Quote:
Originally Posted by ken0042
I appreciate your insight; but to me it just seems like corperate spin. Last night on the news when they said that gas has gone up 30¢ since the start of the year, I did a double take. The thing is; the gas companies have just been doing these little increases a few cents at a time to (what it seems to me) just pad the bottom line. Each fill costs me a buck or two more; which per $40 fill isn't much. But then before I know it that fill which used to cost me $36 now costs $45.
The thing of it is; I can tell you exactly how much I will pay in June for natural gas. Why can't gasoline have a stable price like that- or at least have us know when the price will be going up? To me the big difference is the fact that every driver owns a gasoline storage unit; whereas very few homeowners have a natural gas storage unit.
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I can appreciate that the perception of things can sometimes seem like Skullduggary. Those 'few cents' each time are actually companies trying to be proactive to avoid a shortage or missing a market opportunity. When a major event happens on the supply side companies forecast what that's going to do to inventory and then watch competitors prices and then adjust accordingly. They don't want to have too much inventory or too little. The worst thing that can happen to a gas station is to run out between deliveries.
I suppose the phrase 'market opportunity' is what you call 'gouging'. I hate to go back to my e-bay example, but go try to buy something from the 'Buy/Sell' thread and ask someone to cut their price in half and sell that to you despite someone else's bid because they won't starve if they sell it to you at that price. It's not right to expect that of them nor is it right to expect that from any company selling anything.