In addressing part of your statement below:
"So what's wrong with taking a profit?

Nothing. But, what's happening here in the oil industry is the equivalent of a bank charging an extra 2% for every 1% increase in the prime rate. Banks don't operate that way because if they did they would face price-cutting from competitors. "

Mr. Langley, I generally agree with what you have to say, but on this note, I must provide some differently focussed insight. Banks have and still do practice "gouge-onomy". When the prime rates went down, the credit card interest rates stayed constant or went up. At the same time this nation had their lowest rates in decades, credit card interest was at an all time high. Likewise, savings account interest rates plummetted in a non-linear fashion when the prime rate went down. For every percentage point in prime rate decrease, savings rates went down 1.5 to 175 points. Bank profits also went up sufficiently for the larger banks to allow them to outright buy smaller banks. Fees for services also hit record highs in this same time frame.

I'm not against business. I have three of my own - all reasonably profitable. I also reinvest a portion my profits into my community as a sound business practice. I am against the Profit-at-all-costs mentality that seems to pervade many businesses today. They think that competition is defined as doing 99% of what the "other guys" do for the same price. Tragically, it was only 20 years ago that competition was defined as giving 110% better service, product, and value for the SAME price.

For banks, that translates to:
1. Where have all the services gone? (Free checks, free appliances with new accounts, great interest rates, etc.)
2. Where has the personnal attention been diverted? ("Welcome, Mr Smith" is now "What's your account number? and ")
3. Where has the loyalty to the customer disappeared to?

For gas companies, that translates to:
1. No attendant at each island to pump your gas, wash you windshield, check your oil, etc.
2. Higher prices (Even in the 70's during rationing, gas was half what it is today.)
3. Nastier, lower quality fuel. (Remember when hi-test was 97 Octane?)

Again, thank you for your more correct insights.

Subject suffices to set the standard for the anonymous use of vernacular in this thread. Thanks UCAN for clarifying; for the sycophant of higher education; your position, your errors, your omissions, and those of the industry as they attempt to lead us by the nose down the primrose path towards the cliff!

I had the pleasure of working directly for one of the major oil companies for nearly three years. It was as a contractor, at their credit card center, handling all those little slips you see. Everything was fine, until they decided to out-source the entire operation. Such is life.

Not part of the actual employee base there was a definite line about what could, or should, be said about the business. But during that time, and with the studies done to evaluate the out-sourcing, there was a certain amount of understanding as to how the business was run.

The Oil Companies are very competitive, but it's in the aggregate, not the individual markets. Yes, they charge all they can, but only as it provides the "share of the market" expected for the area. The true cost of getting gas to the station had little to due with the underlying price.

We all know individual station owners, or managers, get the short end of the pie when it's divided up, and sometimes they have to bite the bullet to stay competitive in their local market. They have to do this to keep the fuel flowing. If they're not getting their share of the gas sold they may feel penalty's, whether that be in pricing or scheduling of new deliveries.

San Diego has always been a target market, not just for it's gasoline. All products! With the semi-isolated proximity to the rest of the population, and the mix of personal backgrounds of the people living here, there is a microcosm of the nation. This makes for an ideal location to test market products and delivery systems. Same to with gasoline. If the powers to be believe they can raise prices (what they always want to do) they'll likely start in this area and see the reception it receives. And then they'll only reduce the price when market share falls and they're forced.

Jane Bond Here:
As long as the 7 sisters oil companies keep making their obscene profits (and I am not against profit taking, it is what makes capitalism work), oil prices
will continue to rise and have no connection to market forces. That's not capitalism, folks, that's monopoly. You can't blame the oil company executives, in a way; no one from the federal government (read the executive government and congress) has told them they actually have to compete, especially in San Diego County.
The regulators aren't regulating, folks. They aren't doing their job. They are allowing monopolies to continue (and to become new monopolies...think Cingular and AT&T). If you don' think this is true, think Sempra Energy and how they get away with what they get away with on the State level because the PUC doesn't properly do its job.
Yes, cars are needed that are fuel efficient. Yes, people need to conserve fuel. Yes, people need to buy from oil companies that have the lowest prices at the pump.
But none of this will totally work unless people do their homework and elect legislators legislators who will legislate, as opposed to finger pointing; and elect presidents who aren't in the pockets of the oil industries.
But the first step in forcing the oil industry to bring back competition (which is just as beneficial to the stockholders as it is to the consumer) is buy gas at the independent gas stations because the owners of these stations are not beholden to the major oil companies. Don't think 7 sisters oil companies here; think competition!
Jane Bond

Jane Bond

I'm just now starting a research paper, hopefully i'll encourage quite a few class mates to join in and write to the government on the issue. Alternative fuels and other items of business could possibly put an ounce of guilt in some of our politicians who refuse to take proper action in yielding the monopoly of the fossil fuel industry. I'm just pissed that i can't hardly go anywhere or do anything on my minumum wage income. 20 bucks for a half tank in a sixteen gallon tank car? I think that's a little outrageous seeing as i make 180 every two weeks and it costs me a gallon to get to school in back.

"Specious" - such an erudite way to discredit a writer or opinion!

Thank you for clarifying the situation re. California's gasoline blending. One hopes to learn something new every day, and so I have today. Yet the state's energy commission website posits that as other states switch to a similar blend as California, the competition for that still-relatively-unique blend keeps upward pressure on our prices, compared to much of the rest of the nation. So again, maybe not so simple....

And as we explore specious arguments, here's one that doesn't even benefit from the "beautifully plausible" part of that word's definition:
"Distance from refineries drives up price" <---- Absolutely WRONG"
I imagine you'd like a do-over on that claim, inasmuch as absolutes are almost always incorrect. Again, deferring to the state's energy commission website, the closest refineries producing acceptable gasoline blends (at least as of last year) were in Washington, a "7-10 day" distance (by tanker ship, one supposes). Would you really ask us to believe that gasoline coming from there would not be more expensive than gas refined in the state, ceteris paribus??? Anecdotal evidence from Ramona and Las Vegas does not trump essential economic relationships, as obviously something other than "distance from refineries" accounts for lower prices in those areas. Thus, it would be correct to say that that factor does not NECCESSARILY drive up price - yet if other factors were held constant, it almost certainly would.

The explanation that UCAN sees a lack of competition as a fundamental issue is largely acceptable. Yet Americans DO love their conspiracy theories, and DO love to hate big business. To paraphrase the (very liberal) economist John Kenneth Galbraith: The conventional wisdom protects us from the painful job of having to think. And so it is that Americans would much rather and much more readily accept that the oil companies are behind all our misery at the pump, when in fact they only deserve a small part of the blame. Perhaps UCAN could help promote a more balanced view of the gasoline market dynamics, as one small step towards helping Americans think more critically and less conspiratorially.

A lot of factors determine gasoline prices, in California as well as anywhere else. Probably, the lack of (sufficient) competition is a factor, as is the distance from major refinery sources, the unique blend of our gasoline, etc. It's too bad that so many consumers are happy to ignorantly accept that it's ALL an oil company plot; Americans are avowed conspiracy theory freaks, and we love to hate big business. But it's just not quite that simple, is it?