any of you guys getting this in your e mails / i have received it 4 times over the week end

Subject: GAS PRICES--THIS ONE'S NOT A JOKE
>
>It is rumoured that we are going to hit close to a $1.42 a Litre by the
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> 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
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> SENSE than the don't buy gas on a certain day campaign that was going
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> around last April or May!
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> The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't
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> continue to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy gas.
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> It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.
>
> BUT, this is a plan that can really work.
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> Please read it and join with us!
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> We all know that we're being controlled by the oil companies.
>
> Does everyone remember how they drove up the prices way past a
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> dollar and got the gas prices to where they wanted them, claiming
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> there was a shortage of oil?
>
> Well, there isn't any shortage now, and the oil is more abundant than
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> it was 35 years ago when the price of a litre of gas was 29 cents!!!
>
> Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us
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> to think that the cost of a litre of gas is CHEAP at $0.78-$0.85, we
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> need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control
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> the marketplace....not sellers.
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> With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers
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> need to take action.
>
> The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if
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> we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas!
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> And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves.
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> How? Since we all rely on our cars, we cant just stop buying gas.
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> But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to
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> force a price war.
>
> Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY
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> gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one),
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> PETRO CANADA and SHELL.
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> If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce
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> their prices.
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> If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to
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> follow suit.
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> But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of
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> PETRO CANADA and SHELL buyers.
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> Its 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
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> millions of people!!
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> I am sending this note to at least thirty people.
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> If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) ... and
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> those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and
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> so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of
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> people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers!
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> If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends
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> each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!
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> If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED
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> MILLION PEOPLE!!!
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> Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all.
>
> How long would all that take?
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> If each of us sends this email out to ten more people within one
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> day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be
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> contacted within the next 8 days!!!
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> Ill bet you I didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you!
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> Acting together we can make a difference.
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> If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on.
>
> PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO
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> THE $0.64 OR LESS RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN.
>
> THIS CAN REALLY WORK!!!!!!!
>
>
>

 

This won't work either....just because your local retailer says Petro Canada, or Shell, or Exxon, or ARCO, or 76 or anything else, doesn't mean they buy their fuel from that respective refiner. I spent 9 years working refineries, and I saw Texaco trucks at Mobil, Shell trucks at at Unocal, and independents that deliver to every retailer. All the refineries and terminals are connected by pipeline.

Fuel prices are driven by supply and demand in spot market trading. The only way to force the price of fuel down is to reduce consumption. Less demand=lower price.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but they pretty much got us by the short hairs.....

 

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

This is one of those e-mails that pop up every couple of weeks whenever gas prices start to rise.

From www.snopes.com
Origins: Ah, springtime!
The season for a number of important renewing rituals: housecleaning, the beginning of baseball season, balancing eggs on their ends, and the forwarding of outraged e-mails calling for oil company boycotts.

This year's litany is the usual one: 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 have deluded us into believing that current gasoline prices are actually comparatively cheap while they secretly manipulate the market to keep prices artificially high; and a simple boycott of a couple of brands of gasoline will rectify all this. (It's amusing that calls for "gas outs" predictably occur every spring, just when gasoline prices start to rise with the increased demand that accompanies the better driving weather of spring. Why don't those evil oil companies, who can apparently control the market at will, conspire to jack up their prices during winter, when prices bottom out?)

It is true that the gasoline market in California is particularly volatile, generally resulting in higher prices there than throughout the rest of the USA, because:

California is the second-biggest gasoline market in the world, outranked only by the United States as a whole. (California alone consumes as much gasoline as all of Japan.)

All of the state's refineries, running at full capacity, cannot meet California's one million barrels per day consumption, requiring the importation of more expensive product to meet consumer demand.

Since 1996, California has required a cleaner-burning formulation of gasoline which is produced at few refineries outside of California.

The four largest oil refiners in California produce almost 80% of the gasoline supply, and the six largest refiners operate about 85% of the retail gasoline outlets.
All of this makes California particularly susceptible to price increases whenever the gasoline supply is disrupted due to factors such as crude oil production cuts by OPEC nations or problems that temporarily shut down refineries.
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 up when people buy more of a good, and they go down when people buy less of a good. The "gas out" schemes that propose simply shunning one or two specific brands of gasoline won't work, however, because it's 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 other companies:


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 wouldn'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.

Last updated: 1 March 2004


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by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources:
Brooks, Nancy Rivera. "Crude Oil Prices Continue to Climb."
Los Angeles Times. 9 April 2002 (p. C1).

Brooks, Nancy Rivera. "Gas Supplies Manipulated, Report Says."
Los Angeles Times. 30 April 2002 (p. C1).

