George Murphy is a St. John's taxi driver. He calls the radio call-in shows regularly to give his update and analysis of gas price trends.
He's usually spot on.
He does it for free.
Meanwhile in Grand Falls-Windsor, there is a small office with a staff of about half-a-dozen doing the same job Murphy does.
That's right. They merely analyse gas and home-heating prices and then approve the increases.
They don't lower prices. They don't affect prices at all.
All David Toms and his crowd do is tell us that prices are going up.
Their salaries come from the gas retailers, by law.
Gasoline prices jumped by almost nine cents in St. John's today, a full week after they jumped everywhere else. When gas prices drop everywhere else, we will still be paying higher than-necessary prices. That's to make up for the delay in jacking the prices up. In this VOCM story, Commissar Toms says he thinks gasoline is overpriced. It isn't, Dave, ole man. But it will be when you leave it high after prices everywhere else have dropped.
Checking the provincial government's website this morning at around 8:30, I couldn't find a news release from Toms' outfit. He was ducking media calls on Friday, calls that were prompted by George Murphy's predictions. When the release does go up, I'll post link so you can see the pricing trend (slow increases, slow decreases) that the petroleum price-fixing charade office actually includes in its own releases.
What it boils down to is this:
1. The provincial petroleum office provides no service of value that cannot be obtained more competently and in a much more timely way by someone in the private sector. We'd be better off closing down the GFW charade, passing the hat and giving George Murphy a new computer.
2. There is absolutely no evidence that prices here are lower than they would be without the "regulation" charade. Doc O'Keefe, the guy who built his public name on this gas price crap, claims gas would be higher if it wasn't for the gas price crowd.
I say crap and challenge Doc to prove his claim.
The fact is Doc can't prove his claim.
Doc can't do a lot of other things, as his term on council already shows; but that's another post as O'Keefe appears poised to take on the deputy mayor's job by acclamation.