Be Careful What You Read

On Thursday I read an article about Bob Oyster's Shell station at Sixth and Harrison in San Francisco. Here is a sniplet from the article:

It has become almost a regular stop for San Francisco tourists. Once they've seen the Golden Gate Bridge and the Transamerica Pyramid, they can drive down Harrison Street to see the most amazing sight of all.

Regular gas for $4 a gallon.

…

Putting the price way up over $4 a gallon isn't about making a profit. It's about making a statement to a multinational corporation. After Shell forced him to pay higher prices for gas in San Francisco and jacked up his rent, Oyster says, he decided to fight back.

"I got fed up," Oyster admits. "It makes a statement, and I guess when people see that price they also see the Shell sign right next to it."

In fact, far from making a huge profit, Oyster is going out of business. He has operated the Shell station at Sixth and Harrison for 22 years, but he's walking away from it at the end of the month, handing over the keys to Shell officials and expecting them to shut it down.

So, did he raise the price to be competitive? No.

Did he raise the price because the cost of gasoline went up? No

After reading the article we all know that he raised the price to an outrageous amount so he could make a statement about Shell Oil and the way they treat their franchisees.

If you didn't read the article on Thursday, you may never have known that. In fact, if you just heard about the $4 gas today, you may think that gas is in danger of going up to $4 very soon.

If you visited the Drudge Report this evening, you would have seen that his main headline said "$4.00+". That headline linked to a Yahoo! News Photo (the one shown in the capture above). The photo had the following caption:

High gas prices are posted at a Shell gas station in San Francisco, Thursday, May 10, 2007. With gasoline prices poised to break records at the pump, energy futures prices jumped Thursday as traders noticed a gas supply imbalance in the fine print of Wednesday's government inventory report.(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

The price shown on the Shell station sign have nothing to do with the "supply imbalance found on Wednesday". The prices were done in protest against Shell and not based on the market at all.

If you still don't think the media is manipulating what you should believe. you need some serious help.