Penny Finally Drops Why Petrol Prices Are Up
By Alistair Owens www.keen2learn.co.uk
Educational maths games take on an added dimension. Crude oil is priced in US Dollars, and the UK pays for the oil in pounds sterling. Thus if crude goes up in cost; petrol, gasoline and diesel fuel will cost more at the pumps. Similarly, if Sterling falls in value against the Dollar, prices at the pumps will go up. OK it makes so far. Conversley, if the price of crude falls, and stering goes up aginst the Dollar then the price at the pumps will fall. The mathmatical and logical is yes but as we can see this ain’t so. There is a hidden factor in the equation. It is called market manipulation.
There are some great real market educational games for children to learn to prepare them for the real world. Oil pricing is one. The hidden factor in the equation is profit. If your sales are down due to a recession, and you are in monopoly you can shove the price up to regain your lost profit and take the shareholders off your back. Similarly you can appoint a new company head honcho who gets a massive joining bonus and salary, then sack the previous board members in a power coup who get massive multi million payouts you can recover the costs simply by inceasing the price of petrol. Ignore the other factors of crude oil prices and exchange rates its just a smoke screen. There is probably a maths formaula that will calculate the influence of the variables.
