Charlie Self wrote:

Duane Bozarth wrote:
Charlie Self wrote:


And that attitude is what is wrong with business today. I've been a
small businessman since at least '68, and to date I haven't found it
necessary to screw my clients out of the last dime in order to get by.

I'm sorta' w/ ya' on this, Charlie, altho I understand the other as
well...

Unfortunately, it's the distributors who control the pump prices
(essentially, local markups are pretty competitive in most places) and
they seem to be, as you note, very prompt in the up direction, not so
prompt in the other...

I don't have data on what the refiners are doing (in the relatively few
cases where they and the major distributors aren't the same)...I suspect
the independents are following the big boys because they'd get crushed
if they didn't.

What I was writing of was at the local station level. Go in Friday and
see a truck filling the tanks, and an 8 cent increase on the pump. Go
by Sunday, and see another 8 cent increase, and another on Wednesday,
but the next truck doesn't arrive until that Friday.

That's neither distributor nor refiner. Just neighbor screwing neighbor
out of a few bucks.

Actually, if you were to investigate, you would probably find that each
of those increases at the local station did reflect costs his
distributor had just passed on to him...I know for a fact that's what
happens here as I know two local re-distributors/retailer wells as well
as knowing what we do on the driveway pumps at the local farmers' coop
of which I am a member...

Here in this last week we got hit w/ two increases in one afternoon
plust another the next day...