Hello, suckers! Are Seacoast residents paying "tourist prices" for gasoline?
On Monday, Aug. 26, my wife and I drove to Manchester to see a Manchester Fisher Cats - Portland Sea Dogs baseball game. On Bridge St. in Manchester, we passed four gas stations, all of whom advertised gasoline for $3.47 per gallon.
The next morning, Tuesday, Aug. 27, I noted that the four gas stations on Route 1 in Hampton were charging $3.63, $3.61, $3.61, and $3.61 for gas. That's a 14.5 cents difference between Hampton (Route 1 is a tourist path between Maine and Massachusetts) and Manchester (Would you go to Manchester for a vacation? I didn't think so.) That's too much of a differential to be chalked up to chance.
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So what can we do? We can just complain. (That seems to be a local favorite.) Or we can take action. Actually, according to the newspapers, gas station owners like low gas prices. They make a set profit on each gallon of gasoline, no matter what its price. So, the more gas they sell (helped by low prices), the more money gas station owners make. Hey, we're on the same page as the gas station owners - we both like low prices for gas.
Only the oil companies are helped by high gas prices, which increase their profit margins. According to the law of supply and demand, however, when high prices reduce the demand, gasoline prices start to fall.
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What can we do to help decrease demand? Drive less, and stop indiscriminately filling up your tank every time you stop for gasoline. Go to the station with the lowest price, and buy a quarter or half tank of gas. That will decrease the amount of gas sold, and put pressure on the gas station owners to complain to the oil companies to lower their prices because station owners make less profit as the volume of gas they sell declines. Now, both consumers and station owners are unhappy with the high prices.
Keep driving less and buying just enough gas to tide you over until you see the price fall significantly. Only then, resume buying full tanks.
You won't do that because only one person can't make a difference? Well. only one raindrop doesn't make a rain storm, but a whole lot of raindrops falling together create a gully washer.
And what if no one does anything. Well, as P.T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute."
