Vertical Integration

I saw somebody on FB upset the other day about how New Jersey is taking on Preston Tucker “Elon” Musk for wanting to own its dealerships in The Garden State.

*cluestick time*

There’s a reason why most Exxon and BP stations aren’t owned by the parent companies. There’s a reason places like Wawa don’t have any drilling or refining businesses. Wawa, 7-Eleven (since the last sell-off of Southland Corp; to the Japanese, now, I think), and many of the other places selling cheap fuel buy from whichever refinery is cheapest that week. Consequently, their gas prices fluctuate a lot more than the places that only sell a single brand of gasoline.

Here! Be Educated.

Around the same time, I read this about how Paul Fraim is going to be recoronation.

Then today, I read this despairing about the “new” Waterside….

Vertical Integration happens in politics, too. You live in a one-party locality. You faithfully support that party at the higher levels of government (state and Federal), then are surprised when the same misguided cronies who’ve propagated bad ideas for years and years and years continue getting funded and elected?

Don’t like City Council and Paul Fraim? Don’t sell yourself out as a solid supporter of Ralph Northam, Mark Herring, et. al..

The principle works in both places. Really.