Inflation or price gouging

[mmcmdl]

@woodchucker . We are at $4.00 a gallon down here for diesel fuel these days . Pa. is typically .50 cents above Md . This is crazy . I do believe there is gouging going on with everything these days also . I just have to wonder where all these unfilled jobs are they talk about every day .

 

[woodchucker]

Hm...........................all these high profits are killing the stock market this year . I think I'm down 15% for the year . That's $6 I'll probably never see again .

The stock market is what helped kill this country. When only the rich and corps were in it pre 1968 or so... Companies had long term goals. When 401k's and people started investing themselves in mass, the goals changed, we went from long term to short term profits... get your money and get out.... The stock market does not represent what companies are doing or should do.

Do you remember the Miliken age. If a company was doing well , profiting, their stock dropped like a brick... if a company was hurting the stock soared... They were killing companies to sell of the pieces. Again .... the stock market not being good for America.
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[jwmay]

I just have to wonder where all these unfilled jobs are they talk about every day .

I've been in automotive for 10 years. A guesstimate on how many people we are, and have been short would be 400. That's between 4 plants, but those are all jobs within 40 minutes of me. It's a revolving door if new hires and freshly fed up quitters. Nobody wants 60 hours a week anymore, so they quit. This seems to force us (those who didn't quit) to keep on with the ridiculous workload. Young people stay with Mommy and don't really need much money for that.
Oh...inflation. Hmm. Is it possible that the price of goods reflect what people will pay? Gouging or otherwise, it won't come down until we stop buying it. Wages are also up. I'm making significantly more this year than ever before. I did have to find a new job. But, all in all, I'm planning to make more this year than inflation will eat. So, it's all a matter of perspective I guess.
I don't understand blaming CEO's either. They just took the job. It was somebody else that decided what they'd be paid... or at least I think so. Lol. Some company offered me a million dollar bonus, you can bet your butt I'm onboard. It doesn't make me a bad guy.

 

[mmcmdl]

I have 4 very large and VERY heavy boxes headed 370 miles south tomorrow . My plan was to take the truck down , spend the night in a cheap hotel and return the next day . 3 tanks of diesel at $120 a fill up . I can't do it although I wish I could . The shipping will cost me maybe $130 or so . These flat rate boxes go up in price daily , kinda like the stock market . Whatever , we the working man pays to play .

 

[Beckerkumm]

Years ago I was attending the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting when Buffett and his partner, Charlie Munger, were asked their opinion on CEO pay. Buffett talked at length ( as usual) about how compensation committees on a Board were similar to lap dogs for management. Charlie's response to Warren was " You are being demeaning to lap dogs". Dave

 

[woodchucker]

I have 4 very large and VERY heavy boxes headed 370 miles south tomorrow . My plan was to take the truck down , spend the night in a cheap hotel and return the next day . 3 tanks of diesel at $120 a fill up . I can't do it although I wish I could . The shipping will cost me maybe $130 or so . These flat rate boxes go up in price daily , kinda like the stock market . Whatever , we the working man pays to play .

Remember back in the 1990s and before, diesel was always less than gas... Diesel has a long shelf life compared to gas. Why then is diesel so much more than gas? Is it because they can charge more? I still don't know why the prices flipped on which was more $$$$. A friend who is retired now worked for Exxon in research. According to him, diesel should be a lot less than gas. So what happened? Was is corporate greed that said diesel is mostly paid for by companies, so we can make up the price on it, because it will just get passed down?

 

[mmcmdl]

Remember back in the 1990s and before, diesel was always less than gas... Diesel has a long shelf life compared to gas. Why then is diesel so much more than gas?

Well that's an easy one . It's because I bought a diesel truck !

 

[Aaron_W]

Remember back in the 1990s and before, diesel was always less than gas... Diesel has a long shelf life compared to gas. Why then is diesel so much more than gas? Is it because they can charge more? I still don't know why the prices flipped on which was more $$$$. A friend who is retired now worked for Exxon in research. According to him, diesel should be a lot less than gas. So what happened? Was is corporate greed that said diesel is mostly paid for by companies, so we can make up the price on it, because it will just get passed down?

I think diesel demand has increased significantly since the 1980s.

Diesel didn't surpass gas engines in big rigs until the 1970s. Diesel pickups were not really a thing until the 80s, diesel cars did start to show up in the late 70s but with the exception of Mercedes Benz most diesel cars were not very popular (and I'm pretty sure sales of diesel MBs were much smaller than gas powered).
Ford and GM introduced diesel pickups in 1983, Dodge introduced a diesel pickup in 1989. These were work trucks, soccer mom's wanted nothing to do with these slow, noisy, soot blasting beasts.
VW turbo diesel cars had a brief spurt of popularity in the 2000s before emissions regulations caught up to them.

These days you never see a non-diesel big rig and diesel pickups have become trendy, with many people buying them for status, not because they actually use them for doing truck things.

Many states also have a higher tax on diesel than on gasoline, and my understanding is that heating oil production competes with diesel fuel production which can raise the price of diesel in the winter time.

Fuel refining is vary advanced these days with refineries being very capable of breaking down less desired petroleum products to their base molecular structure and reformulating them into more valuable products. A lot of historically cheap petroleum products like naphtha and kerosene have seen price increases because what were once basically waste products are now made to meet the demand for them, any excess can be used as fuel stocks for other products.

 

[MrWhoopee]

My sister sells lumber wholesale. Recently prices were through the roof, then suddenly dropped like a rock. I asked her what happened, she said people stopped buying.

I would like to express my appreciation to all of you for an informed, reasoned, courteous and thoughtful discussion. You guys are the BEST!

 

[woodchucker]

My sister sells lumber wholesale. Recently prices were through the roof, then suddenly dropped like a rock. I asked her what happened, she said people stopped buying.

I would like to express my appreciation to all of you for an informed, reasoned, courteous and thoughtful discussion. You guys are the BEST!

I wish the prices dropped. Out here in Hunterdon county NJ it's still way up. Poplar was $5 a bd ft at one of my mills. I use it for the carcass of case work. I have some gorgeous hardwoods, but won't waste them on utility stuff. At $5 it's more expensive than hardwoods were before the shortage. So we are not close to normal yet. But what's normal ??? Is normal the new high? Will it come back down?