viper134 Posted April 22, 2008 Report Share Posted April 22, 2008 Hi, i'm still relatively new and don't come here often. But after reading about these laws that exist I had to get a straight answer concerning them. I find it horrible that stations arn't allowed to sell cheap gas. "small businesses" use the excuse that big businesses like "wal-mart" which currently fights this would simply undercut their prices until the small stations goes out of business and then use its monopolistic position to jack prices back up. Is this a good excuse or no? Thanks for the help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMaci Posted April 22, 2008 Report Share Posted April 22, 2008 Hi, i'm still relatively new and don't come here often. But after reading about these laws that exist I had to get a straight answer concerning them. I find it horrible that stations arn't allowed to sell cheap gas. "small businesses" use the excuse that big businesses like "wal-mart" which currently fights this would simply undercut their prices until the small stations goes out of business and then use its monopolistic position to jack prices back up. Is this a good excuse or no? Thanks for the help. No, it is a bad reason. They could not kill all that rose to challenge them unless they got a government licence to be the only company offering gas, which is itself a much worse thing than the unrealistic scenario small businesses create. Also, remember that what the small businesses are really asking for is the government to use force to help them compete when they cannot otherwise do so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viper134 Posted April 22, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 22, 2008 Besides the act itself being wrong what does the data show for gas prices in states that do have these laws in effect vs ones that don't. Its getting pretty late and i've checked some of the states that supposdly have the laws and they seem to be substantially higher gas prices then the ones that don't have these laws. But a study or better comparison would be great. Thanks for any help, i'll check back tomorrow morning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KendallJ Posted April 22, 2008 Report Share Posted April 22, 2008 I'm not familiar with the laws you're discussing. Can you point us to an example. If I understand the complaint right (small businesses complaining to the govt that they'll be undercut and driven out of business), then it is false. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softwareNerd Posted April 22, 2008 Report Share Posted April 22, 2008 I'd never heard of such laws, but I guess this is what he's talking about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adrock3215 Posted April 22, 2008 Report Share Posted April 22, 2008 I've never heard of such a law, unless you are talking about the price floor being gasoline taxes. The federal gasoline tax is 18.4 cents per gallon, plus add in your state taxes and you have the lowest price which gasoline can go (41.9 cents per gallon in my state, assuming businesses decided to give away gas). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viper134 Posted April 22, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 22, 2008 Yes, the article to which SoftwareNerd pointed to is what I'm talking about. No i'm not talking about the price floor, its a certain price that must be marked up above the amount it costs. Also it only applies to some states. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidOdden Posted April 22, 2008 Report Share Posted April 22, 2008 It is very hard to get solid data on these markups. I can't find authoritative evidence that such a minimum markup exists in Minnesota, Maryland, or Wisconsin. It appears that the Wisconsin law, which the FTC officially opposes, was invalidated in federal court, but rumor has it that it's still being enforced. Wisconsonians, is that still so? The FTC letter says that the alleged downside is not empirically supported, and the letter references a number of studies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benpercent Posted April 22, 2008 Report Share Posted April 22, 2008 I'm not sure about these laws, but if it is so, it's incredibly hypocritical. The lawmakers make gas prices high by law while at the same time giving the stink eye to oil companies? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidOdden Posted April 22, 2008 Report Share Posted April 22, 2008 I'm not sure about these laws, but if it is so, it's incredibly hypocritical. The lawmakers make gas prices high by law while at the same time giving the stink eye to oil companies?It's all very simple: high prices are good only if Ma and Pa are charging them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viper134 Posted April 24, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 24, 2008 Thank you for the answers. From what I could find it looks like there is nothing new relating to these laws. So hopefully whatever laws were in place have seen been revoked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-Mac Posted April 24, 2008 Report Share Posted April 24, 2008 They passed this type of law in Colorado last year and the backlash was so awful, they did away with it. Score one for the people! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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