Topic du Jour
August 31st, 2005 by BWV
What else.. gasoline prices!
Remember those emails imploring people to “bankrupt the oil companies” by not buying gasoline for 1 day ? A pretty comical thought, though I’m sure some Pollyannas would still believe this — especially as some desperately seek places to lay blame.
Well, here’s the (more timely) comebacker to that urban legend, courtesy of Trader Mike, and sourced from a Wall Street Journal article today. This is only slightly less absurd than the 1-day boycott idea. Still, each is just a matter of which party “holds” (and finances) the gasoline “stock” or “inventory” at any given moment.
Selling petroleum products is an extremely competitive business. As sellers of commodities , oil companies are price-takers, not price-makers. Unlike, say, Microsoft, truly the greatest monopoly I’ll likely ever witness in my lifetime. All the drivers on earth collectively set the price, not those “evil” corporations.
Evil corporations? Man I have never heard of such a thing.
that’s cause there is no such thing