Gas prices

Duke Mu said:
They are passing on the price of their primary supply on the open market: crude oil.

Just like businesses pass on tariff duties (taxes) to consumers.
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You’re just saying what I said in a different way. None of these price increases are because anyone is “evil.” The market demands certain things under capitalism, and this is one of them.
 
Paine said:
You’re just saying what I said in a different way. None of these price increases are because anyone is “evil.” The market demands certain things under capitalism, and this is one of them.
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Do you see this as normal markets, considering the cause?

I don't see the prices going up as evil, I see the fucking idiot that is leading this country down a path of destruction as "EVIL".

Actually as you word it, I disagree, trump is evil, he and this administration are causing these price increases because of responses to their actions, therefore the increases are indirectly because someone is evil.
 
UNCatTech said:
Do you see this as normal markets, considering the cause?

I don't see the prices going up as evil, I see the fucking idiot that is leading this country down a path of destruction as "EVIL".

Actually as you word it, I disagree, trump is evil, he and this administration are causing these price increases because of responses to their actions, therefore the increases are indirectly because someone is evil.
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The forces that drive capitalism to operate the way that it does aren’t evil is all I’m saying. It’s a process that can be analyzed in a scientific way, no reason to bring good or evil into the equation to understand it IMO.

ETA: When you call it “evil,” you’re letting the real mechanism off the hook because if it’s just villainy, the fix is to find better villains. If you understand it as a structural response to geopolitical risk (the market pricing in potential Hormuz disruption, reduced Iranian supply, etc.), then you can actually reason about it. What policies reduce that volatility, what energy diversification looks like, whether strategic reserves should be tapped.
 
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Paine said:
The forces that drive capitalism to operate the way that it does aren’t evil is all I’m saying. It’s a process that can be analyzed in a scientific way, no reason to bring good or evil into the equation to understand it IMO.
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I agree with that statement.

If you expand on the source of many of those forces, that's where I believe the good and evil exist.

The current forces driving these economic changes are unnecessary and out of the normal, they are being caused by an unhinged evil man and an ignorant cult following that put this unstable person in control.
 
UNCatTech said:
I agree with that statement.

If you expand on the source of many of those forces, that's where I believe the good and evil exist.

The current forces driving these economic changes are unnecessary and out of the normal, they are being caused by an unhinged evil man and an ignorant cult following that put this unstable person in control.
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I edited my response to add another point as well.
 
When the gas station or gas station chain (more likely a chain than a sole proprietor) calls up for a new delivery (and it’s most likely that the new delivery is on auto-delivery; the fuel wholesaler wants the gas station’s tanks full, not its tanks full), they change the price at the pump to the higher price.

When the gas station chain learns of the new, HIGHER price, it jumps the price at the pump.

Been that way since at least the first 1970’s gas crisis.

Most fuel wholesalers aren’t making bank in a time of chaos. These aren’t international conglomerates. The sole proprietor gas station is GETTYing fucked. The gas station chain is on tight margins.

Are Big Oil companies making bank in this chaotic mess? No clue.

Trump minions are.
 
Paine said:
The forces that drive capitalism to operate the way that it does aren’t evil is all I’m saying. It’s a process that can be analyzed in a scientific way, no reason to bring good or evil into the equation to understand it IMO.

ETA: When you call it “evil,” you’re letting the real mechanism off the hook because if it’s just villainy, the fix is to find better villains. If you understand it as a structural response to geopolitical risk (the market pricing in potential Hormuz disruption, reduced Iranian supply, etc.), then you can actually reason about it. What policies reduce that volatility, what energy diversification looks like, whether strategic reserves should be tapped.
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How do we discuss policies to reduce volatility when we have a leader that doesn't have any policies? There was an agreement with Iran that reduced risk of nuclear weapon development, that was good policy to reduce volatility. The idiot in chief dissolved that, increasing risk of volatility. Then under his leadership our country took actions that increased that volatility, while at the same time being against energy diversification or diplomatic approaches to reducing risk and volatility. I understand your point that capitalism is something with rules and that the current prices are a response to those rules. So, yes, from that perspective there is no good and evil, it's just a system responding the way it is expected.

I guess I'm expanding it beyond the rules to look at the causes of how and why these happen.
 
UNCatTech said:
How do we discuss policies to reduce volatility when we have a leader that doesn't have any policies? There was an agreement with Iran that reduced risk of nuclear weapon development, that was good policy to reduce volatility. The idiot in chief dissolved that, increasing risk of volatility. Then under his leadership our country took actions that increased that volatility, while at the same time being against energy diversification or diplomatic approaches to reducing risk and volatility. I understand your point that capitalism is something with rules and that the current prices are a response to those rules. So, yes, from that perspective there is no good and evil, it's just a system responding the way it is expected.

I guess I'm expanding it beyond the rules to look at the causes of how and why these happen.
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If you expand it in that way then I think we’re not actually disagreeing. Bad policy choices created the conditions, and the market responded exactly as markets do. You can assign responsibility to Trump for the policy without calling the market mechanism itself evil.

Bottom line is that the danger of moralizing the mechanism is that you lose sight of how it actually works, and if you don’t understand how it works, you can’t effectively argue for the policies that would change the outcome with or without Trump in power.
 
Zoo_View said:
When the gas station or gas station chain (more likely a chain than a sole proprietor) calls up for a new delivery (and it’s most likely that the new delivery is on auto-delivery; the fuel wholesaler wants the gas station’s tanks full, not its tanks full), they change the price at the pump to the higher price.

When the gas station chain learns of the new, HIGHER price, it jumps the price at the pump.

Been that way since at least the first 1970’s gas crisis.

Most fuel wholesalers aren’t making bank in a time of chaos. These aren’t international conglomerates. The sole proprietor gas station is GETTYing fucked. The gas station chain is on tight margins.

Are Big Oil companies making bank in this chaotic mess? No clue.

Trump minions are.
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Yeah, most gas stations don’t make much money off of gas. They make most of their money off of the convenient store side and other items. With that said, low gas prices helps to attract the customer.
 
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