O/T - Gas Pricing

fiveiron · 2006-04-05T23:12:52+00:00

A man eats two eggs each morning for breakfast. When he goes to thegrocery store he pays 60 cents a dozen. Since a dozen eggs won't last aweek he normally buys two dozens at a time.One day while buying eggs he notices that the price has risen to 72cents. The next time he buys groceries, eggs are 76 cents a dozen. Whenasked to explain the price of eggs the store owner says, "the price hasgone up and I have to raise my price accordingly".This store buys 100 dozen eggs a day. I checked around for a betterprice and all the distributors have raised their prices. Thedistributors have begun to buy from the huge egg farms. The small eggfarms have been driven out of business.=A0The huge egg farms sells 100,000 dozen eggs a day to distributors. Withno competition, they can set the price as they see fit. The distributorsthen have to raise their prices to the grocery stores. And on and on andon.As the man kept buying eggs the price kept going up. He saw the big eggtrucks delivering 100 dozen eggs each day. Nothing changed there. Hechecked out the huge egg farms and found they were selling 100,000 dozeneggs to the distributors daily. Nothing had changed but the price ofeggs.=A0Then week before Thanksgiving the price of eggs shot up to $1.00 adozen. Again he asked the grocery owner why and was told, "cakes andbaking for the holiday". The huge egg farmers know there will be a lotof baking going on and more eggs will be used. Hence, the price of eggsgoes up.Expect the same thing at Christmas and other times when family cookingand baking happens. This pattern continues until the price of eggs is2.00 a dozen. The man says,"there must be something we can do about theprice of eggs". He starts talking to all the people in his town and they decide to stopbuying eggs. This didn't work because everyone needed eggs. Finally, theman suggested only buying what you need.He ate 2 eggs a day. On the way home from work he would stop at the grocery and buy two eggs.Everyone in town started buying...

Apr 05, 2006 28 Replies

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Don Bruder 20 years ago

Wanna tell me how I can use less gas when making my living includes a

100+ mile trip around a specified route every night?

We're banging against 3 bucks a gallon again, and if it keeps climbing, I'm going to find myself unemployed - Not because I can't work, but because I can't *AFFORD* to work. As things stand right now, I'm managing to do a bit better than breaking even, but if the prices get much higher, I'm going to be left with no choice but to quit so that I'm not paying for the privilege of saying I have a job.

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Scott Dorsey 20 years ago

By getting the most-efficient car for the job, even if you'd feel more comfortable and look better to your customers in a Continental. By keeping the vehicle properly tuned up at all times. And by driving gently rather than coming off the line like a funny car.

Now, maybe you've done all these things. But an awful lot of people in this country haven't.

--scott

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<HLS 20 years ago

Mathematics seldom lie... You either have to - raise your prices, - get a more fuel efficient car, - find a way that you don't have to drive 100 miles a night to satisfy your customers, or - change your profession.

Do a sensitivity analysis.

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clifto 20 years ago

I don't know about you, but I expended all my "use less" ideas as soon as gasoline hit $2.

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Don Stauffer 20 years ago

Right. The world OWES us cheap petroleum.

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Don Stauffer 20 years ago

Change driving habits is another alternative. Stick to speed limit on highways, stay off brakes, coast to red lights, don't tailgate. Keep speed as constant as possible on highway.

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clifto 20 years ago

Well, we do give the world cheap food...

I've often thought that when we get socked with something like OPEC, that we should raise the prices of what we sell them proportionately to the amount they raise the prices of what they sell us. (Oversimplified.)

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Frank 20 years ago

I know some like you who have done about all they can including riding a motorcycle to work daily, carpooling, etc. But there are enough people out there that'll pay whatever it takes to drive what they want as fast as they want and as far as they want that it hurts us. It'll take a lot of us trying to save to make a difference. It'll be interesting to see how high gasoline will have to get to do it.

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John S. 20 years ago

Stop to think through what you took great pains to write and apply it to the real world. Whether you buy $40.00 worth of gasoline once a week or 4 times a week the demand for refined oil is the same. And you will be running around 4 times as often looking for a station. Imagine trying to take a trip from South Carolina to Maine on that basis. If we all did that imagine the traffic, wasted gas, confusion and long lines.

The only way to have an impact on prices is to use less gasoline. If you can convince enough of us to carpool, walk to the grocery and reduce our overall usage of fuel by 50% over 6 months now that would have a major and immediate impact on sellers of crude. I would imagine that several middle eastern countries would be considering a strike against us rather than the other way around.

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