Thursday, May 10, 2007

Mind Your Own Business, Government!

There were two articles in the paper today that I felt compelled to comment on.

The first has to do with gas prices and the government saying they are too low!!. Apparently a service station in Merrill, Wisconsin has been offering a 2 cent per gallon discount for senior citizens and a discount card that lets youth sports boosters pay 3 cents per gallon less. Now given the outrageous price of gas these days, 2 or 3 cents isn't much, but the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (they're protecting consumers from low prices?) claims that it is a violation of the state's "Unfair Sales Act" which requires stations to sell gas for about 9.2 cents above the wholesale price.

How is it that government, be it state, federal or local, has the right to tell businesses how much to charge for their products? No wonder there is no competition! There must be a law like that around here too because all the gas stations have the same price and whenever one goes up they pretty much all do at the same time. I remember when I was a kid there used to be "gas wars" with stations competing against each other for the lowest price. But not anymore, thanks to the government I guess.


So Sayeth The Shack

1 comment:

Jeni said...

Somehow or other, I managed to miss this story John. Although it is also one of the most illogical stories I've heard of lately but then again, almost all the stories published lately seem to be really illogical don't they?