It never ceases to blow my mind how simplistically most people think of economics. From free trade, to sweatshops to corporate taxation I’m constantly amazed at how most of the support for one (and usually both) sides doesn’t go past a simplistic reaction to the emotionally salient parts of the situation. However, I think this lawsuit really takes the cake. It is a bunch of truckers and other consumers suing a bunch of gas retailers because they don’t compensate for temperature when calculating the gallons pumped (gas volumes are defined to be at 60F).

The allegation from the article is:

A database compiled by the National Institute for Standards and Technology found that the average temperature of retail fuel nationwide and year-round averages almost 65 degrees. As a result, consumers and truckers end up spending billions of dollars per year on fuel that they wouldn’t have had to pay for if gallons had been adjusted to the 60-degree standard.

Did it really not occur to anyone that gas is a commodity sold on the free market? Each gas station can sell the gas for whatever price they feel like and the consumer gets to decide where to fill up. Since the article acknowledges that NONE of the stations compensate for temperature the price comparisons between stations are perfectly valid. The only people who have reason to complain are those who are more likely than average to buy their gas in the afternoon when it is warmer.

Hopefully this lawsuit is just an attempt to extort money from the gas industry because it is demanding that gas stations add technology to compensate for the temperature. The net effect of which would just be to force gas stations to raise their prices to compensate not to mention passing on the cost of the pump upgrade.

What really annoys me about this whole thing is that despite hearing this from both NPR, and the link up top (and probably CBS as well) not one person even called attention to the obvious flaw in this argument. Screw calculus we should make undergrads all take an economics course.