I drive a van for my small business, and these days can use an easy $100 a week in gas for ONE van. We generally have only one or two stops a day, but we need to cover some ground. The van is a 2001, so it's not like I'm driving an old guzzler. The prices going up are directly affecting the life of me and my family. I'm afraid what the even higher prices will do to all of us as we drive even more this summer!

Do this for you!

Do this for your family!

Do this for everyone!

The gas companies that are crying that the gas taxes are responsible are recording record breaking profits in the BILLIONS!

Do you think it's any coincidence that the last couple of years we have seen gas stations go from places where gas is sold to gigantic spotless merchants with fancy pumps, advertisements and unnecessary extras!

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy prosperity as much as the next guy, an a clean gas station with a clean restroom is necessary to me, but it was all budgeted and paid for overnight. It's only because they feel they have all the power that they can do this.

It's a pretty simple plan to take the power back.     I'm in.

Read on....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 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 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.



Trust me. If they can get us to pay $3.00 a gallon, they will be happy to have us pay $3.12, then $3.29, then $3.47... Where will it stop?

We can afford this!

This hurts our WHOLE economy by not letting us spend our hard earned money at e business's we chose!

We can't allow this to happen!

Tell EVERYONE!

Tell the newspaper.

Call into he radio stations.

Make this fit on a page, print this up and hand it out at work, and to your family and friends.

Hand them out and pin them up at the gas station and the grocery store. Place it under windshield wipers.

Your whole way of life could be on the line if the economy suffers for the greed of big oil.

Don't brush this off as a chain letter.

This is your chance to take control.

Remember!

DO NOT buy their gas unless they are the ONLY station available. Then buy only what you need to get on with your day.

We will be victorious!

Consider it done...and well said.
Jeff

me too!

sent it to over 600 people in my addy book...

only problem here is that we don't have exxon OR mobil

and that's where the problem is going to happen I think! Not EVERY area of the country or world had Mobil/Exxon...what about SHELL...they are huge....or BP Amoco?

it's a good idea...but we should force it on EVERY major distributor!

avdude

True they are raising prices and you are on the right track with this collective boycott effort.

What most people don’t realize is how much they really pay overall in hidden taxes. When regular gas was going for $1.40 a gallon the actual price for that fuel was $0.43, meaning there was .93 in federal and state (were applicable) taxes piled on top. That’s what 2/3rds the total cost of the product. These taxes are percentage based, so as the price of the fuel goes up, guess who really benefits the most! Now I am not going to point my finger at any particular president, since this has been going on for at least 3 decades now, but I do feel we should throw this country’s entire upper management (republican, democrat, whatever) on the boycott pile as well just to play it safe.

guys,

for those that care..RTI is EXACTLY CORRECT here...

years ago...when I was installing car stereos as a hobby, my REAL job was running three gas station in western Colorado. The distributor to that area could be, in EVERY sense of the word, described as a monopoly!

He was the ONLY supplier at the time of ALL gasoline to Gelanwood Springs, Rifle, ASPEN and VAIL, Colorado...maybe you've heard of em...

I ran three stations...two in Glenwood Springs (40 miles from Aspen, 60 from Vail) and one in Carbondale (30 miles from Aspen)

at the time...our cost for SUPER UNLEADED (91 Octane in CO) was $.31/gallon...our sale price was an average of $1.45 per gallon, we (you, the consumer, paid $.43/gallon taxes) so...at the time, we were averaging $.71 per gallon GROSS profit...we paumped, between the three stores....47,000 gallons per day...or, in USD at the times, profitable pumping of $33,370.00, PER DAY.....

Now AFTER overhead, operating expenses, and salaries (and believe me, our gas stations were complete shit hole dives with toilets that sometimes didn't work, and you wouldn't use if they did!) we netted about $22,500.00 PER day, for the THREE STATIONS THAT I RAN!!!

The owner of my three stations, and the Conoco (THEN Texaco) Distributor...owns and supplies about 65 stations now!

He drove a ferrari in the summer by the way..and his daughter, who I went to school with...crove a beemer...

upside...he spent $180K with me about 5 years ago to "hookup" his "VACATION" home in Telluride, CO.

Moral?

maybe, if you befriend the few and far between Gasoline Exec...

you TOO can reap the benefits of the $3-5 per gallon we're soon going to be paying!

avdude

I'm surprised there weren't any promotions for viagra or penis pumps anywhere in that *SPAM*.

