I would not call our oil companies an oligopoly. Short of some collusion or other illegal activity, there is enough competition in our oil supply that our free market system does work.
In short, if the oil companies are colluding, then they should be punished. If prices are going up because of supply/demand, then the market is working perfectly and the oil companies should be allowed to make as much profit as they legally can. That is basic econonics--like it or not!
"I would not call our oil companies an oligopoly"
We disagree. The prices flucuate in lockstep from place to place. There are no more "price wars". Clearly I don't have legal evidence, but the empirical evidence says it's an oligopoly.
Sorry, I know it's heresey to people like you, but I contend the free market doesn't always work.
The thing I want to try and understand is simple, but I have yet to see an explanation as to how it works.
With oil companies always purchasing crude from whatever the source, I can underzstnad the law of supply and demand and sometimes they must purchase crude at a higher price. But now, here is the rub that someone needs to "splain..."
Let's say I am a dealer and I get a 10,000 gallon delivery for which I paid $2.50 per gallon. Then the next day after the tanker leaves, I raise my prices to $3.00 per gallon due to a calmity that has happened somewhere else in the country.
However, remember, the price of the gas I have in the tank was at $2.50 per gallon. Am I now to be accussed of price gouging? I would say yes, and that once I buy a new load at the higher price, then I should be allowed to fairly raise my price, but not before!
Sort of like picking up the can of comet at the grocery store and seeing that one price has been "stickered" over the old one (sorry, dating myself as this was before the days of bar code scanning...). Do you think it is fair for the merchant to raise the price on an item that he purchased months before at a much lower price?
That my fellow Freepers is what the government needs to investigate, not the big oil companies and what they have to pay for a barrel....(Believe me, my dad is in the oil business and we've been discussing this same thing for two days now...)
Just food for thought, but has anyone else ever wondered about this...