Lynne Kiesling lists some "dominant themes" of recent coverage of oil and gasoline markets. I especially like these two observations:

• Every spring like clockwork, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin whinges about "greedy, price-gouging" oil refiners who are sticking it to consumers.
• Every spring like clockwork, the Federal Trade Commission spends a lot of time and effort to investigate the competitive conditions in retail gasoline markets. Every spring like clockwork, they find no evidence of oil refiners' abilities to influence retail prices in an anticompetitive fashion

Comments

[Kyle]

Anyone who has studied cartels and price fixing can tell you that its almost impossible to have price fixing for any lenght of time with so many players in the market. Only with two or three companies could such a scheame have a chance of working, as the pressure to cut prices and cheat the other cartel members becomes exceptional.