So if we just stop buying gas from Exxon/Mobil, gas prices will drop? How about BP? How about Shell? Should we stop buying gas from them too? If we stop buying from Exxon/Mobil then all that would happen is that BP and Shell would gain more market share.

This message was edited by QQQ on 03/04/04 04:01.

BTW, the fact that it doesn’t say Exxon/Mobil on the gasoline station sign doesn’t mean you aren’t buying Exxon/Mobil gas.

I think I’m going to stop buying burgers at McDonalds to force the price of hamburgers down.

This message was edited by QQQ on 03/04/04 03:25.

If you wany an analysis of this spam which has been circulating since the year 2000, read the bottom part of this web page.

[Link: breakthechain.org]

In the mean time, I'll quote the relevant part on economics:

So, will avoiding one company's gas stations effectively and permanently drive prices down? No. In fact, it would likely have the opposite effect, if any at all. Gas is a commodity. Commodity markets work on the law of supply and demand. When supply is higher than demand, sellers lower the price until the two factors equalize again. When demand is higher than supply, sellers raise the price to curb use and stretch supplies until, once again, the two factors equalize.

Just for the sake of argument, let's say we successfully organize the ExxonMobil boycott (I know this is fantasy, but hang with me here). ExxonMobil loses business and lowers prices to lure you back. The other stations will follow suit and lower prices to compete, right? Not quite. To avoid ExxonMobil you go to the Speedway across the street, instead. Speedway's business increases, causing them to raise their prices to try to control demand, otherwise their supply would be quickly depleted. Their higher prices drive customers to Shell, who in turn raise their prices and drive customers to BP, and so on. Eventually, supply and demand will equalize and all stations will have the same price again.

We've got a dozen trucks.... Higher gas prices suck, but its part of doing business.
If you track gas prices over the last 20-30 years, they are not far from average inflation levels.... Even below in some cases.....


Now, if you want to pick up a Crusade that can REALLY help the AV Industry, and Small business in general, go after Health care....... Now thats an expense that is truley out of control. .

If you're serious about boycotting the gas companies have you thought about using propane in your trucks? The power loss is only 10% (it's like speed limiter), it's cleaner running and cheaper (at least in this neck of the woods). You can even order propane version from any of the big 3 car makers.

As far as health care is concerned the biggest expense there is insurance or anywhere. Too many lawyers and law suits.

I second Impaqt on the health care issue as being far more relevant than elevated gas prices. I dont know how many of you have health care, but it would cost me $475.00 per month minimum, plus any deductable and they dont cover everything anyway. My wife and I found it more afordable to just put the money in savings and pay the doctor as we went.

I am very open about the problems with health care in the US. It's nothing short of outrageous. It reform that's long overdue for the prescription drug companies.

That's a whole other issue, and it's OK to have one be more important than the other; however, it's as irrelevant to the cause as the price of aluminum.

We can work on several problems at one time. What a concept. I can chose where I buy my gas from and make a statement by doing so. That's how we get listened to. I will pay more in gas taxes over the life of my vehicle than I paid for the vehicle itself. That's messed up.

Don't have a one view mind.

Don't blame everyone else and do nothing about the problem.

Buy generic drugs, and shop elsewhere for those you can't get.

We have Abbot labs very near hear, and I'm intimately familiar with the profits in medicine. I know they cost a lot to produce, but the return is millions on the backs of the poor. Why do you think your insurance is so high... . Another thread for medical could be in the works.

If you want to make a statement, and be part of a good cause. DO IT.

You can't change them all, but you CAN make a change.

Jay, no on is against the result, it is just that the method will not work. Like avdude said, most gas places have the same gas no matter what is said on the pump. So even if you don't go to Exxon, chances are that you will not hurt Exxons bottom line.

I don't work or have ever worked at a gas company, but my experience is the same as that of avdude (I have seen trucks from competing chains filling the tanks) if would have to guess, I would think gas is like cable, they subdivided the world and have regional monopolies. So all gas in the 10/20 different stations around you probably comes from one or two refineries. So at the end of the day the producers get the same amount of money.

The only way something like that could work is if you say buy (even if more expensive) from the small independent shop, but then that defeats the purpose of trying for lower gas prices.

Does anyone think it is funny that bottled water costs more than gasoline? Thank god they haven't invented hydrogen extraction reactors that require Fijian spring water to run on.

I recommend that everyone go out and steal gasoline at exactly noon every monday and friday. The cops will be on their lunch break and the on duty guys won't be able to capture every single one of us, right? With enough of us, we can beat this thing!