Posted on 05/28/2004 5:43:12 PM PDT by John W
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Just in time for the Memorial Day weekend and as the cost of gasoline continues to climb, Minnesota is cracking down on service stations over gas prices. Prices that are too low, that is.
A law the state adopted in 2001 in an effort to protect small service-station businesses prohibits gas stations from selling gas without taking a minimum profit. These days, they must charge at least 8 cents per gallon, plus taxes, more than they paid for it.
(Excerpt) Read more at ap.tbo.com ...
The world has gone crazy.
I used to run into this sort of thing in Europe. The justification is that small competitors must be protected from ruinous/cut-throat competition. Sometimes these laws are called "fair competition."
Of course in the real world there is nothing "fair" about competition; competitors should be trying to drive each other out of business. That's the only way the market really works.
These laws exist because of lobbying of businessmen - most of whom probably claim they want government out of business.
Cheaper gasoline prices were not called for in the 2001 Five Year Plan. This is all part of the Great Leap Forward. Our Hero Workers will lead the Revolution!
I was route supervisor for a beer dist company from 75-78 and way back then in Louisiana, the state required that all retailers must charge at least 6 per cent over their cost plus tax for any alcohol and tobacco products they sold.
Minimum markup laws, yep, Wisconsin has them too.
Make everything equal so no one fails. Unfortunately, no one excels either. No one learns from their mistakes, continuous improvement is stifled, inefficiency is awarded, just like our failed comrades of the old USSR.
bump
Last year the record companies were found guilty of price fixing. They didn't decide to price fix on their own, mind you, little stores were complaining that Best Buy, Wal*Mart, etc. were charging too little, so the record companies did the same thing the Minnesota, Maryland, etc. legislatures did.
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