SwiftVets.com

[Guest]

> > "Perhaps the explanation is an outbreak of mad cow disease on Capitol
> > Hill.
> > Last week the House of Representatives expressed its collective outrage
> > over high gas prices by voting as a herd, 389-34, to make gasoline
'price
> > gouging' a federal felony. Really. This command and control legislation
> > reads like the kind of law passed by the old Soviet Politburo... One
small
> > problem is that no one in Washington can seem to define what constitutes
> > price gouging... [T]he heretofore sensible Joe Barton, head of the House
> > Energy and Commerce Committee, explains that 'we know price gouging when
> > we
> > see it.'... There's no actual evidence that oil companies or gas
stations
> > are in any way 'gouging' consumers. Webster's Dictionary defines the
term
> > 'gouge' as 'to extort from or to swindle.' But in the marketplace with
> > prices set free of government intervention, the sales price is
established
> > through a transaction of a willing buyer and a willing seller. Service
> > stations are in no way 'extorting' or 'swindling' motorists at the
pump...
> > If service stations are guilty of extortion because their prices are
> > rising
> > more than their costs, then are we to have pricing police preventing
> > homeowners from selling their houses for two or three times what they
> > bought them for, or movie theaters from charging $6 for popcorn that
costs
> > 25 cents to produce, or Barbra Streisand from commanding a $1 million
fee
> > for a single performance?... The irony here is that if there is any
> > extortion or swindling going on in the oil marketplace, Congress is the
> > guilty party. It is Congress that ordered service stations across
America
> > to switch last month to ethanol additives that have both raised prices
at
> > the pump and exacerbated shortages in recent weeks. It is Congress and
> > state governments that take 59 cents a gallon on average of fuel taxes
at
> > the pump-almost six times the average of 10 cents per gallon profit that
> > the oil companies make."
> >
>

[Al_Hawaii]

I graduated from highschool in 1970. While going to school, I worked nights at a gas station. Gas was about 30 cents a gallon. You could also get a 12 oz Coke for 10 cents and a Hershy bar for 10 cents. The base price for a Corvette was about $5200.00. I use the Corvette because there aren't many other vehicles where you can find the base price for a 1970s model that is still produced today.

Here in Hawaii gas is about $3.25 depending on grade and gas station, a 12 oz Coke is $1.00, a Hershy bar is $1.00, and the base price for a Corvette is about $65,000.

Now if "Big Oil" is gouging us for increasing prices ten times what they were 36 years ago, what's up with "Big Coke", "Big Candy", and the "Big Automakers?"
_________________
Aloha,
Al

Viet Nam 71/72
Persian Gulf 90/91

[baldeagle]

Since "Big Oil" makes about $.10 per gallon profit and "Big Gov't" (State and Federal) taxes can run as high as $.45 per gallon, if there is any gouging going on, its not the oil companies, but the politicions.
You think Boxer, Pelosi, et al could be aware of that?
_________________
"In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home." --George Washington