I heartily agree with John Broderick's letter in last week's Citizen ("Gas hike greedy").
The free enterprise system works best when multiple sellers compete in markets free of collaboration. We do not see this in the pricing of gasoline in Prince George. While collusion is difficult to prove, coincidence to the nearest tenth of a cent per litre is beyond coincidence.
Beyond the annoyance of price fixing, collaboration or whatever, is the constant addition of that obnoxious nine-tenths of a cent added to every litre. A century ago, John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil held a virtual monopoly of gasoline sales in the U.S. Back then, a gallon was priced in single digits and Rockefeller figured thatpeople would not notice a fraction added, so he came up with that cute, wee .9 affixed to posted prices. It worked well. He built a fortune of billions, a fraction of a cent at a time.
His idea never died and we now see it always there on every sign. Do I save by that one-tenth of a cent short of a full cent? If you add up those tenths of a cent "saving,", you will find that for every fifty litres of gasoline you buy, you will save the value of our smallest circulating coin, the nickel.
While fighting collusion in pricing, let's demand fair pricing also.
James Loughery
Prince George
