum where people complain about fuel prices, which is almost everywhere on the Internet.
Please explain what the price/barrel of oil on an exchange today has to do with the retail price of fuel?
That's like saying the price/bushel of corn dropped on the Chicago board and the price of Fritos should drop in my local grocery store.

It just seems quite obvious that if the price of oil or labor does not rise significantly at the refinery, than the refinery should have no major price increases. And if the distributor has no major price increases then he should not charge the stations any major price increases. And if the station has no major price increases then they should not have a major increase in their prices to the customers.

Of course, this is America and our free economy allows most wholesalers and retailers to raise prices with no restrictions and I would not be so concerned if the price raise was on a non-essential, such as a tv or living room furniture. But I am concerned when the price of an essential skyrockets during a disaster just because the sellers know that the buyers must purchase the product at any price because their life depends on it.

And the theory of raising the price so that the supply of the product will not exceed the demand, does not fly. This simply means that they are raising the price so the poor can not afford to buy it and there will be more for the rich. Though many people accuse me of being rich, I can not morally support this method.

And please note that I have not been on this forum simply complaining about fuel prices during normal times. I am complaining about price gouging during an emergency.

As far as I know, there is no law requiring you to give a starving child a slice of bread if he shows up on your doorstep, nor are you prevented from trying to charge him $10 for that slice of bread, however, anyone doing so would not remain on my list of favorite people.