Gas Price Gouging Calculator

[Thorin]

I've been listening intently to the reported wholesale and retail price of gasoline reported on 630 CHED each morning at 8:04am, and I've noticed that the difference between the two is getting bigger and bigger.  To me, this difference means that the gas stations are simply marking more profit on every liter sold; I consider the amount to be exorbitant and I call it gouging.  Well, now there's a calculator to help determine what the price of gas should be if the gas stations were selling at a normal level of profit:

http://www.gasgouge.ca/

There is also a fairly detailed article in PDF format explaining how the numbers are calculated for this site:

http://policyalternatives.ca/documents/National_Office_Pubs/2007/Gas_Price_Gouge_2007.pdf

Ultimately, I don't mind paying higher prices for gasoline if the extra cost were spent on something useful such as environmental cleanup, instead of going into huge retirement packages for CEOs of oil companies.  Which, I guess, means I'm not really a capitalist.  It's just too bad that we're such a captive market yet the federal government won't step in and force the oil companies (who own most of the gas stations) to charge a reasonable price rather than this over-the-top gouging.

Or better yet, gasoline could be seen as a required resource like natural gas and we could get rebates when the price goes over a certain point with the rebate paid out of the royalties the oil companies have to pay to take the oil from Alberta.  But then we get into that whole royalty regime that needs overhauling...

[Lazybones]

The prices on the long weekend where crazy.

[Melbosa]

Nice little site.