Watch your price increase.

It must be like a scene out of the Bill Murray movie, "Groundhog Day," for purchasing managers throughout the industry. Day after day upon opening their electronic media, there are the price increase announcements. To be concise, their summary statement to the financial sector of the company: "Everything increased in price again today." And this would be no exaggeration.

Natural and synthetic rubber prices are at historical highs, and have been for some time, with no relief in sight. Rubber chemicals and materials suppliers are all instituting price increases. Throw in the ever increasing cost of energy, and you can see why budgets are in disarray.

With the real possibility that either the European Union or the U.S. government is going to scrutinize any similarity between your price increases and your competitors', suppliers had to think hard about hiking product costs. If you did raise prices, hopefully you didn't attend anything that one of your competitors was also attending. And if they were, you had better not have even exchanged salutations.

The list of companies investigated by both Europe and the U.S. reads like a "who's who" of the rubber industry.

So far, four executives from Bayer and two from Crompton, have been charged with price fixing. Five companies have entered guilty pleas. More than $200 million in fines has been levied. One executive was sentenced to a four month prison term along with a $50,000 fine. Three others await sentencing, while two of the Bayer execs were just indicted. The maximum penalty for them is three years imprisonment and a $350,000 fine for individuals. The maximum fine may be increased to twice the gain the conspirators derived from the crime, or twice the loss suffered by the victims of the crime.

I keep hoping that one of the indicted parties will plead not guilty, just to see the case the governments have. But since this hasn't happened yet, you can conclude that the case must be strong.

What really amazes me is the ability of these governments to ferret out this breach of anti-trust dealings, when the price of gasoline at competing stations rises (usually) and falls in unison in plain sight everyday.