Quote:
Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy
Both, I wasn't looking at that sentence as two seperate statements.
I don't agree that people can be gouged on a luxury item such as gasoline. The price is going to be whatever people are willing to pay for it.
It is quite unreasonable of "you" (the complaining customer) to expect the merchant of such a product to not take as much profit as he can if the demand for the product is there just because his customer feels entitled to it.
People will complain about gas prices so long as they feel entitled to gasoline and that they have no other options.
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One of the problems I have is that there really no competition in the market. If I go to buy clothing and one place sells it for too much, I can go somewhere else. Stations in Calgary have a wonderful habit of all being the same, forcing the customer to pay a single price.
The other thing is that, since oil prices are world-wide we should be able to expect the goods being produced from it to follow a somewhat similar pricing curve. But, when the price of oil goes down the companies are using goods "in the pipe", but are quick to jack up the costs when the oil price inflates.
At what point does a luxury item start to become less of a luxury and more of a necessity? I need a car, one way or the other, to get to work. Society in general, for good of bad, rely on the goods produced from oil. Until the "other options" you mention become viable solutions, or the gas companies float the prices closer to what is expected based on oil prices, I will continue complaining about it.