President Joe Biden arrives to the Rose Garden of the White House, Monday, May 9 2022, at the start of an Affordable Connectivity Program event. (Official White House Photo by Hannah Foslien)
Or, Where Does the Buck Stop?
Just ask Joe Biden…
“The companies running gas stations and setting prices at the pump…Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product.”
Joe Kicking Sand in Their Face
Regardless how implausible, Joe maintains the buck stops with small-time entrepreneurs who have done nothing wrong, “except remain in business at a time when the president’s anti-oil-and-gas policy has backfired spectacularly,” writes Rich Lowry in NRO.
According to the business newsletter, The Hustler, most owners of gas stations operate only one gas station, either as a branded location of a big famous company or on their own.
Talk About Transparencies
Mr. President, what other business posts prices down to the 10th a cent? Proprietors aren’t doing this arbitrarily, As Mr. Lowry notes, station owners know that if they don’t set a price not justified by the broader market, potential customers will grumble ahead to a more reasonably priced station.
Getting Ahead: Selling Coke and Cigarettes?
Selling gas usually isn’t the most lucrative part of the business, either. Gas stations make a very small margin on fuel, with the cost of crude and refining, along with transport and taxes, accounting for almost all of the price at the pump. Stations earn a much higher margin on their sales of drinks and foodstuffs. Biden would be on more solid ground urging gas stations to cut consumers a break on the price of soda and Doritos.
C’mon Man
According to President Biden, stations should reduce gas prices since it’s a time of “war and global peril.”
This appeal might make sense if Biden were browbeating gas stations located in Ukraine or Russia. But the U.S. is not at war, and business owners are under no obligation to sell their product at cost or below because Vladimir Putin is trying to dismember Ukraine. Counterintuitively, gas stations tend to be more profitable when prices are declining rather than rising, so they are unlikely simply as a business matter to be engaged in the pricing conspiracy that Biden alleges.
Joe is a “Man Out of Touch.“
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