Levins, Harry. "Trying to Avoid Gasoline from Arab Oil Is Futile, Experts Say."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 21 April 2002.

 

Yeah, and regarding prior conversations here and griping about the local owner not keeping his price down, I was talking about this with a guy I know locally that owns a station. He is in a remote location and was trying to keep his price down to "city" standards. He was coerced recently by his wholesaler to get his prices back up.

 

I wish gas was cheaper like everyone else I am sure but here is something to think about and have a laugh;

'Nothing like putting our lives in perspective

Compared with Gasoline......

Think a gallon of gas is expensive?

This makes one think, and also puts things in perspective.

Diet Snapple 16 oz $1.29 ....... $10.32 per gallon

Lipton Ice Tea 16 oz $1.19 ...........$9.52 per gallon

Gatorade 20 oz $1.59 ..... $10.17 per gallon

Ocean Spray 16 oz $1.25 .......... $10.00 per gallon

Brake Fluid 12 oz $3.15 ........... $33.60 per gallon

Vick's Nyquil 6 oz $8.35 .... $178.13 per gallon

Pepto Bismol 4 oz $3.85 ... $123.20 per gallon

Whiteout 7 oz $1.39 ........ . $25.42 per gallon

Scope 1.5 oz $0.99 ....$84.48 per gallon

And this is the REAL KICKER...

Evian water 9 oz $1.49..........$21.19 per gallon?! $21.19 for WATER!

 

Of course less consumption is the answer, but one buying technique that might help to keep prices down is to always buy at the lowest priced station in your area, provided they have clean fuel. These "cut rate" stations have a policy of staying 2 to 3 cents lower than the majors. If everyone bought there the name-brand stations would lower their prices to compete, and the cost-cutters would in turn lower their prices to their traditional 2 or 3 cents less. In this way all stations would be forced to sell at their bare minimum price, and could not price-gouge.

Don't you know people who will fill up at one station even if the station across the street is 5c less? This just encourages the owners to charge more than they have to. Looking for the least-cost station in your area is not being "cheap.", it's just good economics and benefits all of us.

 

My 67 year old draftsman put it like this.

50 years ago, a gallon of gas cost more than a gallon of milk. The burger joint he would eat at daily was $.20 for a burger and $.10 for a soda, he spent $.50 per day on lunch. His first apartment cost $30/month all utilities included.
Gas prices dont seem that high anymore. I think what most people are forgetting is they have gotten used to an hour commute each way to work (assuming you miss rush hour) People didn't always drive two blocks to the corner store.
SSRAM has a point. people dont even think twice about $1.50 bottle of water or a $2 can of Red Bull, but cry over a $.02 rise in gas prices. You want an alternative, buy a horse and see how expensive it can be.

 

Got horses.....I'd ride 'em to work but there's no place to park 'em....

 

I'd get a horse, but it's 40 miles to work!


(5 years ago) "Hey...let's buy a house in the middle of nowhere, housing's cheap out here!" Raise foot, take aim, FIRE!

 

"we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace....not sellers"

That statement is absolutely correct. However, the fact that buyers are still buying at these high prices tells the sellers that the demand is still higher than the supply. The only way to impact the market is to reduce your OVERALL consumption of fuel. If enough people do this, then the demand signals will decrease and prices will start coming down until a supply/demand equalibrium is acheived.

Diesel prices should come down here some - or stay stable while gas prices rise - since the demand for #2 home heating oil should diminish as we get into spring and summer. Stock up this summer if you can!

 

Ive got horses too..n lemme tell ya..they aint cheap..i pay alot less a month as far as diesel n maintance on my truck than i do for my horses...i prolly complain more about the rise n feed cost then i do diesel prices...prices will come down..its a given...every year we go through this..and this year it just seems beyond unreal due to..like everyone has said supply and demand..with our troops overseas needing fuel and a large # of people purchasing diesel the demand has greatly increased...just hang in there is all i can say
~Heather~

 

Why has the rest of the world been paying so much more per gallon (or liter) for years? Is it subsidized, is it the volume we use, what?

 

That's a day's ride... Now I'm only 4 miles from work, but my problem is parking!

 

I got plenty of horses for sale if anyone realy thinks that would be cheaper...

Desiel is about 2.25/gasl here, the folks its realy killing is the local farmers... I know two who wont be planting all their land because its a choice of seed or desiel to run their equipment, and I am sure that isnt just the two of them..... that in turn is going to mean food prices will prob be going up as well in the future..
But, thats life....

 

Diesel prices control the prices of everything else. Gotta feed the tractors, trains, barges, and semis.