OFT starts investigation into petrol prices

@riab1879 You've got it wrong, not Aitken B. 60% of the price is the Tax portion, not the Tax rate. Therefore 40p worth of fuel has an added 60p Tax, total £1.00, which = 150% Tax. A H

Aitken B, I have to disagree with your maths. If £1 of fuel incurs 60% taxation it would be 60p on top of every pound not 60p out of every pound as then we would be paying 150% tax on fuel and not 60% which is the correct figure (of course this does not include any money made by the retailer on the £1 of fuel sold).

[b]MK22 said People need to decide whether they want the market to decide prices or regulate them.[/b] While market pressure, in theory, should work, it doesn't when we look at the very large companies. Take Tesco, for example. Since the recession hit, they have been increasing their prices, then dropping them marginally, to make it appear we are getting a bargain, while also ensuring that their suppliers get bugger all. To make a case in point, when Premier Foods wanted to increase its prices to cover the increased production costs, Tesco decided to stop stocking certain lines. In other words, if Tesco cannot buy it cheap enough, and make a massive profit, they simply won't stock it, even if the public want it. A few years back, our local Tesco stopped stocking Garibaldi biscuits, which I like. When I asked the manager why, his response was, 'There is no call for it anymore, so no one makes it'. Ironic that when I popped into Asda, they sold it. Now, we all know that some core lines will get replaced during festive occasions, so lines will disappear when Easter or Christmas approaches, to make way for the profitable lines that sell at these times, but to be buffed off with excuses as if we were born without a brain is a little lame. Ironically, my time with USDAW, the Tescos sponsored Union, demonstrated that managers are trained to treat the consumer as idiots with wallets. In other words, the consumer needs to be guided to what they should be buying, not what they want to buy. ClubCard? It is another way to encourage you to buy what Tesco wants you to buy, not what you want to buy. So, with companies employing psychologists to work out our weak points, and exploit them, is there such a thing as market forces at work, or is the market dictated by a handful of powerful companies? Who decides what any resource, product or service, should cost? What is the justification in such huge mark ups between the producers and manufacturers, and the consumer? Why do retailers such as Tesco earn more per product than the manufacturer or producer, who often earn very little per unit. (Case in point. When I worked for Johnson and Johnson, it was well known that Tesco earned more per unit than we did as a company, and that if we tried to reflect a better profit in the price, Tesco would boycott our products out of spite. In fact, the whole retail industry is at the mercy of the big four, who more or less dictate what we pay and what we can buy).