Just what did you expect would happen with the price of Gas?
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JoeUser Forums
The names below will be changed to protect the innocent. What follows is a copy of a web based e-mail submitted complaint a friend sent off to a major chain after seeing gasoline prices such as those shown in the complaint.
Comments or Questions : Dear Sirs,
I am outraged at your gas pricing practices. On Monday, August 29th, your unleaded gas was priced at $2.61 per gallon. When I drove by today, August 30th, your unleaded gas was now priced at $2.93.
This is outright price gauging. I ask that you immediately price your gas back to what it was on Monday. I am hearing of all sorts of good things companies (i.e. { other company names } etc) that are donating goods and services to those suffering out the Gulf Coast due to Hurricane Katrina and you respond with price gouging { some number of } miles away. You should be ashamed!
I will be notifying the attorney general of my complaint. I await your response.
P.S. this is with respect to the {insert major chain name here} gas station on {insert location here}
Several things are worth of comment here.
First, I know well of the station that the individual is complaining about. As it turns out, they are one of the most consistently cheapest places to find gasoline in the area in question, day in and day out. Along with a few other lower cost gasoline providers (just a very few actually), they typically sell at prices that are $.10 or more lower than every other competitor.
Secondly, the complaint in question comes from a friend that typically is the most capitalistic s.o.b. on the face of the earth.
Now, just in case he's reading here, I am not trying to pick on him for his complaints, but as I suggested back to him in a hopefully calming response, the prices that he is seeing at the pump may have absolutely nothing to do with any gouging by the major chain, and instead may have everything to do with gouging that is going on by the refiners and suppliers that have supplied the most recent tanks full of fuel to the station my friend is complaining about.
I remember after Hurricane Isabelle (sp?) rolled through the Chesapeake bay area that common batteries (D cells, and others) were outrageously priced. There were none to be had from Miami up to NYC, along the east coast they were sold out for the better part of a week. Once word of a pending storm got out, they disappeared off store shelves like crazy, and when a few more were restocked, the prices were double what they had been.
Plywood and other supplies for shoring up premises were inflated as well.
Human nature had kicked in, and suppliers were selling supplies for whatever the market would bear.
My friend responsed to my reply with some further comments:
Regardless...it is out and out not right....something should be done about it!!! I just read a point that the current cost for a barrell of oil is $4 per barrell and that the rest is markup. Yikes!
Again, I'm not trying to harrass or otherwise tweak my friend, but it is interesting to see such an avid capitalist, someone that has vehemently defended Microsoft as not being a predatory monopolist (despite the findings of a Judge who later had his decision over-turned because he had popped off his mouth about the verdict before the trial had been completed). Someone who normally believes in letting the market set it's own pricing, yet is now upset because the prices of gasoline have shot through the roof in the area.
Could it have something to do with the vehicle that my friend drives, and it's own appetite for fuel consumption - oh, I'd wager so. I'm sure, like myself driving around in the used Ford Explorer I bought to replace a dieing Dodge Neon some months back, that my friend is tired of paying $5 - $6 a day or more in gasoline just to go to and from work. In my friends case, I expect it's now getting up to $6 - $10 a day, and he's feeling a pinch that he didn't feel when he bought the vehicle he's now driving.
But no one promised my friend, or myself, that when we purchased the vehicles we have that gasoline would be cheap. Sure, a few years ago it was around $1.00 a gallon here in the good ol' U.S.A., and times were good. Even at $1.50 or so, the good times kept rolling. But gasoline has passed $2.00, and now is headed past $3.00 a gallon, and some people (especially my friend in this case) are upset about it.
Getting back to the question I raise in the subject line though, given what has happened thanks to Katrina, with oil rigs damaged and moved, refineries shut down, and other parts of the gasoline manufacturing system out of kilter, what would one expect to happen at the pump? Sure, it's damned early to see prices immediately jumping, especially considering that we just don't really even know yet what has happened to Louisiana, Mississippi, and other areas that were hard hit by Katrina, but an educated guess, even before the storm hit, should have given a good idea of what was coming.
