Panic buying of gas and price gouging

by mynameislame 9 Replies latest social current

  • mynameislame
    mynameislame

    The news had mentioned how some stations were charging over $6 a gallon for gas. They also brought up that the government had promised to come down hard on anyone that was price gouging.

    My question is, is it possible to price gouge when there isn't an actual emergency?

    I think there are some benefits to raising prices even in an emergency. For example to prevent hoarding and panic buying along with not having anything left to sell later.

    But in this case there wasn't even a real emergency. More like the news fanning the flames of panic so they can produce more news.

  • minimus
    minimus

    Nothing to see here folks. Just keep moving along.

  • Rocketman123
    Rocketman123

    $6 a gallon for gas

    Welcome to Canadian gas prices

    Something is going to eventually happen and this will be over with I'm sure

  • Anony Mous
    Anony Mous

    It is possible to increase prices whenever demand outstrips supply. That's not really price gouging, it's just the market doing its job to decrease demand. At $6/gallon, fewer people will be buying gas. If the government artificially reduces that cost, the government (read: tax payers) are making up the difference somewhere else.

    Government does not produce anything, so it cannot increase or decrease prices on anything, if it does so, it must do this by taking money from one pot and putting it in the other (robbing Peter to pay Paul).

    Biden reversed a lot of the cybersecurity policies Trump had set in place. According to the gas line company, they had funds and were looking to hire a CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) until ~3 months ago, operating cost increases suddenly made this cost prohibitive and the DHS dropped those requirements. I wonder what happened ~3 months ago - oh right, Biden increased taxes and regulation on our aging oil and gas infrastructure in order to fund his pie-in-the-sky green new deal and reversed all Trump regulation because "orange man bad"

    I work in IT security, the first post to start cutting cost is always IT security and regulation compliance. As the price of oil artificially increases through carbon taxes, we'll see a lot more of that.

  • MeanMrMustard
    MeanMrMustard

    @anony:

    Agreed. "Price gouging" is just the market attempting to allocate resources due to a shortage, or perceived shortage, or increased demand. It should be allowed to happen, and when it's prevented, it causes adverse side effects. Politicians love to get on their soapbox and rail against horrible greedy people, but it's all emotional, and hurts people long term.

  • FFGhost
    FFGhost

    Can't wait for the yahoos buying dozens or hundreds of gallons, and storing them in literal, I kid you not, plastic bags, to start blowing themselves up.

    Just hope they don't take an entire city block with them.

  • FedUpJW
    FedUpJW

    Can't wait for the yahoos buying dozens or hundreds of gallons, and storing them in literal, I kid you not, plastic bags, to start blowing themselves up.

    It can't happen soon enough. Darwin hasn't been so busy since the lock-downs.

  • mynameislame
    mynameislame

    FFGhost

    Wish Granted

    Idiot in Hummer filled 5 gas cans expecting shortages.Put them in his car and lit up a cigarette. Hummer destroyed


  • zachias
    zachias

    Australia. 98 Ron petrol here is $1.37 a litre. Multiply that by 4.54 to get gallon s price.apx 6.22 a gallon.

    As i said to an American friend years ago "we do litres as we cant afford to pay for it in gallons"

  • hoser
    hoser

    Zachias. $1.37 AUD per litre converts to $4.04USD per gallon. US gallon is 3.78 litres.

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