War Against High Gas Prices!!!
02-27-2004, 03:06 AM
#1
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 29
War Against High Gas Prices!!!
Fwd the following email to everyone u know
Subject: GAS WAR!
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 simple it is to reach
millions of people!!
I am sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to at
least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) .. and those 300 send it to at least ten
more (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the
sixth generation 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 email 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 I 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. PLEASE HOLD
OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK
--- Frank Leathley
Subject: GAS WAR!
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 simple it is to reach
millions of people!!
I am sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to at
least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) .. and those 300 send it to at least ten
more (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the
sixth generation 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 email 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 I 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. PLEASE HOLD
OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK
--- Frank Leathley
))><
02-29-2004, 07:38 AM
#4
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Whoever wrote the "stop high gas prices" e-mail that is going around (posted above) has absolutely no freaking idea of how economics works on either a micro or macro level, nor about supply-side pricing -- or even simple ideas such as inflation. I have two degrees in English and I've still got enough basic econ knowledge to know that this "attack" on the gas companies is a farce.
03-01-2004, 04:48 PM
#5
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Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Bay Area
Posts: 1,402
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Here's the cliff notes for macro-economics 101:
Supply line and demand line move independantly, where the lines cross, markets clear. Therefore there are two ways to reduce the price of a commodity: increase supply or decrease demand. Our politicians have spent the last four or five decades doing everything they can to exert influence on the supply side, so as consumers, all we are left with is influencing the demand side...so here's demand side thoughts to ponder if you don't like the *reelatively* high gas prices:
- Stop driving gas guzzlers. If you're so damn rich as to have toys which need to be towed, don't make your tow vehicle your commute vehicle. You can afford it. If you don't have toys to tow, you bought too much vehicle. Just because you have kids, you don't need a Senseless Urban Vehicle. A mini van or station wagon will work just as well and use less gas.
- If you enjoy driving your gas guzzler (as I do
) minimize your driving - i.e. take public transportation to work or bike it. Keep the turbo fun for your pleasure and save the gas when you can.
These common sense actions have clearly been lost on the majority of the American public. Therefore economic forces are going to force the issue. That is how it is *supposed* to work. When a commodity becomes relatively more scarce, it incents people to use less of it...this is referred to as the elasticity of demand.
P.S. Spent just over $30 to fill the WRX up this morning.:banana:
Supply line and demand line move independantly, where the lines cross, markets clear. Therefore there are two ways to reduce the price of a commodity: increase supply or decrease demand. Our politicians have spent the last four or five decades doing everything they can to exert influence on the supply side, so as consumers, all we are left with is influencing the demand side...so here's demand side thoughts to ponder if you don't like the *reelatively* high gas prices:
- Stop driving gas guzzlers. If you're so damn rich as to have toys which need to be towed, don't make your tow vehicle your commute vehicle. You can afford it. If you don't have toys to tow, you bought too much vehicle. Just because you have kids, you don't need a Senseless Urban Vehicle. A mini van or station wagon will work just as well and use less gas.
- If you enjoy driving your gas guzzler (as I do
) minimize your driving - i.e. take public transportation to work or bike it. Keep the turbo fun for your pleasure and save the gas when you can.These common sense actions have clearly been lost on the majority of the American public. Therefore economic forces are going to force the issue. That is how it is *supposed* to work. When a commodity becomes relatively more scarce, it incents people to use less of it...this is referred to as the elasticity of demand.
P.S. Spent just over $30 to fill the WRX up this morning.:banana:
03-01-2004, 04:50 PM
#6
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Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Bay Area
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Originally posted by meilers
I have two degrees in English and I've still got enough basic econ knowledge to know that this "attack" on the gas companies is a farce.
I have two degrees in English and I've still got enough basic econ knowledge to know that this "attack" on the gas companies is a farce.
03-02-2004, 05:40 PM
#7
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That's all solid supply-side economics; however none of it applies when it comes to petroleum and gas prices. There is no market in the world that is more regulated and more artificially supported than the oil industry, from the market manipulations of OPEC to US tarrifs on our own oil sources. If demand for petroleum went down, the price of gas would not fall -- they would just make less of it. There are only 13 refineries in the entire US that make the special grade of gas that California (and Arizona), which keeps supply artificially low and makes it easy to justify high prices. Yet do any of the major petroleum companies have plans to build more refineries?
Absolutely not. They've got no reason to build a new refinery when that would undercut their own pricing scheme. THAT is why the "don't buy gas" strategy won't work in keeping gas prices down.
The other unspoken issue here is inflation. The argument at the top of this thread seems to feel that the $1.50 we spent for gas two years ago is equal to the $1.50 we should be spending today. It isn't. Inflation means that $1.50 of 1999 money is now $2.06 in today's money (using the IRS's own inflation calculator) -- thus spending $1.89 for gas this year as opposed to $1.50 a year ago is really only a variance of a few cents, adjusted for inflation.
Absolutely not. They've got no reason to build a new refinery when that would undercut their own pricing scheme. THAT is why the "don't buy gas" strategy won't work in keeping gas prices down.
The other unspoken issue here is inflation. The argument at the top of this thread seems to feel that the $1.50 we spent for gas two years ago is equal to the $1.50 we should be spending today. It isn't. Inflation means that $1.50 of 1999 money is now $2.06 in today's money (using the IRS's own inflation calculator) -- thus spending $1.89 for gas this year as opposed to $1.50 a year ago is really only a variance of a few cents, adjusted for inflation.
03-02-2004, 08:48 PM
#8
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not to mention that gas in the US has always been heavily subsidized. this is slowly changing and should ultimately end with us paying true market value for our gas (which could be $3~$4 per gallon).
my biggest complaint is with our gas being doped to ****. 91 octane is the "premium" here in cali.. definately not worth $3 a gallon. gotta goto the airport or raceway for better gas
my biggest complaint is with our gas being doped to ****. 91 octane is the "premium" here in cali.. definately not worth $3 a gallon. gotta goto the airport or raceway for better gas
03-05-2004, 04:45 PM
#15
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Car Info: 02 WRX wagon=dead; rollin' in a Craptastic Camry!
Originally posted by jriggs
buy 230 horses and you should have a wagon that keeps up with a WRX......it'll just smell like sh*t!!!!
buy 230 horses and you should have a wagon that keeps up with a WRX......it'll just smell like sh*t!!!!
Besides, the EPA wouldn't allow it. Do you have any idea how much green house gas those stinking horses produce?:banana: