>>>>>>http://www.wral.com/news/4927104/detail.html?treets=ral&tid=2652390760813&tml=ral_dailyforecast&tmi=ral_dailyforecast_1_05000109022005&ts=H
>>>>>
>>>>>The shame is here
>>>>>$4.6 per gallon
>>>>
>>>>Depends on whether it's warranted or not. Did you read the story?
>>>
>>>Yes. Market economy.
>>>Yesterday they up price with 10% saying that barrel price is $70. Nobody inform consumers that todays oil is bought hlf anyesr ago and it iis in lower price. Oil companies lik LUK Oil, Shell, OMV, etc. make huge profits.
>>>But what to do? to stop drive? forget
>>
>>It's soooo easy to attribute it to "market economy". But it's wrong to do so!
>>Especially when it comes to gasoline, heating oil and natural gas.
>>
>>In this market you have the major oil companies owning the entire chain, from top to bottom.
>>
>>They'll use ANY excuse to boost the prices on the Mercantile Exchange.
>>They've already bought out smaller refineries and sold refineries amongst themselves and closed refineries in order to generate a "shortage" where none need exist.
>>So prices are already artificially high when the "entrepreneurs" jump in and try to make their slice of extra profit on the misery of others.
>>
>>The "entrepreneur" is wrong for sure, but what he sees is the oil companies making HUGE profits yet his own profit remains marginal at best. So he tries to grab some extra for himself.
>>And all the while the oil companies themselves get no hassle and laugh all the way to the bank.
>>
>>cheers
>
>It's not really wrong to attribute it to 'Market Economy'. Market economy is based on supply and demand and supply and demand is based on greed.
>
>If I own something that nobody else has and someone wants to buy it from me, what is it that would make me sell it at 4 times the real value if not greed. We can make up all the euphemisms we want that make it sound nicer (supply and demand, market economy, entrepreneurship, whatever), but the bottom line is greed. The oil companies are greedily cashing in on our willingness to let them cash in on a tragic disaster.
>
>Businesses don't have morals, they have bottom lines.
>
>The price of oil hit $70.00 per barrel and the price at the pumps when up immediately. When the price came down to $69.00 per barrel, the price at the pumps when up immediately.

What I tried to say - failed miserably - is that this particular "market" is a market in name only!
The oil companies are not "...cashing in on our willingness to let them cash in..." because it is not "willingness" that has people using cars or heating homes or cooking food, but necessity. The oil companies know this full well and have managed to keep the ILLUSION of a market.

Somewhere along the way we strayed from common sense when we accepted that "Businesses don't have morals, they have bottom lines.".
It is not acceptable for business to be excluded from morality. Never was, until the cold war ended. Then it became a free-for-all.