[TheForge] OT--Gas prices, gas shortages, price gouging?

[robert hensarling]

As most of you know, the Texas coast if fixing to get hit hard in the
Galveston area.  We're hearing that gasoline in some areas of Houston will
approach $5 as the storm gets closer, which is tonight.  I hope someone
hangs for this, the prices really should stay the same, or even lower, to
give folks a break getting out of town.  Yes, I know, the stations need to
make a profit also, but I'm talking about full blown price guzzling.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jonathan Barnhart" <blakkpawss at yahoo.com>
To: "The Forge" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 11:56 AM
Subject: [TheForge] OT--Gas prices, gas shortages, price gouging?


> So, yesterday, in the tri-state area I live, the gas stations were told by
their parent companies to raise gas prices 20-30 cents a gallon.  This was
mainly due to the refineries shutting down for the incoming hurricane in
Texas.
>
> Simultaneously some naer do wells decided to start rumors that the gas
price, which had been anywhere between $3.40-$3.75 a gallon, would be going
up to $5.00 overnight and possibly higher in the next week.  Several of
these no goods also rumored that we would shortly run out of gas with no new
shipments in the forseeable future.  This lead to a panic which caused
people to run out to fill their tanks.  A lot of the rumors sited things
like the 911 crisis and hurricane Katrina as examples of what would happen,
since we experienced higher prices and some mild shortages then.  They also
were saying that for some reason or another(I heard several and none of them
really made sense to me) that it would be much worse than these previous
times.
>
> With the high volume sales, gas stations started to raise prices due to
demand.  Some even made it as high as the $5 mark.  I suspect some of these
were gouging.  However, some were stations low on gas and waiting for
shipments, that didn't want to have to pay to reprime their pumps.  Several
places were full of cars and starting to line up.  But, it was starting to
die down.
>
> Finally, as if this weren't bad enoughthough, a local T.V. station decided
to report on the high traffic at the pumps as well as report the rumors.
They didn't substantiate or debunk these rumors they just reported them as
rumors.  Unfortunately, it appears as though the people watching focused on
the bad parts of the rumors and missed the fact that they were just rumors
and so the buying went on.  Once again the cars started to line up around
the block at the stations.  Some places were much worse than others.  It
seems as though some places kept their wits about them and took a wait and
see attitude.
>
> It's my understanding that we now have several local stations that either
are out of or low on gas.  So, regardless of wether or not the rumors were
true, the panic mass of people have made them true.  I like to call it "self
fulfilling prophecy" or "never underestimate the power of idiots in mass
amounts".  Either way, if you knew about it yesterday, you were pretty much
forced to buy, if you could afford to.  That way you wouldn't get stuck with
the higher price that the idiots had scared up.
>
> Depending on who you talk to today, this is either a real thing that and
we are going to run low or out of gas within the next week if the storm goes
bad, or it's a hoax and this was only occuring here in southern Illinois,
Southeast Missouri, and part of northwest Kentucky.  So, I'm asking people
here if they have experienced anything similar in the last couple days and
trying to make heads or tails of this insanity and idiocy.
>
>
>
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