My jaw dropped when I heard this headline on my drive to work!
State inspectors are stepping up oversight at gas stations in Massachusetts to guard against potential price gouging.
The Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation said Sunday it sent an alert to Division of Standards field inspectors to pay close attention to what it calls unusually high prices.
First up we’re paying revenuers to inspect private businesses to see how they set their prices. Isn’t this just reality?
Back a while ago my Buddy Linoge pointed to some questionable business practices by Lucky Gunner. I didn’t chime in because frankly I didn’t care. They don’t ship to Massachusetts (not that that slows me down much as I have a bunch of friendly addresses in Maine and New Hampshire I can get ammo shipped to) and frankly their prices didn’t impress me.
Are they “Gouging”? Well no, because “Gouging” doesn’t exist. People set their price, if the price isn’t fair, nobody pays it. The world is full of products that never went anywhere because it was too expensive for the market to bear.
And with Gasoline? Seriously are there any places anymore that DON’T have multiple filling stations? I gotta call bullshit on everything.
And then cut to the REAL villain. The Government. Massachusetts: 23.5c per gallon in taxes and fees. (follow the link to find how much your state is “gouging”)
Trump card. Daddy .gov?
The federal excise tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel fuel.
In January 2011, motor gasoline taxes averaged 48.1 cents per gallon and diesel fuel taxes averaged 53.1 cents per gallon.
See its not “gouging” when if you don’t pay the fee people with guns will shoot you for non-compliance. See its bad when you have a choice to not pay the shark.
Makes sense to me, doesn’t it to you? This is why I put the quotes around “Progressive”, this is what they call “Progress”!
See you in the camps Comrade! 8)
My state has a minimum gas price law, and they have fined companies for selling gas too cheap.
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/minnesota_gas_stations_fined_for_low_gas_prices/
“Isn’t this just reality?”
THIS! IS! MASSACHUSETTS!
WIN! OMG that’s funny!
I never stated or implied that they were price-gouging, merely that they were operating their “competitors” without publicly disclosing that relationship, and that I considered it to be a dishonest business practice.
I typically find that those who are first to scream about gouging are also those who do not comprehend the notion of “supply and demand”, or somehow wish it would not work the way it does. In reality, gas stations make barely pennies on the dollar on their gasoline -most of their profit comes from concessions.