Not one right answer yet. (There are some correct posts, but not answering how to lower gasoline prices).
Here are some ways to lower the prices:
- Increase competition. This means outlawing and enforcing the laws against any sort of price-fixing, monopoly, etc. Force the market toward the modest-profit pricing and efficiency that capitalist competition is supposed to ensure, and often does in many industries, such as groceries.
- For a bit more aggressive approach, introduce a government competitor. There's a story this year about a very small Midwestern town where the residents, who average among the lowest income in the state, complained to the Mayor about high gas prices above the average in the state.
The Mayor opened a city-run gas station with 'fair pricing' well below the competition, and it did result in large decreases in price from the competition.
Everyone is happy except the private stations, and the Mayor's Brother-in-Law, a Republican in the state legislature, calling it socialism and fighting for a law to outlaw it.
- Tax incentives. Not the simple 'tax those high profits' tax - which can be a good thing - but incentives which incent the companies to policies that lower prices.
- Price controls are vilified by the right, but are one way to lower prices, admittedly a very blunt instrument that can be abused and cause harm.
It's also possible for them to be helpful, if used reasonably, telling the providers 'you figure out the way to meet those lower prices'.
An example here on the public side is the government and Medicare providers; a more aggressive one is Wal-Mart, who tells suppliers, 'meet this low price or go out of business'.
And some businesses have gone out of business because of Wal-Mart's aggressiveness on forcing price targets where they have a huge share of the market.
People have suggested 'buy less', but absent price gouging, that can actually raise prices, as it increases the costs to the business, reducing economies of scale.
It's not practical in all kinds of industries where people don't want to quit buying a product. When has that approach ever actually worked? A few cases maybe?
Usually the only chance the consumers do have, other than the rare case of organizing, is the government representing their interests.
And despite the paranoia of the right, it's not in the best interests of anyone for the government to make unreasonable demands that put the companies out of business.
Which doesn't happen much in the US, except to some pretty 'bad companies' who can't compete with a decent price. But it has in some countries.
People cite Venezuela, but there's bad and good. Having his economy held hostage by foreign interests who sabotage him if he doesn't let them gouge and take away the country's wealth isn't exactly a good 'solution' either. When he put a top to that, American contractors sabotaged the systems, refusing to give passwords, a major six month economic shutdown of the economy was organized to try to pressure the government to give in. Those foreign interests weren't 'for the consumers'.
