Thread: Wanna keep gas prices down???

I got this email from a friend and I think it can really work:

Join the resistance!!!!

I hear we are going to hit close to $3.00 a gallon by the summer. Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. Phillip Hollsworth, offered this good idea: This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.

BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read it and join with us!

By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $1.97 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50- $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace....not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers.

It's really simple to do!! Now, don't whimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I'll explain how:


If EVERYONE who reads this sends it to 10 friends... well, you do the math!

I'm in! I don't buy gas from them anyways. lol! I hope this works...$3.00 a gallon, you got to be kidding me!

I don't buy from them either!!!

I found this on Break the Chain's website...

http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/exxon.html

In April, 1999, a group of well-meaning American netizens organized the "Great Gas Out," an online campaign to get all Americans to refrain from buying gas on a given day in order to let the gas companies know that we won't stand for high prices. It gained a lot of media attention, but came and went without making a dent in oil companies' revenue charts. Recognizing that one day may not be enough, organizers expanded the Gas Out to three days in 2000. Again, little impact was made.

The chain letter above first surfaced in summer of 2000, after the second Gas Out. The new author reasoned the failure of previous campaigns was because Americans just can't go without getting gas - even for a couple of days. Its popularity faded as gas prices stabilized in late summer. It resurfaces when gas prices spiked again in the spring of 2001.

In the Spring of 2002, continued hostilities in the Middle East threatened to send gas prices to record highs. The boycott letter resurfaced, somewhat changed from its original. The 2002 version is the one posted above and has become the most popular variation of it. Also, in 2002, the chain letter went international, with versions popping up in the UK and Australia. Language, measurements, currency units and oil company names (Esso and BP, instead of Exxon and Mobil) were switched to their British or Australian equivalents, but otherwise it was the same letter.

Another interesting change in the '02 version was the attribution to "Phillip Hollsworth." BreakTheChain.org has been unable to locate Mr. Hollsworth, but we do know that he did not originate this letter. The letter predates his attribution by at least two years, with his name first apprearing on the UK version. Odds are, he forwarded it to some friends, resulting in yet another case of False Attribution Syndrome, wherein an "innocent" person becomes mistakenly associated with a chain letter because he or she forwarded it.

Predictably, this nearsighted boycott attempt surged in popularity again in the Springs of 2003 and 2004, practically unchanged from the 2002 version. In fact, I expect we'll see this chain come back every spring, as nature and market trends regularly contribute to a rise in prices about this time each year.

So, will avoiding one company's gas stations effectively and permanently drive prices down? No. In fact, it would likely have the opposite effect, if any at all. Gas is a commodity. Commodity markets work on the law of supply and demand. When supply is higher than demand, sellers lower the price until the two factors equalize again. When demand is higher than supply, sellers raise the price to curb use and stretch supplies until, once again, the two factors equalize.

Just for the sake of argument, let's say we successfully organize the ExxonMobil boycott (I know this is fantasy, but hang with me here). ExxonMobil loses business and lowers prices to lure you back. The other stations will follow suit and lower prices to compete, right? Not quite. To avoid ExxonMobil you go to the Speedway across the street, instead. Speedway's business increases, causing them to raise their prices to try to control demand, otherwise their supply would be quickly depleted. Their higher prices drive customers to Shell, who in turn raise their prices and drive customers to BP, and so on. Eventually, supply and demand will equalize and all stations will have the same price again.

As consumers, we can do little to control supply, but we can control demand. However, effectively doing so means reducing demand overall, not just at one station. The reduction in demand must be severe and long-lasting. If you want to save money at the pump, slow down on the freeway, plan outings to get everything in one trip, walk more, and trade in that gas-guzzling SUV for an economical compact car for starters.

Historically, chain-letter boycott campaigns are almost always unqualified failures. Reaching people is different from getting them to participate. People will receive duplicates, some will dismiss it out of hand, some e-mails will never reach their recipients. It will take a lot more than "the sixth iteration" or "8 days" to get 300,000,000 supporters. But, since they're easy to distribute, we do so, fooling ourselves into thinking we're doing a good thing. Instead, we're propagating a half-decade's worth of Armchair Activism based on a faulty premise. Break this chain.