Gas Tank Fill Location All Wrong

You made my entire point, Ted. The money to pay these people (to
produce absolutely nothing or to enable others to better produce) *has*
to come from somewhere. Pumping gas is not producing wealth - it
produces *nothing*. Using your logic, you could pay these people to dig
holes and fill them up and that would be a good use of money (heck -
have service station owners pay them since they seem to be able to
produce money out of thin air). I was just kidding in my other post
about telling Hillary about my plan to abolish unemployment by mandating
no self-service all across the country. I had no idea that it would
actually make sense to anybody. But actually - I'm not surprised.

You don't help a society by make-work jobs as a long-term plan.

My party not doing so well right now? That's certainly b.s. Have you
even watched the Democrat party debates? What a joke. They are having
trouble making stuff up on the fly - even when they have advance warning
- first Hillary, then Obama. What a joke. Fortunately for Hillary,
Blitzer took the cue to watch out what he asked and not to do any follow
up with her.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Huh?

There's still unemployment in OR. And I don't know any minimum wage
jobs where the employees get insurance and benefits.

What your missing Bill is that retail gas prices differ from station to
station
depending on a number of factors OTHER than labor. As a point of
fact, the biggest difference is due to pumped volume. The oil companies
have rate schedules setup that give significantly lower prices to the higher
pumping stations.

About a year ago the local paper interviewed the owner of the 5 highest
pumping stations in the Portland Metro area to find out his secret. It was
really very simple. The guy had figured out that gas prices were extremely
price sensitive and differences of even a penny a gallon would cause
dramatic differences in pumped volume. So what the guy would do is he
would wake up at 3:00am every morning and drive around to all his
stations, then drive past all the other gas stations that were within a few
miles
of his stations, and he would set his price to be at minimum a penny
lower than the lowest price of any of his competitors. He did this every
morning, 7 days a week, and as a result he had the highest pumped volume,
and therefore was able to buy gas wholesale cheaper than anyone else,
and thus, even though his prices were lower than everyone else, he
made a profit. He wasn't particularly concerned with explaining all of
this because in his words the other station owners were too lazy to
get off their asses and look at their competitors prices, so he was not
worried about them trying to beat him at his own game. His only regret
was that none of his sons or daughters was really that interested in the
gas station business, and he figured that when he died, that his kids would
sell off the stations and that would be the end of his business.

If you really want to rail against this self-service ban you need to be
railing at the oil companies. If they didn't do this fiddle-faddle with
the wholesale pricing then all the station owners in a market would be
buying fuel at the same cost, and then perhaps labor would become a
more significant cost of business and eliminating it would perhaps
actually make a difference in pump prices. But, as it is now, the pump
prices are set by volume, and pumped volume of a station is not that
related to the labor costs.

Ted

 

99% of the police officers do not fill up their cars, cause they don't want
to get their hands dirty. besides, that's what the police garage mechanics
are for. maintaining the car .fuel ,oil, flat tires and the like.
mills and construction sites are not covered by the law.
but the same applies there most of the time too. if it is a union mill or
construction site, and most of them are here, fueling is an oilers job, not
the operators, and they will sit till the oiler comes to fill it up.

 

that is so rite. you are so much smarter tham us dumb hicks here in joisey .
you are out there in the cold rain getting soaking wet pumping your own gas
so the dimwit pump jockey don't scratch your car or spill any of that $4
/gallon gas, while we sit in our nice warm dry cars and let the fuel
attendant fill our cars up.

 

I disagree here. While they get minimum wage, or just over, they would
be able to get other jobs. Many are immigrants (whether legal or not, I
don't know). A lot are from the Middle East and India or countries
adjacent to India. I have seen no evidence that the people who pump gas
in New Jersey are anything other than hard working men trying to support
their families.

Jeff

 

Stop trying to read minds. It doesn't work.

Try here: http://www.sbcapcd.org/edu/dont-top-off.htm

It depends. In New Jersey and Oregon, it is a way for the gas stations
to get free gas out of the filler necks of their costumers.

Jeff

 

Christ, do you have a clue about any of this?
First of all, directly contrary to what you are saying, many people are
stuck with life long careers in gas pumping burger flipping "entry level"
jobs. Have you ever looked at them, many are not young kids. Where do you
think this misguided push for a "living family wage" comes from? It is
aimed at all of these people who will never advance out of their minimum
wage jobs. There are a lot of them.

How does this cockeyed argument work in the other 48 states that do not
outlaw self serve gas?

Ah, but Oregon does have "sales tax" on gas a diesel, they call it "fuel
tax" and it is about 25 cents per gallon. And in Washington, the price on
the pump is the price you pay, it already includes all the taxes. The sales
tax in moat Washington communities is more than a few pennies, try 8 plus.

If you don't have a clue what you are talking about, why are you?

It is painfully obvious you have never owned a business. Your ignorance is
embarrassing.

Are you crazy? You are the one advocating government MANDATED jobs...



Probably explains why your party isn't doing so

 

Maybe where you live, but here in CT we have zone pricing. The same truck
delivers gas to three stations but they all sell at a different price
because of their location. If they can get more, they do. Near the MA
border, prices are lower to compete with the 20¢ less in taxes. In the inner
cities where they know the poor will not be traveling around, they get some
of the highest prices. Some higher volume stations near the main highways
are higher than the little guy up the road a bit.

