Somedays I hate capitalists
Posted by TFG on February 26th, 2008
…mainly because they inevitably over-reach. Today, I drove to Victoria, TX for a day-long meeting. When I left home at 7:30 am, all the way down the gas prices were 2.99 per gallon for your basic unleaded. On the way back, at 4pm, the gas prices were 3.09 for your basic unleaded.
Now, what could have possibly happened in that intervening 8 hours? Terrorist attack? Death of a major global leader? Steve Jobs announced his retirement from Apple? Well, sorry but pretty much nothing happened. Just someone saying the gas prices might should go up.
I like to think that I’m sensitive to market movements and how they work (dang, am I sensitive these days), but there is simply no way in hell that some jackass Harvard professor gets quoted in the International Herald Tribune and a franchisee in Smiley, TX gets the long pole out to change the price on the tall sign. You can read all the chicken entrails you want in the producer price level, of all goods all across America, going up 1%, and there’s no way in hell that the Smiley Valero gets 3% more per gallon of unleaded the same damn day.
No, that’s what’s called “softening up the dummies” for the big jump come Spring Break. Don’t like it? Tell the little darlings you’re staying home and playing Monopoly this year.* Me, I gotta drive to draw a wage, and you do, too, probably. What you don’t have to do is drive across the state because the kids are off school for a week. Give ‘em a book. Better yet, give ‘em a library card.
* And you and your slow ass will not be in my way when I drive. I have become a horrible leadfoot as I age. I can’t stand not doing 80 or 90 when the freeway’s clear. I thought I’d be one of those right-lane geezers, but no, I’m Richard Petty at Daytona, and it’s kinda surprising. I think I think I’m running out of time.
February 27th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Changes in gas prices do not occur in one cent quantums. Heck, once I had someone stop me from filling my car up so they could adjust the price (upwards, of course) before I started. But I don’t take that as a criticism of capitalism, per se.
There may be many reasons why gas prices went up by 10 cents during the day in question. Maybe it was taxes, or the distributor, of the distiller, or the corporate Mojo Mart executives. Or maybe there were rumors that a refinery went down, or that Obama is a lead pipe cinch to win, or that the earth is getting dramatically cooler!
Anyway, you aren’t entitled to $2.99 gas any more than you are entitled to free healthcare. I’ve seen too much to expect complete moral or ideological purity from folks selling much of anything, but it’s still the best system going.
Caveat emptor.
February 27th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Now, I know I’m not entitled to anything, Charles. I’m not royalty, after all. I’m just chiming in on the gas price dealio — just a data point. I do, though, think it’s funny to see every gas station and every gas brand in a 120 mile stretch of highway go up the same amount in a less-than-12-hour period. Not funny ha-ha, either. Although, I do have a mental image of one guy at a Shell doing it in China Grove, and then the next guy down the road at the Exxon doing, and so on and so on, in a ripple effect, all the way down 87 till it hit the Rio Grande.
And personally, I thought they had shown amazing restraint holding it at 2.99 for a few weeks, since the market could quite obviously bear more, and they’d already broken the psychological $3 barrier.
February 27th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Well, whoever is skimming off the top (aside from the gummint), it sure ain’t the poor bastards working at the filling stations.
February 27th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Hey, one other thought… in NCFOM, in the filling station, Anton says the coin he is flipping is dated 1958. Now that had to be at least a quarter, if not something larger. The problem is that dimes, quarters, half dollars, etc. minted in 1958 would have been silver, and as such should not have still been in circulation in 1980. Having worked in a retail food establishment in my high school years, I know it wouldn’t have been in circulation very long.
February 27th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Hell, I don’t think anyone is skimming off the top. I think, just like I said, that it’s just a price hike, in time to soften us up for a bigger one. I do know how retail works.
I’m 99.9% sure that it was a quarter in the movie. I can’t remember about the book. Dang, I got to find that book. But, dude — seriously. How in the hell do you remember the silver content of coinage from 1958? I remember a lot of trivial shit, but that’s a revelation of sorts. I too worked fast food, and I was shoveling that silver in my pocket as fast as I could for my dad. As a manager, I got to count out the drawers, so I was taking some advantage. I sure as heck didn’t remember the dates, though — I just looked at the edges. You could do that back then.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
I still find silver pre-1965 quarters and dimes now and again, and put them aside-apparently with the value of the silver, they’re actually worth about ten times the face value at present just for the metal.
I’m a little surprised there’s not more of a gasoline price gap between here in SWMO and Chaffinland-I saw gas down to $2.919 today at a couple places.
One of many reasons I should never attempt a blog is that I might ask questions (thinking of the high retail price of gasoline) like, if Americans would be honest, how many of them would think it worthwhile to nuke lots of “Musselmen” if, for each one million or so of them we vaporized, we could permanently lower the price of gas by a penny, and to what level would you like to see the price drop? I’m guessing “80+%” and “free,” but I’m sure that makes me some sort of atavistic throwback hatemongering xenophobe.
Whoa-Speedy Haworth, “Grits” Gresham, and William F. Buckley, all dead within about a week of one another-too bad.
The R Man
February 27th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
First I’ve heard about Grits…I guess they were busy on the news dissecting native garb and the political uses thereof and other unuseful horseshit. Damn. I had books by him. My dad adored his work. We always swapped mags and stuff with his columns. I guess this is how it goes, and I hate it.
I’d rather work it out with the Musselmen, but they got to stop fucking with us first. Read your Koran, just drop the great Satan bullshit.
Sorry to be so illiterate…I’ve had a few.
February 28th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Actually, yeah, I hope we can work it out with ‘em. I have my doubts sometimes, though.
Yeah, I’d kinda forgot that Grits had Alzheimer’s, but his son Tom mentioned it on “Gun Talk” radio last Sunday and said he’d made his peace with his father dying a good long time ago, which I, too, had done with a couple of great-uncles with Alzheimers back in the early 1990s. I enjoyed his writings a great deal also-him and Buckley both-they’ll be sorely missed.
Not illiterate at all, sir.
The R Man
February 28th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
For the record, 1964 and before is 90% silver in dimes, quarters, half-dollars and dollars. Half dollars only from 1965-1970 are 40% silver.
Yeah, I’ve collected coins for 30 years now.
Thinking real hard about dumping all my gold at $1,000 an ounce with college costs looming.