Posted on 08/31/2005 11:34:55 AM PDT by JZelle
Nationally, the average price for regular gasoline around $2.50 per gallon. Are gasoline prices high? That's not the best way to put that question. It's akin to asking, "Is Williams tall?" The average height of U.S. women is 5 foot four. For men, it's 5 foot 10 inches. Being 6 foot four, I would be tall relative to the general U.S. population. Put me on a basketball court, next to the average NBA player, and I would be short. So when we ask if a price is high or low, we must ask: relative to what? In 1950, a gallon of regular gasoline sold for about 30 cents; today, it's $2.50. Are today's gasoline prices high compared to 1950? Before answering, we have to take into account inflation since 1950. Using my trusty inflation calculator (www.westegg.com/inflation), what cost 30 cents in 1950 costs $2.33 in 2005. In real terms, that means gasoline prices today are only slightly higher, about 8 percent, than in 1950. Up until the recent spike, gasoline prices have been considerably lower than 1950 prices. Some Americans demand the government do something about gasoline prices. Let's think back to 1979 when the government did something. The Carter administration set up price controls. What did we see? Long gasoline lines, if the station hadn't run out of gas. It's estimated Americans used about 150,000 barrels of oil per day idling their cars while waiting in line.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Fox News just showed a BP sign in Atlanta with $5.87/gal for regular. If you can get it for $4.99, you better get it now.
nuts!
going to be violence over those prices...
Thanks!
Oh boy....so many facts are bogglin' the mind. SOMETIME, and SOMEWHERE today, I either heard or read of a web page you can go to, to report a station that's gouging.
Dang...I wish I could remember what it was...
What's the record for most removed postings in one thread?
http://www.energy.gov
Contact them for price gouging. :)
Spread the word.
That is because their profit is a percentage. It works like this. Your cost is $1.00 you are allowed to make a 3% profit. (I believe that this is the amount that it is set at to prevent gouging.)
You sell it for $1.03. Your profit is three cents.
Most people do not find that unreasonable.
Now however the cost has risen to $3.00. Using the exact same percentages you charge $3.09. Your profit is nine cents and everywhere people are screaming that you made "record profits" and cursing your name.
But is this position justified?. You are still making a 3% profit. Nothing has changed. Is a three percent profit unreasonable?
There WERE a few on this one.
Guess we've all seen whole (500+ post) threads deleted because of mass insanity (flame wars). I've seen some threads with huge blocks of posts deleted too.
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