Tom Servo
Veteran Member
Gouging can be a good thing and I can use diesel prices to explain it.
I live in a hurricane prone area, and after the storm passes fuel can be in short supply due to power outages and blocked roads. Now imagine you have a line of cars at the only gas station in town that's open. They have 100 gallons of diesel fuel in the tank and before the storm it was priced at $3.939 a gallon.
In the ensuing panic rush to find ANY available fuel, people will tend to hoard and buy as much fuel as they could. It would only take a few Powerstrokes or Excursions to empty that pittance of fuel.
BUT — what if it was priced at $8.509 a gallon? People would only buy what they need because they know in a day or six more stations will come online and the price will be back to (somewhat) normal. Each trucker and TDI driver would reluctantly shell out for a gallon or two, and what once would go into 2-5 vehicles before running out would now serve 50-100 vehicles.
***
Most prices here are still $3.939 or thereabouts; in Mobile it's down to $3.699 at one station and some others are in the range of $3.759. One Shell manages to still be $4.249 though so all's right with the world.
I live in a hurricane prone area, and after the storm passes fuel can be in short supply due to power outages and blocked roads. Now imagine you have a line of cars at the only gas station in town that's open. They have 100 gallons of diesel fuel in the tank and before the storm it was priced at $3.939 a gallon.
In the ensuing panic rush to find ANY available fuel, people will tend to hoard and buy as much fuel as they could. It would only take a few Powerstrokes or Excursions to empty that pittance of fuel.
BUT — what if it was priced at $8.509 a gallon? People would only buy what they need because they know in a day or six more stations will come online and the price will be back to (somewhat) normal. Each trucker and TDI driver would reluctantly shell out for a gallon or two, and what once would go into 2-5 vehicles before running out would now serve 50-100 vehicles.
***
Most prices here are still $3.939 or thereabouts; in Mobile it's down to $3.699 at one station and some others are in the range of $3.759. One Shell manages to still be $4.249 though so all's right with the world.