The great Gas Out off 2005

As you know there have been several (rather unsuccessful) attempts over the years to 'send a message to the oil companies' by boycotting every gas station one day of the year. This year it could finally be different, Bill O'Reilly and Fox News are promoting gas-less Sundays, every Sunday from now until the end of the year, just fill up the day before or the day after. Believe it or not this is not as foolish a gesture as you might think, the fuel has to flow through the pipe lines at a constant rate, a sudden drop in demand sends aftershocks all through the distribution system. With the big media coordination it might finally be possible to get the attention of the Big Oil companies and perhaps get some relief from the incessant price gouging we've been enduring for all these years. It's worth a try at least.

Reply to
ironrod
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When you've "gotten their attention" what do you intend to do then?

This is pretty ridiculous.

a> It won't work. b> It won't be even a minor shock to the system, even if you could get people to go along with it (and history has shown that they won't).

Every station has in-ground tanks with several thousand to several tens of thousand gallons of gas to carry them for several days or weeks. Even if they didn't sell a drop of gas on any particular day, it's not going to be a big deal, especially since all those "helpers" would be filling up either the day before or the day after anyway. So the end result (averaged over the course of a couple of days) is ZERO change in the system.

The only effective way to carry this out is to close the actual stations for a couple of days. And that's not happening since the major oil companies have been buying up the vast majority of the stations they didn't already own over the last 20-30 years. Checkmate.

But hey, if you want to be Don Quixote and take your bicycle to work on that day, my hat's off to ya. The exercise is good for you.

Cheers,

Reply to
Ritz

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Dan

2003 Cobra convertible With some stuff and things
Reply to
Dan

"Dan" wrote in news:1126535725.005796.110570 @g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

A bit of common-sense from that article: - - - - - - - Moreover, the primary potential effect of the type of boycott proposed in the "gas out" messages is to hurt those at the very end of the oil-to- gasoline chain, service station operators ? the people who have the least say in setting gasoline prices. As such, the "gas out" is a punch on the nose delivered to the wrong person.

Either apathy or an outbreak of common sense has made previous "gas outs" non-events with very low levels of participation,

- - - - - - - - - - - Most LIKELY common sense.... I have a deep suspicion of the political leanings of those who think this would work.

Let's just say the White Rabbit has very long ears..

Reply to
Backyard Mechanic

A little play on "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane...

one pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small and the ones the pundits give you don't do anything at all Go ask Alice... when her gas tank's empty her car stalls... : 0 ) when logic and good fortune have fallen don't you know that the White Knight is traveling backward... missing windmills one and all... : 0 ) when men on the exec board get up and tell you where to go and you've just seen another price rise and you mind is movin' on Go ask Alice... I think she'll know when she became so small... : 0 ) So if you go chasing rabbits and you stumble don't you fall for logic of cigar smokin' catepillars who've given you the call... Call Alice when she's thinks she's 10 feet tall... : 0 ) Spike

1965 Ford Mustang fastback 2+2 A Code 289 C4 Trac-Lok Vintage Burgundy w/Black Standard Interior; Vintage 40 16" rims w/BF Goodrich Comp T/A gForce Radial 225/50ZR16 KDWS skins; surround sound audio-video.

Gad what fools these morons be.... Children are obscene but should not be heard Give me a peperoni pizza... or give me a calzone!

Reply to
Spike

I can't argue with the article, a point to remember is that the gas companies can only keep the prices artificially high by working like a cartel. Some people might remember the Exxon Valdez fiasco, ordinary people were so disgusted with the handling of the disaster that they all spontaneously just stopped buying gas from Exxon stations. This hurt Exxon so bad that they eventually took out FULL PAGE adds in all the major news papers around the country stating much the same information. (of course they left out the part about their losing money when everybody else was raking it in). Point being if you can cost one of the major suppliers market share then they have to drop their profit margin to get it back. If that happens then the cartel is broken and you once again have free market influences setting the price. It will never be possible to buy a product for less than it cost but you can keep the profit margins reasonable.

Reply to
ironrod

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