I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them - Isaac Asimov

Victory Without Sacrifice

by Hal_10000

You know that stupid “gas out!” business? I just got an e-mail that’s almost as dumb:

THIS IS NOT THE ‘DON’T BUY’ GAS FOR ONE DAY, BUT IT WILL SHOW YOU HOW WE CAN GET GAS BACK DOWN TO $1.30 PER GALLON.

Never listen to anyone who starts out in all caps.

This was sent by a retired Coca Cola executive.  It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton.  If you are tired of the gas prices going up AND they will continue to rise this summer, take time to read this please.

Never listen to anything so vaguely sourced. If this were such a good idea, the writer would be taking credit.

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! 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.  The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn’t continue to “hurt” ourselves by refusing to buy gas.

The gas out did not involve buying less gas.  It involved buying it one day as opposed to another.

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 $2.00 is super cheap.  Me too!  It is currently $2.98 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.

Problem: we’re not the only buyers.  There are several billion worldwide.  And a huge amount of gas is used by commercial interests.  But do go on.

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.

Yes, because the only thing making oil expensive is the evil oil companies who, incidentally, have a profit margin smaller than most businesses.

How?  Since we all rely on our cars, we can’t just stop buying gas.

I really should cut the article off now as any plan that does not involve using less gas is doomed.  But let’s give this fool enough rope to hang himself.

But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Price wars are not forced by consumers.  They are created by companies and consumers finding the intersection of supply and demand.  Price wars forced by outside forces are usually called “shortages”.

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 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 30 people.  If each of us 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 group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers. If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends e ach, 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.

The last math course I took was on non-linear partial differential equations.  Apparently, the last math course you took was multiplication.  I’m also not sure I should believe someone who so obviously failed Basic English, given your poor spelling, grammar and syntax.

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 $2.00 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN.  THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

Ignore, for the moment, that this is unlikely to reach anywhere close to a few million.  People send out chain e-mails on missing children that are still circulating years later.  Concentrate on the idea here.  It just won’t work.

The basic problem here is fundamental.  Americans want to believe that, sometime in the 90’s, we passed a 28th Amendment to the Constitution which reads:  “Americans have a right to cheap gas.” If gas is expensive, it can’t be because worldwide demand has gone up.  It can’t be because of chaos in places like Nigeria and Iraq that’s endangering the supply.  No, it has to be because oil companies are evil.

And to counter the rise in prices, it is absolutely unthinkable that Americans should have to make sacrifices.  Driving less, getting more fuel efficient cars—those are solutions for suckers.  All we need to do is have the equivalent of a national temper tantrum and the price of oil will drop.

As for the specifics of this one.  What do you think will happen when you shift all your business to another gas company?  Right, that company will raise their prices.  The supply-demand curve works both ways.

Moreover, Exxon-Mobile will simply shift their product overseas while other oil companies shift theirs to America.  It’s the inverse of the producer problem.  Oil producers like OPEC can not selectively target the United States for an oil embargo because they have to sell their product.  So if OPEC boycotts the US, they sell their product to Japan. This means Japan buy less oil from Russia, which turns around and sells more oil to America.  Oil is so cheap to ship and such a liquid (no pun intended) asset that its motion responds to any quiver of the market.

Here’s Hal’s simple plan for you to counter the $4/gallon gas price.  Ready? Got your pen and paper ready? Feel free to forward this on.  We get a thousand hits on this blog every day. If each of you sends this to 10 people and they send it to 10 more, we will reach ten billion people in the first week!

Step 1. Use less gas.

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