Hmmm, fuel is down but not shipping charge

I can't claim to know very much about these things, but I have a running theory. Corporations and companies are not "evil", nor are they "good"... they are simply machines whose purpose is to increase profit. If they can charge you X amount and get you to pay for it, and make more money than charging a lesser amount, then they will. Additionally, corporations/companies do not "go green" because they are caring and love the earth; they do it because of public pressure to do so (image) and also because of governmental restrictions.

I agree that the head engineers of said machines, i.e. CEO's etc., can have a lot to do with the direction of the machine's movement and what to do with the money it produces. However, if all the machines stop running, then so does our economy.

To those of you who have a lot of experience in business I'd like to hear your opinions.

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Originally Posted by hoax

That is the third time I have seen you make the Rutgers comment... Do you mean something by it?

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Yeah, i was kind of wondering the same thing, Mike.
Bias against and individual's education takes no place in an argument about gas prices. Unless of corse the education was in ecomonics :P

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Originally Posted by icygirl

I can't claim to know very much about these things, but I have a running theory. Corporations and companies are not "evil", nor are they "good"... they are simply machines whose purpose is to increase profit. If they can charge you X amount and get you to pay for it, and make more money than charging a lesser amount, then they will. Additionally, corporations/companies do not "go green" because they are caring and love the earth; they do it because of public pressure to do so (image) and also because of governmental restrictions.

I agree that the head engineers of said machines, i.e. CEO's etc., can have a lot to do with the direction of the machine's movement and what to do with the money it produces. However, if all the machines stop running, then so does our economy.

To those of you who have a lot of experience in business I'd like to hear your opinions.

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Hmm, i'm not saying that i know the most about business either, but i did run a few small businesses.
I found out a few interesting things. I ran a retail store and we had our larger 'parent' corporation (Luxottica) ship us all of our stuff. In 2006 when sales were just starting to drop the company started charging the individual stores for the shipping. Not because sales dropped but because sales were up. We 'comped' 30% compared to 2005 and that was a drastic drop from the 62% comp up from 2004-2005. Now, why did they do that? Well, they saw we could afford it and there was no reason not to. The smaller stores were being micro managed to the point that caused many stores in october of 07 to collaps completely. Why did they collapes? Well, that was trifold.
-the greed of corporate... erm... Italy who wanted to take the dollar from the individuals instead of sticking with a status quo because sales were up.
-the lack of employee appreciation which caused the employees to see the raise in prices, raise in costs, and drop in paychecks and therefore stopping productivity
-and a lack of proper management in order to predict, resist, and reduce the collateral of any ecomonic bump
Was the economy directly responsible for this? No, it was Luxottica. When they pay .80 cents to make something sell it for 140.00 dollars, which is deemed medically necessary, they charge for shipping from the small companies because the 17,500% increase wasn't enough to cover the basic costs of labor, shipping, and payment to the employee there is a LARGE greed problem. THEN they charge 400.00 for a 2lb box to be shipped from the Chicago area to Elizabeth, NJ. THEN they started telling us to go to the airport and pick it up ourselves in order to avoid UPS ground charges. For me it was no problem because i worked right next to, and in, Newark Airport but it's insane to require this of people and offer no kind of compensation for doing it. It would have been less expensive to pay the ground charge then have 20 some odd people drive to an airport during rush hour.
Is every company like this? No, not in the slightest, it's just my personal experience with them.
Now that the economy is so far down the same company can't cut shipping charges much more, so what do they do? Theyraise the price of goods causing a large inflation rate because the CEO's want to keep their 10% a year raise. The shipping charge goes up, the price of goods go up, and then they realize they can get away with it for even longer and make even more money for the company in order to make up for its loss of sales the previous months.
It's common, it happens, and it happens alot. Running a small private company is SO much different because you can always get the option to shop around and look for lower, better, or more convenient shpping and palet rates.
Like i said, many people still have fuel and petrol from the months where the gas prices were very high and they can't take a loss on gas. In my opinion i think the shipping prices will either plateau or drop slightly within the next few months as the economy starts to improve again.
I'm not an expert... nor did i go to Rutgers :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Dragnbaron

In my opinion i think the shipping prices will either plateau or drop slightly within the next few months as the economy starts to improve again.

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I would not bet on that. Right now fuel is cheap because the economy is doing poorly. As soon as we start to recover, the price will increase, causing the shipping prices to either stay near the same, or rise.

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Originally Posted by Typical_08

I would not bet on that. Right now fuel is cheap because the economy is doing poorly. As soon as we start to recover, the price will increase, causing the shipping prices to either stay near the same, or rise.

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Good point.

but is it really cheap because of the ecomony or because of the rocky structure most of our petrol giving nations are in right now? The economic change isn't affecting the mid east like it is affecting the U.S. because the lahore stock exchange and even the emirates are doing fairly well. BP is signing a contract to get 50% of Iraq's oil which will better the U.K. and the U.S..
I mean, i hate to say the war is about oil, which isn't not completely about, but it's a large part and the decreased stability in America isn't affecting the mid east. Israel's war hasn't affected the petrol prices either even though their ports are used to ship much of it. The Russian stop on all gas to Europe didn't affect our shipping because there is no direct correlation. The prices are set by the fuel companies, the largest being Exxon which is (i believe) an Iranian company (i may be wrong by that country, though). It's also the most expensive in the U.S.

I would have to say that it has a bit to do with both our economy, and that of the rest of the world.

Exxon is an American company, think of it as a grandson of Rockefeller's Standard Oil company. But I am sure that there are shareholders from all over the world.

The way gas prices are set are actually a compilation of about six different factors (or more depending on what you believe). I will get more into them later. Right now I have to go pick up my DD214. :)