 

Notice where I said "When you back out the tax differences"? I'm talking
pure pre-tax selling price.

It was not credit card companies, but card holders of Mobile, Exxon, etc.
They were charging more for using their own cards with the idea that it put
more of the actual cost on the people using them. In reality, it should be
that way. I get a 5% discount at my shoe store for paying cash. I like
that.

 

If an attendant to pump gas is a 'make work job' that 'doesn't produce
anything' then so is every waitress job because you could carry your own
food to the table, every letter carrier because you could pick up your
mail at the post office, every newspaper boy because you could pick up
your own paper, and on and on. The fact is these are all services and
they produce convenience and comfort.

Maybe you came from a wealthy family and didn't need an entry level job
when you were a teenager or in college. I think if you check with a
couple of good auto techs (on topic) you might find that their first job
was pumping gas, changing oil, or busting tires. You might also find
that some attendants are actually the owner of the place.

Having an attendant to pump my gas is a service and one I welcome. For
all that is wrong with NJ, this is one thing that is right. I've always
thought of us as just a bit more civilized than the rest of the country
in this one regard.

 

There's one difference: Waitressing is not mandated by the government.
It is something that the free market determines pays its own way. The
NJ gas pumpers, on the other hand, are mandated by government - not
determined to have worht by a free market economy. Same witgh newspaper
carrier - not mandated by government, but found to be worthwhile by a
free market economy. Postal worker? That could be done away with and
replaced by email or private carriers. No reason for it to exist
actually - just like the (state) gov't mandated fuel pumpers.

Understand the difference between a job that the free-market economy
finds overall beneficial vs. a gov't-mandated job that, if allowed to be
determined by the free market, would rapidly be phased out (as it was in
the real world in states that didn't for whatever stupid reason mandate it)?

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

The discussion here is not about needing the job of gas pumper, it is about
the state mandating that you can NOT choose to pump your own.

That is nice, but no one is telling you to pump your own, they are telling
everyone else that they CANNOT!!!

 

yall seem to forget one thing. this is not a matter of the state saying it
is law.

it is a matter of the people voting to keep self serve out.
the pump your own people came here, and pushed the issue to a vote, and we
said with a resounding NO!!!!
that we do not want self serve.

 

The tax on NJ is $0.145 and in PA it is $0.311, which is a difference of
almost 17 cents, more than .132 cents you said. No, it, does not
explain the explain the entire difference of 26 cents, but it explains
most of it.

Notice, I said, "have something to do with to do with the lower gas
taxes in New Jersey?" I didn't say, "explain all of it."

In New Jersey, there are different insurance costs, taxes on the gas
station and possibly on the gasoline distributors.

You can pump your own gas or not. I don't care. And, if I wish to pump
it myself, that's fine.

Jeff

 

You always change the subject it seems. My original response was to your
opinion that it costs the buyer more for fuel, if an attendant pumps the
fuel, than if one pumps their own fuel. My point was that obviously in not
factual since gas in cheaper in NJ, where they have attendants, and it is
the same in PA at stations that do have attendants as it is in stations that
are self service. Your reply, tax is one of the reasons, does not stand up
to scrutiny. Whether one chooses to pump their own is immaterial to the
cost per gallon

 

Can you explain how I changed the topic? You wrote, in part, "Yes, if
one thinks .132 cents, the difference in the total gas tax an NJ and PA
is equal to the difference between $2.899 and $3159 pump price in NJ and
PA."

You made an inaccurate statement that the difference in taxes between
New Jersey and PA was .132 cents, when, in fact, is almost 17 cents. You
were off by a factor of over 100. How is providing accurate details on
what you said changing the topic?

The difference the cost between gas in NJ and PA is about 26 cents
(according to you), and, obviously, tax makes up most of the difference
in the difference gas cost between the two states.

As far as I can tell, my post did not change the topic at hand, at all.

If I wanted to change the topic, I would mention how it is bad form to
top post, because it makes the thread harder other follow, but I didn't
do that, did I?

Jeff

 

Your position is off base Mike, you can compare apples to oranges. The
labor isn't free even at minimum wage, and the customer ultimately pays for
it. If that labor cost was not being added, those customers "could" be
paying less... PERIOD.

 

Your statement sounds logical, but it is not what is happening. In the
state of MA, each town fire marshall decides if the town can have self
service. Many forbid it. The stations that pump the gas sell at the same
price and often lower than the self serve stations. Give the choice (as I
was yesterday) of paying 3.03 and pumping it myself or paying 2.97 and
having it pumped for me, I chose to let the attendent pump it for me. Your
money, your choice, but self serve does not save the customer anything from
what I see every day.

 

The topic was your assertion one pays more for gas in stations where
attendants pump the gas and you are wrong, one again so you tried to switch
the subject to taxes

 

You certainly are entitled to you own opinion but the price of gasoline in
stations in Pa that have attendants is the same as it is in stations that
are self-service, so your opinion is just that, an opinion that has no basis
in fact. Obviously there is a labor cost involved, but the station owner is
not passing it on to the consumer.