Full of Gas

When I was at Ohio University I had to take an economics class as part of my required core classes.

The professor asked the class once, "If you own a store, and an item is hugely popular, do you raise the price of the item, or lower it?" Then, to my horror, he pointed at me and said, "Albert?"

I thought about it for a moment and said, "Well I'd be selling more. So I would still be making my profit margin if I lowered prices. I'd lower prices," I said.

"NO!" he screamed. "In a supply and demand economy you raise prices for popular items and lower prices for unpopular items in hopes of making them popular items."

I slumped down in my chair. The professor asked me to meet him in his office for a couple tutoring sessions. I passed with a "C" grade.

I guess greed just isn't part of who I am. And I consider the supply and demand philosophy that drives our economy greedy. And I don't consider greed good for business.

Everyone's pointing fingers these days trying to figure out who is responsible for skyrocketing gas prices. It's the supply and demand economy, which to be is based principally on greed.

Gas prices rise because we're over the barrel. We have no other choice then to buy gas. Those in control of the acquisition of oil and the production of gasoline can set the price of gas at any point they wish. We're stuck. We're screwed.

Who's to blame? We are.

Exxon's profits topped $40-billion dollars in 2007. In Saudi Arabia they bring in foreigners from adjoining countries to do all the work, native Saudis do not have to work.

From here to all points of the world, those involved in the oil business are swimming in money. It's supply and demand economics.

What a business! You produce and distribute something that everyone absolutely needs and you have little to no competition.

We should have, could have, done something about this years and years ago if we had the foresight. And we really did know this day would come. Typically people don't change behavior until it hurts. Now it hurts, and people are scrambling for alternatives. Meanwhile companies are working too to develop the supply for the next demand.

We're plenty smart enough to develop alternatives. We've had men on the moon, a vehicle roving around Mars. If we wanted to, I'm sure we could develop a vehicle that ran on Snickers bars.

So to my professor of Economics at Ohio University, I think I did have the answer to your question correct. Being greedy, and charging my customers excessively, because I have a product that they love and I can barely keep on the shelves is not good business, and not good for the economy.