Fuel Prices/Do your part!

[full throttle]

Current forecast estimate is that we are going to see $4.00 a
gallon by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to
come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action.
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.
Someone has come up with a plan that can
really work. Please read on and join with us! By now you're probably
thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is
currently $2.79 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 wimp out at
this point.... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach
millions of people.
I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us sends it to at
least ten more (30 x 10 =3D 300) .. and those 300 send it to at least
ten more (300 x 10 =3D 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message
reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE
MILLION consumers. If those three million get excited and pass this on
to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!
If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE
>>>>HUNDRED MILLION >>>>PEOPLE!!!
Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (If
you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to
do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a
mathematician. But I am, so trust me on this one.)
How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to
ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could
conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!!!
I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you?
Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you,
please pass this message on. I suggest that we do not buy from EXXON/MOBIL
UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN.
THIS CAN REALLY WORK, LET'S GO FOR IT!!!

[Dribble]

Crude oil costs the refiners $1.44 per gallon right now. Somehow I don't think they'll sell gas at a loss.

[86 catalina]

This wont work if we all dont do it >>>cant have any lazy people not wanting to drive an extra block to stay away from the two main companys....I sent out around 200 e mails of this same concept>>>If we all stick together it will work,if we dont the prices will coutinue to skyrocket>>Think about your river trips i drive a 4 w d chevy crew cab with a vortec 454 it also has a 50 gallon tank ,by the end of the year i could barley afford to even go to the river...not cool lets unite and give this a try.It is not that hard to do :idea:

[Dribble]

They won't reduce their prices, they'll just sell the gas to the companies that you're buying from. It wont work. Thats why gas is $2.80 a gallon in Mexico.
Come on if you really want to boycott someone then boycott OPEC. In april 2004, Crude oil was $34.00 a barrel and Gas was $1.45 a gallon. Now oil is $69.00 a barrel and gas is $2.80 a gallon. Do you not see the nexis? OPEC has had economists study how high they can jack up prices of crude oil without causing a major US recession (and they are there). If crude oil production doesn't go up and / or demand doesn't go down, then the price of gas will not go lower.
None of us are willing to do what it would really take to lower the price of gas. That's use 20% less.

[ThongMagnet]

I think it would work. Exxon/Mobil would be a great target to attack this summer. You can count me in.
This seems very simple to do. Just a one brand attack all summer long will effect exxons bottom line. This means you get your beer/ice/coffee/etc... from somewhere else. This could be felt quickly in Lake Havasu/Bullhead City/Page/Needles.

[77charger]

As long as we continue to use our toys,buy new boats that use gas,trucks that use gas,take trips,complain about high gas prices but conitnue to fill up and take a trip without worrying about price.
Oil companies know this and they will continue to rasie prices til we use less. Plain and simple

[86 catalina]

I got a great idea .........lets all convert our boats to run off of banana peels>>>and we could make urine into high octain boosters....drink a beer, have a banana ,fill up the boat,.....now all we need is a scientist of some sort to make it happen...

[wanna B V]

What about the off brand stations? For all I know, they get theirs from exxon/mobil, so that doesnt help the cause. What about the snowball effect-I just raised my hourly rate to help compensate the fuel cost for service calls. Im sure many others are to follow. Then everyone will want a raise. Food will go up, services will go up,housing will go up even more. The rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer. Wont be long before the Mad Max era kicks in. (freakin A rabs) :220v:

[uvindex]

SNOPES (http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasout.asp) :boxed:

[DRMCAT]

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but "This year's litany of complaints about gasoline prices is a re-run of the same program from years past: Gasoline prices in the USA are too high; gasoline is a unique commodity whose price isn't subject to the usual market forces of supply and demand; OPEC and greedy American oil companies secretly manipulate the market to keep prices artificially high; and a simple boycott of a couple of brands of gasoline will rectify all
this.
Oil companies can manipulate their prices somewhat by controlling how much gasoline they produce and where they sell it, but they can't alter the basics of supply and demand: prices go down when people buy less of a good, prices go up when people buy more of a good, and prices go way up when demand outstrips available supply. The "gas out" schemes that propose to alter the demand side of the equation by shunning one or two specific brands of gasoline for a while won't work, however, because they're based on the misconception that an oil company's only outlet for gasoline is its own branded service stations. That isn't the case: gasoline is a fungible commodity, so if one oil company's product isn't being bought up in one particular market or outlet, it will simply sell its output to (or through) other outlets:
Economics Prof. Pat Welch of St. Louis University says any boycott of "bad guy" gasoline in favor of "good guy" brands would have some unintended (and unhappy) results.
. . . Welch says the law of supply and demand is set in stone. "To meet the sudden demand," he says, "the good guys would have to buy gasoline wholesale from the bad guys, who are suddenly stuck with unwanted gasoline."
So motorists would end up . . . paying more for it, because they'd be buying it at fewer stations.
And yes, oil companies do buy and sell from one another. Mike Right of AAA Missouri says, "If a company has a station that can be served more economically by a competitor's refinery, they'll do it."
Right adds, "In some cases, gasoline retailers have no refinery at all. Some convenience-store chains sell a lot of gasoline — and buy it all from somebody else's refinery."
A boycott of a couple of brands of gasoline won't result in lower overall prices. Prices at all the non-boycotted outlets would rise due to the temporarily limited supply and increased demand, making the original prices look cheap by comparison. The shunned outlets could then make a killing by offering gasoline at its "normal" (i.e., pre-boycott) price or by selling off their output to the non-boycotted companies, who will need the extra supply to meet demand. The only person who really gets hurt in this proposed scheme is the service station operator, who has almost no control over the price of gasoline.
The only practical way of reducing gasoline prices is through the straightforward means of buying less gasoline, not through a simple and painless scheme of just shifting where we buy it. The inconvenience of driving less is a hardship too many people apparently aren't willing to endure, however."
I just can't figure out how I can use less gas yet!