Remember Gas Wars?

Flopper

Diamond Member
Mar 23, 2010
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When is the last time you saw a sign that said GAS War? Probably not for a long long time. Supplies of oil are not what they use to be, but neither is the makeup of the industry. This year we will loose up to 5000 small gas stations as they are replaced by mega-stations operated by the big oil companies.

When I was a kid, there were 4 gas stations in our neighborhood, Texaco, Gulf, Exxon, and an independent, all located at one busy intersection. Today there is one station, a giant Shell station with 24 pumps. There is only one other station in the area and it’s also a Shell station. The nearest other station is about 8 miles away. Shell can charge just about whatever they want. There is no competition. Remember Mobil Oil, Gulf Oil, and Texaco. Exxon or Standard of California has bought them out as well as hundreds of small independent chains.

And what about the refineries? The number of refineries in the US is half what they were in 1980. Chances are Exxon, BP, Marathon, Citgo, or Pemex refined the gas in your car. Pemex is a Mexican state owned Oil Company and Citgo is the Venezuela oil company controlled by Hugo Cavez.

In a free market economy, the company with the best product, service, and price should out pace the competition. But this does not hold for the big oil companies. There price and products are the same and they offer no service. They grow by buying out the completion, withholding oil from the market to drive up the price, and spending large sums to buy off legislators and local officials here and throughout the world.

Oil refinery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List of oil refineries - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Independent Gas Stations Struggling to Survive - Kiplinger
 
You mean when they used to give free glasses and green stamps?
 
Remember Gas Wars?
They're officially illegal in Wisconsin.

The horribly misguided "protect the mom-n-pop shop" law means that prices are mandated by law to be artificially high, to the point that those very mom-n-pop shops cannot give senior discounts to draw business.

Seems the only externanlities that do-gooder politicians care not about, are those brought about by their myopic policies.
 
Remember Gas Wars?
They're officially illegal in Wisconsin.

The horribly misguided "protect the mom-n-pop shop" law means that prices are mandated by law to be artificially high, to the point that those very mom-n-pop shops cannot give senior discounts to draw business.

Seems the only externanlities that do-gooder politicians care not about, are those brought about by their myopic policies.
The only part of that law I like is the "one price change every 24 hours" aspect. Beyond that, it sucks.
 
Remember Gas Wars?
They're officially illegal in Wisconsin.

The horribly misguided "protect the mom-n-pop shop" law means that prices are mandated by law to be artificially high, to the point that those very mom-n-pop shops cannot give senior discounts to draw business.

Seems the only externanlities that do-gooder politicians care not about, are those brought about by their myopic policies.
Must be an old law. There is certainly no need for it today. I have a friend that works in a gas station. He says the prices are fixed by the company based on the price paid. It doesn't matter what the other station prices are.
 
In Tennessee the prices don't swing nearly as much as they did as when I lived in Michigan. The prices are lower too. Just talked to my Dad and he said it's around $2.84 there, I paid $2.46 yesterday...
 
In Tennessee the prices don't swing nearly as much as they did as when I lived in Michigan. The prices are lower too. Just talked to my Dad and he said it's around $2.84 there, I paid $2.46 yesterday...
I think the market price of oil is pretty completive, but not at the pump. The refinery really sets the price of gas and there aren't many of them around these days. so it doesn't take much for them to jack the price up.
 
You mean when they used to give free glasses and green stamps?


Careful, you are showing your age.

Gas wars went out in 72.

You mean this?

1950%20Gas%20Wars%20800x600.jpg
 

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