Thursday, April 20, 2006

My So Called Life - Early Morning Blues

Sorry for the late post today. My real job interfered (as it is prone to do from time to time :-(

My Early Morning Blues refers to the fact that I was up at 6:00 am this morning and I was filling up the gas tank at $1.082 per litre and I was thinking that while I profess to be a free-market liberal, it pisses me off that gas rates can fluctuate this much on any given day.

Why is it that beer companies have to give 30 days notice of any price change, but gas companies can change their price hourly. It seems to me that the gas that is in the tank under the ground was bought and paid for at a certain price. The company marked it up to make a profit and the govenment taxed it. If the gas station has not received a new delivery of gas, what has changed in their day to day operations that makes it necessary to change the price.

If I was Prime Minister, I would make the companies post the price based on the current amount of fuel. They could not change the price until the next delivery was recieved. This might lead to some outrageous hikes at one time, but at least you would know ahead of time. Some gas stations would still have some at the cheaper level and be keep it at that price until they too ran out.

I know, I know. Overly simplistic and not realistic given this day and age of global economy, but with $63 Billion last year in profit for the big gas companies, the only thing letting me sleep at night is the fact that some of my mutual funds hold oil companies in their portfolios.

Q out (of gas)

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