Higher gasoline prices are here now, and even more height may be reached in those prices. It's what happens in a free market. Some may call it gouging, but most call it supply and demand.
Comments or Questions : Dear Sirs,
I am outraged at your gas pricing practices. On Monday, August 29th, your unleaded gas was priced at $2.61 per gallon. When I drove by today, August 30th, your unleaded gas was now priced at $2.93.
This is outright price gauging. I ask that you immediately price your gas back to what it was on Monday. I am hearing of all sorts of good things companies (i.e. { other company names } etc) that are donating goods and services to those suffering out the Gulf Coast due to Hurricane Katrina and you respond with price gouging { some number of } miles away. You should be ashamed!
I will be notifying the attorney general of my complaint. I await your response.
P.S. this is with respect to the {insert major chain name here} gas station on {insert location here}
Several things are worth of comment here.
First, I know well of the station that the individual is complaining about. As it turns out, they are one of the most consistently cheapest places to find gasoline in the area in question, day in and day out. Along with a few other lower cost gasoline providers (just a very few actually), they typically sell at prices that are $.10 or more lower than every other competitor.
Secondly, the complaint in question comes from a friend that typically is the most capitalistic s.o.b. on the face of the earth.
Now, just in case he's reading here, I am not trying to pick on him for his complaints, but as I suggested back to him in a hopefully calming response, the prices that he is seeing at the pump may have absolutely nothing to do with any gouging by the major chain, and instead may have everything to do with gouging that is going on by the refiners and suppliers that have supplied the most recent tanks full of fuel to the station my friend is complaining about.
I remember after Hurricane Isabelle (sp?) rolled through the Chesapeake bay area that common batteries (D cells, and others) were outrageously priced. There were none to be had from Miami up to NYC, along the east coast they were sold out for the better part of a week. Once word of a pending storm got out, they disappeared off store shelves like crazy, and when a few more were restocked, the prices were double what they had been.
Plywood and other supplies for shoring up premises were inflated as well.
Human nature had kicked in, and suppliers were selling supplies for whatever the market would bear.
My friend responsed to my reply with some further comments:
Regardless...it is out and out not right....something should be done about it!!! I just read a point that the current cost for a barrell of oil is $4 per barrell and that the rest is markup. Yikes!
Again, I'm not trying to harrass or otherwise tweak my friend, but it is interesting to see such an avid capitalist, someone that has vehemently defended Microsoft as not being a predatory monopolist (despite the findings of a Judge who later had his decision over-turned because he had popped off his mouth about the verdict before the trial had been completed). Someone who normally believes in letting the market set it's own pricing, yet is now upset because the prices of gasoline have shot through the roof in the area.
Could it have something to do with the vehicle that my friend drives, and it's own appetite for fuel consumption - oh, I'd wager so. I'm sure, like myself driving around in the used Ford Explorer I bought to replace a dieing Dodge Neon some months back, that my friend is tired of paying $5 - $6 a day or more in gasoline just to go to and from work. In my friends case, I expect it's now getting up to $6 - $10 a day, and he's feeling a pinch that he didn't feel when he bought the vehicle he's now driving.
But no one promised my friend, or myself, that when we purchased the vehicles we have that gasoline would be cheap. Sure, a few years ago it was around $1.00 a gallon here in the good ol' U.S.A., and times were good. Even at $1.50 or so, the good times kept rolling. But gasoline has passed $2.00, and now is headed past $3.00 a gallon, and some people (especially my friend in this case) are upset about it.
Getting back to the question I raise in the subject line though, given what has happened thanks to Katrina, with oil rigs damaged and moved, refineries shut down, and other parts of the gasoline manufacturing system out of kilter, what would one expect to happen at the pump? Sure, it's damned early to see prices immediately jumping, especially considering that we just don't really even know yet what has happened to Louisiana, Mississippi, and other areas that were hard hit by Katrina, but an educated guess, even before the storm hit, should have given a good idea of what was coming.
Higher gasoline prices are here now, and even more height may be reached in those prices. It's what happens in a free market. Some may call it gouging, but most call it supply and demand.
