My interesting kibitz with a gas station owner's wife (in Maryland)

[Stinky The Clown]

So ... I went out for some dinner with Sparkly ..... the ol' Chevvy Blazer needed some gas. We stop in at the station I normally go to ..... a small, 1960's era, 2-bay, still-does-real-repairs, name-brand station. Mom-and-pop business kinda place in a sea of company owned mega stations.

I'm pumpin' and the numbers are way over 40 bux. The lady next to me is pumpin' into a huge Yukon Denali. So I quip 'Bet your bill will be bigger'n mine.' She sez she had haffa tank, so maybe not. 'But,' she said, 'last week it was empty and it cost me over $80.'

So I sez, 'Man, those gas companies are killin' us, ain't they?'

'They're killin' us worse,' she sez. 'My husband owns this station. Everyone else is down and we hadda lower our price by 15 cents. But <Big Name Oil Company> didn't lower the cost to us yet. Right now, we're losing about 12 cents on every gallon we pump.'

So there you have it. Even station owners are gettin' killed by big oil. Of course, big oil would rather these small mom-an'pops just dried up and blew away anyhow. Then they could even keep the 2 cents a gallon profit this particular station normally gets.

And that 2 cents a gallon profit? That's all they ever make. When gas was $1.49, they made 2 cents. When gas was $3.79, they made 2 cents. Now that's its going down again, they're LOSING money.

What's wrong with this picture?

[rurallib]

1. B.O. trying to run small business people and independents

out so they can control oil from the ground to your tank. And don't forget, there are only, what, three or four B.O. companies now? Let's see - Exxon-Mobil, Texaco-chevron-Union (is that right?), and BP-Amoco.
Damn we're almost back to where we were 100 years ago before Roosevelt! Boy, I'd bet a good Republican president (like TR) could fix this situa .... oh never mind.