Is It Price Gouging?  Many Questioning Gas Price Spike

Maybe what we need to do is collectively appeal to our elected officials to make gouging a criminal offense.  Once it is made an offense and it is a law of our state then we could cause a company or owner to be arrested for violating the law.  They would get cited for the violation and have to go to court and receive a just penalty that is commensurate with the crime they committed against us the people.  Gouging is no different than stealing from another person - it is morally wrong to hurt another person in either case.  With this recent station that was charging $5.49 a gallon it would be fitting to pay a substantial fine and spend some time in jail.  That would get these unscrupulous owners and operators attention to be more cautious how they price their gas and hurt their fellow man without thinking.

On the 6 pm news Sarah said that people said that WJHL was the cause of the gas run. People it was all over the TV and radio that day. It was not WJHL that started the high gas prices, it was the government that started it. I went Thur night and filled up at $3.64 at the Shell in Jonesborough and by Friday at 10am it was at $3.95 and people lined up to the road. Every gas station in Jonesborough raised there gas prices: Food City, Shell, BP, and Ingles this was the fuel that was in the tanks. My bother-in-law said they raised the price .20 while he was filling up. All of them need to fined but the goverement will not do anything. To much paperwork!! But don’t blame the news media for doing there job. Blame the government for not doing there job. They are making themselves richer and us poorer. We need to take a stand as one and do something or the American people are going to drown! We CANNOT keep going on like this!!

When I study the history books, reading the stories of how our ancestors took as much as they could until they could no longer and went to war against Mother England, it makes me fill with pride, that so many decided to take a stand and do what they knew in their hearts and minds was right for this county, for their future descendants. So now I look at what is going on today and how people are being taken advantage of, being used, being trod on and put down for the almighty dollar that isn’t worth much anymore anyway. Do we throw the barrels of oil into the ocean to protest the cost? Do we take arms up and go against the government, the oil companies, the ‘powers that be’? Do we keep working for minimum wage while those we elect into office continously vote themselves huge raises and benefit from the perks of being in office? Do we keep paying high prices for gas while the oil companies hoard oil to make gas prices unbearable for us ‘regular’ people? Do we keep saying “this is free business, free commerce,free trade and these companies have the right to charge what people will pay”? Do we just cross our fingers and hope that our grandchildren will have jobs, affordable homes, a good quality of life? Or do we go to war? How does one make the decision that indeed the government does not know what is right for us, they are not taking care of us as they were elected and trusted to do, that they are involved in decietful dealings to further their own agendas and so we must take the government back into our own hands, to rebel, to fight to put the country back the way our ancestors envisioned—-equality and prosperity, the pursuit of happiness, with justice for all? How in the world did it get this way? I could swear that I have been paying attention. But our lives are so full of the struggle just to get by. I read the letter from the person with the four grandchildren taken in to raise with no help from outsiders. This person is not like many I know of today, who run to the government for help with any problems they have, problems usually of their own making. Remember the days when we each took care of our own problems, our own troubles, and didn’t run to the government for handouts for things we could take care of ourself, just because we could? But we do pay into these funds, when they are needed they should not be so hard to get, the government doesn’t want to help until you are so far down that the little aid they give you barely helps, you still end up losing your home and the vehicle you drive to work. Oh, how I wish that those in power in Washington had to live like us ‘regular’ people for a while, to agonize over what bills get paid this week after we buy groceries and gas, what would they change then? I wish the writer of that letter would go to see what funds are available to them, I would be proud for some of my tax dollars to to to this person who is trying on their own. Remember when our congressmen, our representatives, were neighbors we grew up with who had to go out and hunt their food and build their homes with their own hands? OK, neither do I, but those sometimes, to some degree, illiterate men did pretty well running this country. Of course they didn’t have to deal with oil, imports, etc. But they had common sense and high regard for the country and their fellow contrymen. Does that exist any more today? So tell me, what do we do? Keep on trying, go to war, give up? How do we make our voices heard other than by our voting which doesn’t seem to make much difference anymore? Do I just stop paying my bills and then declare bankruptcy so I can keep it all? Am I doing something wrong, should I be living as so many of my neighbors—making meth; working the government for all I can; watching the repo man coming to take back something I couldn’t afford to buy in the first place but the company told me I should, I could, so I did; charge up the credit cards that were so easily given to me but now I can’t pay and now the agencies that bought the debt for pennies on the dollar are calling me and saying my $100.00 debt is now $1000.00 and if I don’t pay it I will go to jail, as if I wouldn’t have paid the $100.00 if I had had it, so how am I going to pay $1000.00 now? I know that I am not strong enough, am unwilling to abandon the lifestyle I have become use to, am just too old. It will take those younger than me, those not fearful like me, to make the changes needed in this country.

Although I am from Johnson City, I now live in NW Louisiana. I work at a Chevron station. My “station” is locally owned and operated. Even with Ike coming through, we did not go up on gas, and we had plenty. All the “foreign” stations around us went up on price, then ran out of gas. Having so many people from Texas fleeing Ike, our pumps were full all day Saturday, during the worse part of the storm. Like someone on here said, you all had plenty of warning the storm was coming, why wait til the last minute to fill up? Just like up there when a snow storm is predicted, a lot of people wait til the roads are getting bad before they go out….go figure.

As for people runnung out to fill up because they were scared,? We went out before the prices went up! Every one here knew that the price of gas would go up simply because we see it every time a race comes into town. I don’t understand why you can go to a shell staion in colonial heights and then go to one on stone drive and the price will be .20 or .30 cents different. We must take back our country before we have no country to take back. Liberals want to make it so hard to get our own energy that we have to buy it from our enemys. Liberals like palosi want to save the world why destroying our country. And republicans have become corrupt. That is what happens when they all stay in office for a life time. Vote them All out and put in new People who dont have the ties to the corrupt politicians. (i.e Sarah Palin).  If you don’t vote them out you will have the same. With a country so weakened that it may not be here for our children.