Originally Posted By: grampi
Originally Posted By: bvance554
Originally Posted By: grampi
Originally Posted By: bvance554
I can't believe we're complaining about gas prices. Gas was well over $3 a gallon for quite a few years, it got relatively dirt cheap for a brief moment and we're complaining about a little raise? It is still $1 cheaper than what we were paying last year. How soon we forget.
Gas prices have been $1 to $1.50 a gallon higher than they've needed to be for years, then they finally went down to where they SHOULD be...now they're trying to creep prices back up again and for what? The industry apparently can't be satisfied with making reasonable profits, they think they need record profits every quarter...well, consumers are sick of being raped by the oil industry and have every right to complain...
I'm sorry Grampi, but there is no validity in any of your arguments. Do you blame corporations and their greed when the price of milk rises too? Playing the haves vs have not game doesn't work with fuel (nor anything else). They have it, you obviously need it, and the market will determine how much you pay for it. There really is no conspiracy against you.
Come back and make your argument when the oil industry has to compete in the market...
How is fuel a market commodity unlike any other?
What matters is not what the futures markets or speculators bid the price to. What matters is what the final buyers, you and I, are willing to pay.
In the short run, the demand for fuel is somewhat price inelastic.
In the longer term, it's highly elastic.
In the short run, we drive less and some of us may put less than a full tank of fuel in our vehicles at any given time.
In the longer run, we switch to more efficient vehicles and end up with the same or lower fuel costs than we had before at lower fuel prices.
A certain level of short run price inelasticity does not the lack of a real market make.
Anyway, for producers, transporters, refiners and retailers, it's never about price. It's only about margin. Margin matters to a seller. Price is irrelevant.