Posted on 09/07/2017 3:33:20 AM PDT by fruser1
Phil Keating reported that in Miami-Dade County people are rushing to get gas for their vehicles and generators, but many gas stations are out.
(Excerpt) Read more at insider.foxnews.com ...
What's a business owner to do? Order replacements at higher price and be sued for selling at a higher price, or sell at a loss and go into the red? Actually they choose a third option which is to simply put up the "no gas" sign. Much safer way to operate.
For those who expect businesses to act charitably in the time of crisis, especially those hourly and salaried types, I ask you - will you be working at a discount?
Is gas at the pump up $0.50 a gallon where you are?
It still is in Houston even with the storm (Harvey) gone and production still exceeding consumption.
Maybe fifty years ago...the distribution system could have handled this type of chaos. Today? No. There’s a schedule and a rate of manufacture/delivery. I don’t think any politician or journalists ever sits down and asks the business guy running a gas station how the system works. You can draw a circle of five miles and talk to ten different gas station owners....they all are in the same boat and face the same consequences because of the system that has developed in recent decades.
Less than a month ago I got gas at a Walmart for $1.99/gallon. Now the same place had it for $2.69 during this mad rush. There’s no gasoline anywhere in town and the ones that did have a little was the Premium gas, care to guess that price $.
Snowbird Broward county buddy evacuating north with pickup loaded with rescued house valuables reports traffic slowed to crawl on all roads headed north. No gas at stations. Wanted to make two trips saving household items better be satisfied with one trip before Irma hits.
“Is gas at the pump up $0.50 a gallon where you are?”
Between my last pre-hurricane fill-up in Tallahassee at $2.29 and yesterday, it went to $2.59. (I buy the cheap stuff. Places like Chevron are higher.)
Well, lots of articles about the shortages should help the situation.
The summer blend always costs more.
This is one reason why “evacuation” sounds better that it works in the real world.
In the real world you have to get out before you are sure of the danger—if you wait for everyone else to figure it out it is too late—unless you like huddling in shelters for days at a time.
If they jacked up the price to $8 a gallon, people would buy just enough to get out and there would be no shortages.
Some Freeper called me a communist for suggesting this last week.
He never responded when I called him out
As we all know, gas supplies are low right now due to Katrina, add in a couple more hurricanes and we will have to burn “booze”. Current mid-west price is $2.60/gallon and I anticipate it will be above $3.00 before long.
Using R. Emanuels concept (”Never let a crisis go to waste”) , the “scalpers” will artificially inflate the price of gas even if they had an abundant supply. Perhaps there needs to be a limit on the amount one can purchase during such catastrophes.
Not in this case. As a nation, we don’t have enough refinery capacity and certainly not enough storage.
Significant refinery capacity was disrupted during Harvey. I understand minor price increases nationwide for that. $.30 a gallon is minor and temporary.
Gas stations typically refill their underground storage tanks daily even multiple times a day. When cars don’t move, neither do tanker trucks. There is an abundant supply of crude oil, but no abundance of refined gasoline. Not a crisis going to waste, simply good and basic economics.
The price you are paying is the cost of the next tanker load, not the one you’re using.
Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell and John Stossel all have excellent articles online about just this situation.
What really gets me; After Katrina, gas went to $4+ per gallon, motor oil and other petroleum products doubled and tripled as well. However, gas came back down but oils didn’t. A quart of decent oil is $5.00 and it takes less refining to make oil than gas. Will Harvey make oils go to $8/qt and never come back down?
I’ve got a truck sitting here that needs a total transmission flush. 16 quarts it will take. Better go buy the fluid before it goes up and never comes back down eh.
Nail, meet hammer. Indeed, when will people learn. Millions live in a hurricane zone, yet few see a need to stock up on bottled water in April or May, when no storm is threatening and prices are at normal levels (and some stores may actually have it on sale). Ditto for supplies of non-perishable food, flashlights, batteries, first aid kits, fuel containers and everything else on your preparation checklist. Too busy watching Netflix to spend a Saturday morning re-filling or creating a survival kit.
Now, with a Cat 5 bearing down, they’re stunned to discover a two-hour wait for gas (at the few stations that still have it); store shelves picked clean of bottled water and other essentials, and evacuation routes packed with far more vehicles—and people—than they were designed to handle.
The parable of the ant and the grasshopper still holds.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.