How You Buy Fuel With Less Risk in Iraq
Imagine you’re an Iraqi living and working in Iraq (I know it would be tough to imagine ) and you have to drive to work and you get in your car and notice you need some petro. You don’t want to wait in the long lines to your local gas station that is a few blocks away. You saw the long lines at every local gas station you drove by when you left work yesterday.
So this morning you have to think and ask yourself do I wait in the long lines for up to hours at a time and risk myself to a potential car bomb attack, or possibly being kidnapped, shot or part of any act of violence that occurs in Iraq at any given time just for a few gallons of petro.
Instead of waiting in the long lines at the local gas station and expose himself to risk to himself or his vehicle he opts to visit a young Iraqi kid that is sitting on the side of the road selling petro. Now, he doesn’t pay the low price of .05 usd per gallon as he would if he had waited in the long line he pays 10-20 times more.
The young Iraqi kid buys the fuel from the local gas station most likely more then what the local gas station paid and then the young kid marks up the gasoline 10-20 times and sells it to who ever drives up and wants to mitigate his risk to the other option by waiting in long lines at the local gas station.
So the Iraqi pays the young Iraqi kid and off to work he goes. No car bomb no one is shot and everyone is happy. I am sure the Oil Mafia makes sure nothing happens around this young Iraqi because he is making money for himself and them.
Now let’s see, Oil Mafia maybe owns the local gas station buys the fuel from the Iraqi Government at .03 per gallon usd then sells the petro to young kids and others at several times more.
Oil Mafia creates a shortage of petro at the local gas station and begins to ration the government subsidized fuel to the local Iraqi’s that are willing to wait in the long lines for a few gallons. These are your poor Iraqi’s.
After this occurs, it forces Iraqi’s to buy the petro from the Oil Mafia at 10-20 times more from kids and tankers that sit alongside the road in Iraq. If your local gas station has closed because of no fuel, you are left with going to another gas station or buying your fuel from the black market.
I hope that the Iraqi government ends the oil and fuel subsidies soon.
This post was initiated by looking at this picture.