Text 17468, 40 rader
Skriven 2011-04-27 08:18:56 av Björn Felten (2:203/2)
  Kommentar till text 17461 av Roy Witt (1:387/22)
Ärende: Oil prices and multinational cartels
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 RW> goes up on speculation. And sometimes the filling station owner raises the
 RW> price, just because he can in spite of what the oil company tells him the
 RW> sales price is.

   Previously the filling stations here in Sweden had manual signs saying what
the price was. It took some labour to climb up a ladder changing those signs.
Nowadays every station has a light display that can be remotely changed. And
they do, oh boy do they do.

   Yesterday I filled up my 450SL in the morning at SEK 13,29/litre. When I
returned home two hours later the price was 14,48/litre on that exact same
station (and every other station I passed).

   Surely it was the same gas in the station tanks, originally coming from the
same super tanker at the same cost.

   I almost get the feeling that those light signs are automatically connected
to the oil exchange, displaying the present spot price.

 RW> You can't legislate against the OPEC cartel, since it isn't a US entity.

   True, sadly true. The UN might have been able to do anything -- but they are
just an expensive, toothless debate-club IMHO.

   If WTO spent more time representing the citizens and less the corporations,
they could have done something. But they spent all their time and efforts on
the so called "intellectual property" nowadays.

 RW> You can't do much against Haliburton because it has competition from
 RW> other oil companies and setting prices as you suggest is illegal here.

   Yes, that's part of the democratic idea -- governments or law writers should
never try to influence prices.

   And since most countries are unable to prevent cartels -- other than on a
micro scale; the big multinational guys always get away with it -- there's
little hope for us who pay the bill in the end.

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