Edmunds.com | Inside Line | Auto Observer Your Account | Help | Directory
You are here:
![[F]](http://a332.g.akamai.net/f/332/936/12h/www.edmunds.com/media/townhall/webxicons/site.gif){kind=small}
Forums
Automotive News & Views Are gas prices fueling your pain? 
10042 messages, Last post on Jul 12, 2008 at 3:07 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
|
Replying to: imidazol97 (Apr 17, 2008 8:38 am) BTW there is no right of the buying public to purchase vehicles at less than MSRP or by using discounted rates or rebates. It's only a supply imbalance that has caused this. If the auto companies were smart enough they too would limit the supply to match demand and raise prices. But they have other issues which must be addressed first. The steel companies are currently in exactly the same position as the oil companies. With the growth of China and India there is too much demand chasing a limited supply. Wholesale prices have jumped 50-100%. |
|
|
Replying to: kernick (Apr 17, 2008 10:38 am) No, but manipulating the markets so you're guaranteed to make a lot of money on business transactions is corrupt. In some situations, it's also illegal. |
|
|
Replying to: bpizzuti (Apr 17, 2008 10:56 am) If in turn this control/matching drives up prices for a while, well then that's our decision to buy the product at those prices or not. You're viewing this from the perspective that you must have fuel. But that's not a given. None of us 'need' fuel. We 'want' fuel. That's a huge difference. We've come to expect that fuel is readily available at almost no cost. That paradigm has changed. It may become a luxury. |
|
|
Replying to: kdhspyder (Apr 17, 2008 12:51 pm) Which means it's entirely possible that there is collaboration going on regarding keeping the supply low. Which is illegal (check the statutes on monopolism and abuse). |
|
|
Replying to: bpizzuti (Apr 17, 2008 10:56 am) You'd have to give some examples. Would it be corrupt for me to buy 200 foreclosed condos in an area, rent them for 3 years, and sell them for 3X as much? Is it corrupt that 1 Euro used to = $0.90, and traders now have it at 1 Euro = $1.59? Or that people are making a lot of money buying and selling all sorts of goods, real estate and services?
|
|
|
Replying to: bpizzuti (Apr 17, 2008 1:04 pm) However the price of oil is set by the producers and their mostly state-owned marketing arms. These are not US companies so they can do whatever they want and it's not illegal. It's perfectly good capitalism, i.e. the one(s) with the power exert it over the one(s) without the power. US monopoly laws do not apply to non-US companies doing business outside the US.
|
|
|
Replying to: kdhspyder (Apr 17, 2008 1:55 pm) BTW, just because we don't know they're discussing it doesn't mean they're not doing it...and laughing all the way to the bank. 
|
|
|
Replying to: bpizzuti (Apr 17, 2008 1:04 pm) |
|
|
Replying to: kernick (Apr 17, 2008 1:19 pm) Yeah.... this is corrupt in two ways... first, that I had not thought of it first, or did not have the guts to take the gamble, and second, that I insist on living in that area, and am pissed off at the asking price. 
|
|
|
|
|
Replying to: bpizzuti (Apr 17, 2008 1:04 pm) Actually, there IS collaboration going on to control the supply of oil.... You may have heard of an organization called OPEC? They are a cartel (fancy word for monopoly) of oil producing countries which meet from time to time to determine how much oil they are going to supply. The thing is, what they are doing isn't "illegal" since they aren't governed by the laws of the United States of America. You see, the laws of the USA only apply within the borders of the USA, despite what Bush might have let you to believe. 
|
|
You are here:
Forums
Automotive News & Views Are gas prices fueling your pain?
