Lets Unite and Drop Gas Prices Today

[Leo Hadley Jr]

I received this email below and I am going to do it. It may not work but we have nothing to lose. I encourage everyone to copy and paste this message and send it to everyone on your email list. I spent $51.00 filling my tank today.



This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. It ' s worth your consideration.

Join the resistance!!!!

I hear we are going to hit close to $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. 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 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 not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN.

THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

[For-Life]

Best way is to be more energy efficient. Ie: smaller cars, turn off lights when not using them, walking more, ect.

[Leo Hadley Jr]

Best way is to be more energy efficient. Ie: smaller cars, turn off lights when not using them, walking more, ect.

I agree 100% wholeheartedly. That would help the environment as well. However I still use gasoline for work. I cannot avoid it. Its a major cost and if was affordable it would seriously jump start the economy.

I could get into a lengthy alternative fuel conversation but I will save that for some other time. If everyone stopped using exxon /mobile for a few weeks, they would get the message fast.

Ironically, the news just told me that the RETIRED C.E.O. for the last 44 years is getting a nearly total 200 million in pension and bonuses.

[GOS_Queen]

Origins: 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 rnum=Math.round(Math.random() * 100000);document.write('');document.write('');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.

Other articles about gasoline prices: Petition to President Bush Call to Spurn Gasoline from Particular Suppliers to Cut Off Funding of Terrorists Call for 1- or 3-Day Boycott of Gasoline to Bring Prices Down
Last updated: 13 April 2006

The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasout.asp

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by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
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[RGC_man]

Over here there is an attempt at a buyer's club of 100,000 people which would only buy from petrol companies who offer members a discount. No idea if it will work, and don't care as I don't drive and get everywhere by public transport.

[chip anderson]

Actually the only really effective way to stop this is: 1) Remove restrictions on oil production in this country (we have plenty). 2) Buy the sources of production and supply (what we spend on foreign oil a month would do this).

Otherwise it will always be a case of bend over.

Chip

Did you know that we have enough natural gas for 300 years, but he price on this is going up also.

Have you noticed that energy producers are saying : "The price is going up because you use too much". And saying: "The price is going up because you didn't use enough." Saying this at the same time, for goodness sake.

This is as dumb as paying more for anti-bacterial soap.

Chip

[Lynne]

Over here there is an attempt at a buyer's club of 100,000 people which would only buy from petrol companies who offer members a discount. No idea if it will work, and don't care as I don't drive and get everywhere by public transport.

Ah yes, I have fond memories of that! Now if only it were available here! So, carpool instead. When I come home I never rent a car, just hop a bus or train everywhere. Love it!

[chm2023]

Alternative renewable sources of energy: the real solution to 1) rising cost of energy; 2) dependence on a turbulent region of the world 3) many pollution issues.

We are way behind Brazil and China and India on this, we need to get serious about being "green", it will be the defining issue of the 21st century and staying stuck at the teat of oil and gas is not the winning strategy.

Re the Exxon exec with the $400 million retirement package. I look at this and think: "thank God Bush had the foresight to provide tax relief for oil companies, else this poor fella would be reduced to food stamps".

We all know life isn't fair, but it's discouraging when you see the people in power with their thumb on the scale.

[ziggy]

Actually the only really effective way to stop this is: 1) Remove restrictions on oil production in this country (we have plenty). 2) Buy the sources of production and supply (what we spend on foreign oil a month would do this).

Otherwise it will always be a case of bend over.

Chip



There is NOTHING you can do about the price. The oil companys tested the waters last year and we the people did not blink. We will see gas at up to $4.00/gal by summers end and there is not a damn thing you and I can or will do about it. Buy oil company stock, we will all need the extra befor this is over.

[RT]

There IS something you can do about the price of gas. Use less. If everyone uses less, the price will go down. As long as demand is ever-increasing, the price will never come down.

[ziggy]

There IS something you can do about the price of gas. Use less. If everyone uses less, the price will go down. As long as demand is ever-increasing, the price will never come down.

You cant use less. You can stop driving as much, take more buses, then the price for bus fair goes why up. Every thing in your house depends on oil at some level.

[chip anderson]

Ziggy: It ain't so. They said the cost of natural gas was up do to demand. Then we were told the cost of natural gas was up due to a mild winter and lack of demand (translation: We gotta charge more to make up for the volume we didn't sell.). Do your really think the oil companies are any different.

I actually heard today that there is a glut of crude. The Arab companies are upset about the price being so high at the stock market.

Unless you can gain control of supply, and distribution and speculation you just gonna have to bend over.
And if you are waiting for "Help from Con-gress or de Gov-mint, lots a luck fella.

Chip

A little footnote. It cost Saudi Arabia and the other Arab countries $4.00 to get a barrel of oil out of the ground.

[chm2023]

Unless you can gain control of supply, and distribution and speculation you just gonna have to bend over.
And if you are waiting for "Help from Con-gress or de Gov-mint, lots a luck fella.

Chip

.

Who is the "you" you reference above?

[ziggy]

Buy oil company stock, we will all need the extra befor this is over.

Just an FYI. I checked my 401-k, which is all oil and natural gas, has incressed by $337 in three days. If you cant beat them....

[rbaker]

Paul - Sweet eh. . . me too . . . I have been in petroleum since 1961. Some day I am going to sit down and figure out just how sweet it has been. One word of caution though, diversify your portfolio. You have all of your eggs in one basket - and if the basket should fall, your screwed.

The price of a given commodity is never too high when the commodity is selling like hot cakes. So just sit back and relax and let the market come into equilibrium.

If you want lower fuel prices how about reducing the state and federal taxes. How about doing away with some of the state and federal mandates on fuel economy and pollution control.

[Cindy K]

There IS something you can do about the price of gas. Use less. If everyone uses less, the price will go down. As long as demand is ever-increasing, the price will never come down.

I have a daily commute of nearly 200kms.
The only way I could use less is if I were to get out of optical.