>> You don't think oil companies price gouge when they can.
Oil companies, 100% of the time, are bound by market interests. They cannot sell oil for more money than the markets will allow. If you are talking about price fixing to gouge consumers, you just have no clue how markets work, how business works, or how the oil business specifically works.
So, unless you have some further example, it is possible to conclude only that you're speaking from a perspective of total ignorance of the subject matter.
Shell, Chevron and Exxon have thousands of gas stations and they also earned 40 billion in 3rd quarter, by price gouging. Gas stations are not where oil companies make money. Those shell stations you see on the corner have one reason for existence: To sell oil. These are called "downstream" operations, a typical oil company -- Exxon for example, makes 8% of their money off of these stations.
The rest of their money -- "upstream" -- comes from taking oil out of the ground and selling it to someone else.
Oil coming out of the ground has a price at any moment and that oil is sold for whatever the current price of that grade of oil is. Period. Not more, not less. They have no control. The market does what it does.
This is how markets work. It has nothing to do with gas stations, stores selling trinkets or gasoline marked up by a few cents a gallon.
Clueless. |
