What is this, France? Capitalism is simple: if your costs go up, raise your prices. If people won't pay your price, sit and wait til they will; if they never do, someone else must be doing it cheaper, so change your business (whether how you operate, or what business you're in).
I wouldn't raise an eyebrow to truckers raising prices in response to their fuel costs. But it would be dumb, macroeconomically, to subsidize their fuel costs instead of simply letting the market work.
automech said:
Big companies can buy a million gallons at a time to get a nice price so they are not in trouble. I see a lot more drivers now that can't afford to pay for repairs.
Ummm, so why are airlines, that buy vastly greater quantities of almost the same fuel, suffering so badly? I don't think the quantity discount on fuel is very much, given that it is as pure a commodity as can be.
I was thinking about this the other day, and if I were a trucker, I would be inclined to look for employed work when fuel prices are high / profits low, and quit to be an independent whenever the opposite conditions were in place. And I would plan to alternate between employee and owner-operator every couple years as conditions dictate. No, not a wonderfully stable way of doing things, but maybe better than being crushed as an owner-operator under current market conditions?
