--plan to lower gasoline prices

[Malva Zebrina]

I got this in my mail this morning. I mailed it out to ten people--Just thought someone here might also be interested

One of my Harvard classmates came up with this idea and it seems to be working. Send it to 10 or more people and if everyone sticks with it --- it just may work. I don't usually participate in these email scenarios but I believe this just might work.


In a message dated 2/24/2004 2:39:08 PM Central Standard Time, ARNDELE writes:

Subject: : gas prices

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.
LET'S ROLL!

[DarkSim]

1. you think a near $3 is expensive? Come to Europe!

we play $5.30 per LITRE!

[OneTwentyoNine]

4. Well...we can't control your tax situation on that side of the pond...

Every time prices are mentioned someone from the other side of the pond chimes in about their high prices. Yes they are high,but go ahead and tell us how much is ACTUALLY for the gas and how much are in taxes.

I used to monitor prices over a gas price watch and fuel was actually cheaper in England than in the US if you subtracted out the taxes on both fuel prices. Call Tony Blair about the tax situation.

David

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Here you go

average price at UK supermarkets 75.1p per litre, of which 77.6% is tax.

http://www.theaa.com/allaboutcars/fuel/

That works out at .751 * 1.86 * 3.79 = $5.29 per US gallon
of which 5.29 * .224 = $1.19 is the 'non-tax' price.
What's an American price without any sales taxes etc.?

I don't know what country DarkSim pays $5.30 per litre in, but it sounds like a mistake to me.

[BiggJawn]

19. Yes, but you're paid more than I am, too.

And you have Euro-Rail or whatever they call that train network, and busses, and inter-urban trains.

You can ALWAYS come live here, y'know :-)

[Malva Zebrina]

2. I may have posted in the wrong place

if so, my apologies



There are so many many rural communities here and very very little public transportation that in order to get to work many people must drive their cars for an hour or so. People do carpool whenever they can.

It seems to me that public transportation is much more widely available in Europe.

I can take a bus from Maine to Boston-it stops here twice a day--mid morning and mid afternoon-arriving in Boston at inconvenient times. If I take my car, it would cost me about five dollars. The bus ticket is forty round trip. Just an example of why people would rather travel by car.

[Trajan]

3. I have ALWAYS thought this was the correct tool ...

Using market forces to 'force' the reduction of price by dramatically increasing supplies at a few key petrocorps ...

I will send this along ...

[Streetdoc270]

5. Read this...

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/gasout.htm


Its what I do when anyone sends me a email telling me to e-mail others with this great news, first check with Snopes.com (urban legend reference page) and see if it is a hoax first.

[Malva Zebrina]

6. OMG--thank you so much streetdoc

and my apologies to the board--I am very embarrassed. I will try to undo the damage and thank you for that URL :dunce:

[Streetdoc270]

7. no prob...

:hippie:

[KG]

8. don't see how forwarding this e-mail will reduce overall consumption.

which might be a way to reduce prices. either way, not sure that the massive multi-nationals and OPEC are gonna break a sweat over some e-mail forwarding campaign.

[OneTwentyoNine]

9. Good idea,nothing new....

My brother lives in Honolulu,I'm sure gas is over $2.00. Last time I was their I think I noticed Chevron is the big dealer on Oahu. I mentioned that everyone on the island should just boycott their ass for a couple of weeks and bring the price down.

He agreed but getting sheep to do that sort of thing is hard. BTW,we don't have Exxon/Mobile here in Wichita. Our entire fuel existence is controlled by a convenience store chain out of Oklahoma called Quik Trip. No one dares go up or down on the price with first checking their signs in the morning.

There are plenty of other places to buy but the Lemmings keep buying from QT and the prices keep going up. We had a 17 cent increase on Friday,thats after a 15 cent increase a couple of weeks before.

I'm self-employed so I have fuel receipts going back 15 years or more stashed away. I got some out from the Clinton years. Prices around here were generally 30-40 cents per gallon lower,we actually dipped down to about 89-90 cents per gallon for a short time in 1999. Prices were pretty much stable all during the Clinton years,but he didn't have any oil buddies to pay off for a rigged election.

David

[RC]

10. What is really needed is

money poured into alternative energy sources. Both to lessen our reliance on Big Oil and to have somewhere to go when the oil does run out.

BTW, The more wars fought over oil, the faster the oil will run out. War is very wasteful of resources.

[DrRang]

11. Amen, R.C!

We gotta break this oil addiction sooner rather than later and it's gonna be painful no matter what. I'm trying to remember a quote from Sec. of Energy Spencer Abraham. Something he said to OPEC guys about if they raise prices, it would cause the thing "We all most want to avoid" which is development of dependable clean energy sources.

[OneTwentyoNine]

12. I'll mention E-85 fuel but then the nay sayers will come....

E-85,85% ethanol 15% gasoline. Change over to that percentage and tell OPEC ministers "later days" chumps. OK,now the nay sayers will pop up about how it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol that a gallon of gas. And...we don't have enough farmable land in the US to support crops to make ethanol.

LOL,who paid for that study,the Oil Companies? Fact is here in Kansas we have MILLIONS of acres of usable farmland that "We the people" pay farmers not to grow crops on. In fact in western Kansas farmers were getting paid MORE per acre not to grow than what a crop would bring in. The reason is over abundance of wheat which drives the price down to the point of not being profitable to grow. We have so much we hope for crop failures in Russia so we'll have that market. This is ridiculous,that land could be used for fuel production instead of a taxpayer subsidies.

"It takes more energy to make a gallon of ethanol than a gallon of unleaded". First I don't believe that getting a gallon of crude out of a 3,000 foot hole could be cheaper than growing a plant but...the fact is ethanol isn't being made in huge quanaties...yet. It might very well be as expensive as fuel is right now but,our dependence on Mid East Oil is gone,and our source is renewable.

There are about 20 vehicles right now that can run on E-85. That fuel is as cheap as a gallon of unleaded--sometimes even cheaper and thats with a base of only 20 types of vehicles that can use it. E-85 is the way to go whether the Oil companies or War mongers want to admit it.

If anyone believes our actions in the Mid East are about human suffering they got alot to learn.

David

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. I won't say 'nay'

but I will ask for some economic study that does support E-85. There must be someone who's done one - farmers, Greenpeace, someone like that.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

14. Boycott Exxon and Mobil!

Great idea. Boycotts can and do have an impact.

[LeahMira]

16. Better idea...

Since the prices go up in summer, cut down on the amount of gas you buy and walk or bike sometimes.

Or set a budget and decide what you can afford to spend on gas. Stick to it.

It's not about boycotts unless you boycott everybody. It is about supply and demand. When the demand goes down, the oil companies will take notice... particularly if they sell more gas when the prices are lower.

As I see it, this is the only way the oil companies will get the message that the American people do not support them when they work to our disadvantage.

[rucky]

17. Ask me again in December

[SalParadise]

18. This is nothing more than a variation of the same idea....

..that went around via email/bbs's the LAST time gas prices went up significantly.

Don't waste your time or anyone else's with this - it won't work, it can't work, it didn't work last time.

(These little "we can do it!" chain letters are a pet peeve of mine, sorry)

[Toots]

20. This is Demand Side Economics from the Freepers

What a huge laugh. This is an e-mail circulating among the Freepers and they are too dumb to realize it is the exact opposite of Supply Side Economics that they say they so adamontly support. What a laugh.

[Pegleg Thd]

21. I told a relative

yesterday that we should trade our mini trucks that get about 35 mpg for a mule and wagon. When not pulling the wagon the mule could mow the lawn.