Monday, July 19, 2010
Politics Haslam Defends Price Gouging as 'Honest Mistakes'
Posted by Jeff Woods on Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 7:14 AM
“Here’s the truth and Zach knows this. We’ve been in business for 52 years and been based on an idea of low prices and being a community citizen. We care way too much to in any way abuse our customers.”
Haslam also corrected a few other inaccuracies in Wamp's ad. He's not a billionaire and he's not an oil man. He's a retailer, OK? "We sell everything from Fritos to Diet Cokes to a lot of diesel fuel and gasoline.”
At the same event, Wamp pointed out Pilot's also in the lottery, beer and cigarette business. “They can spend $50 million on this campaign and not miss a meal,” he said of the Haslams.
Update: Haslam appears at Knoxville's Café 4 wearing a gray Fulton Falcons T-shirt that is polka-dotted with sweat marks, blue-and-gray Nike jogging shorts and white Asics running shoes. See Stephen George's City Paper profile of the mayor.
Comments (9)
Showing 1-9 of 9
What a bunch of crap. If you're putting up $5 for a gallon of fuel on a big sign, don't you think you're going to double check it? How long did it take them to re-fix the price? Did they refund the companies their money on the oversight?
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Pilot intentionally manipulated the market by not taking delivery of fuel in the long run-up to the storm. Then when the storm hit that cited dwindling supplies and started a run by warning employees of shortages, knowing they would call friends.
What the hell is the uproar all about? I get around a good bit and do lots of gas business with Pilot. I never saw that. Pilot consistently has among the least abusive gas prices anywhere.
If Ole' Zack wants to take somebody on for gouging, why does he not look no further than Mapco. I wouldn't buy a toothpick from those mother-fuckers. They'd figure out a way to charge for breathing their air if they could.
East Tennesseans were the ones who felt the brunt of $5 gas when Pilot and Weigels followed eerily similar paths leading up to the storm. They were able to run low on stocks within a day following the storm when Middle Tennesseans had to wait a week or more for their shortages. they manipulated their own inventories purchased at $2 consumer price levels into $5 sales knowing they would be replenishing at $2
its always somebody elses fault.....Haslam is so disconnected from reality its scary....like Bush 43 was when he saw that price scanner at the grocery checkout..."wow whats this newfangled thing"...thats the way extremely rich people are...they dont live like us....
Haslam earns 50 mil a year , flies to campaign stops in Pilot Oils private Jet and then climbs into a Ford for the last couple miles....theres no way he understands what the average person is going thru.....
anybody who would vote for Haslam has to be living in some kinda dream......who do you think BP sells that oil and gas to? Yep Pilot is one of their biggest customers ..but hey ...Pilot didnt drill the well....they just create the market for it.... we didnt gouge..it was a mistake...we dont own casinos..yeah thats are name on the permit but we dont own it.....yabba yabba yabba ...its all about the issues.....Im a good guy..I like pie..issues..issues...yabba yabba yabba.....notice a pattern here?
Somewhere in the Pilot gang somebody had a hand in the cookie jar. Lets smoke him out. Kick his ass, lock him up and take his tobacco away from him.
If it turns out to be Haslam I think I might enjoy that.
-Haslam was mayor of Knoxville when Ike happened. I don't think you could say he was at the helm of the family business at the time.
-Pilot paid their fines and took action to see that these things don't happen again. Their gas prices are consistently among the lowest on my hour-long commute, and their stores don't look like trashy old truck stops.
-This attack is mostly a way to point out that Haslam is "too rich," more than anything else. Which is odd for republicans to quibble over, but there it is.
Wamp and Ramsey are looking for any straw to grasp, regardless of how weak. I'll take a successful businessman/city mayor over two fire-breathing politicos anytime.
Voted for Haslam in the primary, now regret it. Pilot just took over the Flying J here in Fairview. First thing they did was take away the rewards program for the J's customers. The reward program never made anybody rich but the penny off a gallon of gas and discounts on other things add up when a person lives paycheck to paycheck. My husband and I won't break the Haslam family but we will not go to that station again. The Shell station across Hwy 96 has new customers now.
