Real TrainWreck mojo!

[bob p]

I don't like the term gouging unless it really is gouging. Gouging occurs when you are the only source for something and you charge usurious rates, like the Skreli deal. Just having super high profit is not enough. No one HAS to have an attenuator or a fuzz pedal, you can do without or buy alternatives. So if I make a pedal for $10 and sell it for $1000, that isn't gouging. If however I am the only gas station in town that still can pump gas during a blackout and I sell it for $20 a gallon instead of $3, the people evacuating have no choice. That is gouging.

^^^Excellent analysis.

According to the economists who can see in 48-bit color, a free market is defined as the transfer of goods in a non-distressed voluntary transaction between a willing buyer and a willing seller.

Clearly, the guy who has a monopoly on gas and charges usurious rates to distressed buyers is not selling in a free market and he is price gouging. But like you say, the term gouging gets over applied.

The term "gouging" tends to get over used by crybaby-types who like to accuse the other party of "gouging" just because the asking price is higher than they want to pay. "Gouging" claims tend to pop up whenever something is expensive and out of reach. The problem is always that the other guy's price is too high, the problem is never that the buyer is just too cheap to pay the market rate. In the worst case scenario these whiner types will try to skew the market by trying to enforce artificial price controls. Communism. Socialism. Fascism. Capitalism. Take your pick, but the truth is that artificial price control is the enemy of the free market.

It's important to bear in mind that if we're talking about a discretionary purchase then by definition there can be no gouging because the buyer has the option to tell the seller that the price is to high, and to walk away from the deal. If you participate in a voluntary non-distressed transaction and afterward you accuse the seller of "gouging", the harsh truth is that the problem is that you're just angry about being a crappy negotiator.

[Enzo]

Around here gas prices go up and down a lot. SO when gas is selling for $3.50, and it goes up to $3.65, we can count on letters to the paper asking the attorney general to look into this gouging. A 70 cent can of corn goes up to 73 cents and no one hollers. Same increase. Of course no one wrote in congratulating anyone when gas fell from $3.70 to $3.50.

And even when gas is a dollar or more cheaper than a few months ago, they still write in if it goes back up 15 cents the day before they want to take a trip.

[bob p]

Falling commodity prices are a double edged sword. Our state legislators are doing their best to take advantage of the falling gas prices. Oil plummets below $40/barrel, gas becomes cheap again, and everyone breathes a temporary sigh of relief ... and then the legislators celebrate by raising the state's gasoline tax. They're never happy -- they always need more money for some social program, and when gas becomes cheap that's their opportunity to raise taxes because they know people won't complain as long as gas is so much cheaper than it used to be. They're the worst kind of opportunists.

[g1]

They don't need money for other stuff like roads?

[bob p]

Unfortunately roads aren't where the money's been going.

[Enzo]

They're never happy -- they always need more money

If gass plummets, so do gas tax revenues, so they increase the rate to try to maintain the revenue level. That isn't the same as simply asking for more and more.

[Justin Thomas]

Since if gas goes TOO high, people really do change their consumption and so there goes your "road maintenance fund." It's not a reliable way to raise revenue consistently for something that needs a consistent stream of revenue. In all my commuting, I sure as he'll don't buy gas in PA, because it's 40 cents cheaper in VA...

Same thing with the red-light cameras on my town... they SAID it wasn't about the money, but safety... two years later in their press release announcing a call for more cameras, they used this logic: "revenue brought in by the single camera has dropped by 60%, so we need more cameras to get the lost money back." No mention of the decrease in collisions, because it was never about safety to begin with. (Turns out,collisions IN the intersection dropped, but rear-end collisions went through the roof, as people slammed on brakes to avoid tickets. We later found out that we weren't even legally required to pay the tickets...)

Or using parking meters to get the city of Harrisburg out of bankruptcy. N o w, nobody comes - they stay across the river and park where it's all free, AND nicer.

Damn it, I guess it's just not that simple...

Of course, even when gas hit 3.90/gallon, we were still paying less than the rest of the world...

Justin

[bob p]

If gass plummets, so do gas tax revenues, so they increase the rate to try to maintain the revenue level. That isn't the same as simply asking for more and more.

That would be true if gas tax were an excise tax, based on a percentage of the price of the sale, but that's not the way it works here. Here, the gasoline tax is a flat rate in terms of cents per gallon. As the commodity price of gasoline falls, the tax component does not vary, but the combined price of commodity+tax becomes cheaper. People become more likely to consume more gas because it's cheap, and the amount of tax revenue actually increases when the commodity price falls.

Right now, Illinois collects 63 cents on every gallon of gas. And that's only the State Tax component. Municipal tax and federal tax components end up driving the price per gallon higher.

Gasoline used to be cheaper in Indiana because Indiana's taxes were low. People from Illinois used to drive to Indiana to fill up. In their infinite wisdom, the Indiana legislators just implemented a new gas tax increase at the end of last month to match the Illinois level. "They charge more, why shouldn't we? We're just cheating ourselves if we don't."

[Enzo]

We have a sales tax on every gallon. Plus the other ones.

[bob p]

I just google'd that there are only 7 states that charge a sales tax on gas at the pump. It looks like most states use a flat tax rate. It's harder than I expected to get current information on this. Most of the google articles seem old.

[Tom Phillips]

In California we pay all the various fixed taxes on each gallon plus sales tax % on the total. When they first added the sales tax there were lots of problems when someone pumped their gas and then found out that they had to pay the price on the pump plus the sales tax. They quickly embedded the sales tax into the pump price and most people forgot that sales tax was added and the fact that we pay sales tax on the fixed tax.

Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all...
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet
Don't ask me what I want it for...
I can always find ways to waste some more

[Chuck H]

Should we move this thread to the 'soap box'? The odd post and reply that goes off subject is fine, even good most times, but this has drifted into completely unrelated territory for the last 20 posts.

[Justin Thomas]

Only about 10%? Not bad. Gimme some time, I'll cook up some way to bring it around... something about gas taxes driving the price of Trainwrecks up 5,000%…

Justin

[Chuck H]

As to wire having a polarity or the insulations dielectric properties being relative to color.?. Well, I once had trouble with a preamp stage that was baffling the crap out of me. The cathode voltage would move around inconsistent with the tubes operation. I tried a couple of different tubes, replaced the cathode circuit components and was still having the problem. This is an undyed g10 board and was clean. I couldn't measure any voltage on the board, but I floated the components anyway. Still the problem remained. After dicking with it so much I replaced the lead wire for it's appearance. The problem went away. Huh!?! I tested the lead I'd removed and got a negative resistance reading. This lead was only three and a half inches long. I tested it for voltage and the meter wouldn't stabilize. I reinstalled the lead in the amp and the problem returned. Took it back out and continued to get various and odd results testing the lead by itself. After messing with it for about five minutes it started to behave normally and I couldn't get it to read weird anymore in another five minutes messing around. There was a new-ish battery in my meter and during the course of things it read everything else accurately. I have a small cardboard box where I save bits of useful lead wire greater than three inches, but I tossed that poltergeist lead in the trash.

[J M Fahey]

Should we move this thread to the 'soap box'? The odd post and reply that goes off subject is fine, even good most times, but this has drifted into completely unrelated territory for the last 20 posts.

It will keep drifting and wasting Forum bandwidth and Server space, both of which are expensive.

I propose to TAX unrelated answers so either unruly Members get in line or we collect enough money to build roads and schools.