Quote:
Originally Posted by homedawg
That's what they tell you so you feel better I guess? Look at the prices in your area, low end is $2.02 up to $3.45, wtf is that all about?
Buffalo Gas Prices - Find Cheap Gas Prices in New York
I know they raised the prices according to the market, it doesn't mean that it cost them that much more to supply you with the gas, but they charged you plenty more to buy the gas! Now that the cost to supply is down huge, and the demand is down, they still want to charge you for lost income? Are they making up for lost car repair income? Lost sales on coffee? etc....
I go to a gas station that sells beer at state minimum and fuel among the state low prices! $1.69 at a local today for gas, and yet there are stations local selling for $2.50+.  |
The term I have actually heard used is "up like a rocket, down like a feather". Gas stations actually make most of the money on the way down, not up.
For ****s and giggles, I look at this page to get the market price:
Commodities - Latest Trading Prices and Data from CNNMoney.com
Then, from there keep track of the spread (retail - commodity price on the open market), which includes retail taxes, shipping costs, gas station operating costs, and profit. At the peak, the spread where I live between that price and the pump price was about .70. Now it is closer to .95 where I live.
It sucks... it would be interesting to try to buy a gas station and see if you could compete. I would expect to see a lot of low level collusion between stations in various areas (wink, wink, lets all agree to not drop prices more than .02 at a time) - but stuff that is too small to get the anti-trust forces at the Federal Level involved.
Near where I live, there are 4 stations on one strip of highway (route 53 in the SW burbs) - where the price almost never varies by more than a penny. On a different strip not too much farther, prices are routinely .10 to .15 lower, with exceptions every few weeks when the 53 strip stations all decide to move at once. I am pretty sure something is going on, but since there is probably a quid-pro-quo arrangement that nobody can really prove, you really could not viably enforce anti-price fixing laws. Even if you tried, it is so low level (in the teens of cents per gallon) - that prosecutors tend to look the other way.
Interesting to watch...