OT: Gas Prices

I got this in an email today, and it is interesting. HOWEVER:

This could do great harm to the mom and pop gas station/convenience
stores that have little say about the cost of gas.

Also, the cost of oil is driven by many more factors than greed of the
oil companies even if greed IS one of the factors. Whatcha think?

Tom

LOWER GAS PRICES

This is not copyrighted material. Please feel free to copy it &
circulate it by email or any other method.

The high price of gasoline has nothing to do with the cost of a barrel
of oil. A basic principle of economics as taught in colleges all over
the world is that the cost to the manufacturer or dealer is irrelevant
to price. All that really matters in a fair market is supply and
demand. We have a huge supply of oil; however, we also have a huge
demand. How can we change this? We must make the companies compete
with each other. At the present time they appear to be working
together to keep the price as high as they can get it (which overcomes
the law of supply and demand previously described). We must lower the
demand for one brand to zero so that they will reduce their price to
our demand.

I have what I believe to be a very good idea for separating the
companies. We must get one brand of gasoline to lower its price to one
that we all agree is reasonable. I would suggest that we make them
reduce it to less than $1.50 per gallon (which is $1.499 per gallon).
If EVERYBODY stops buying gas from ONE company then that company must
either reduce its price to what we DEMAND, or they must close their
stations. They will not close their stations because they can afford
to sell it for $1.499 and still make a very good profit. As soon as
this one company finds that it has absolutely no customers it will
start to wonder why this has happened. Somebody will tell them that
they are being blocked until they reduce their price to under $1.50 per
gallon. They will most likely start by going a few cents under their
nearest competitor. That is not good enough, because then we will
have lost our battle. We will pay more to some other station and keep
that one brand with no cars at their pumps. After a few days or a week
or two of this they will keep reducing their price. We will hold out
and wait until their signs have a price UNDER $1.50 per gallon. Then,
we will go to the ones with the low price ONLY and not to any of the
other stations regardless of their price, until THE OTHER STATIONS
reduce their prices to UNDER $1.50 per gallon. This WILL work, if we
all do this as described in this article. Then, in the future, any
time that any station goes over $1.499 we will go only to ones that are
below that price. If they start their increases again, then we
can go back to our original plan.

Now, all that is left is picking a company. Let me pick it. I believe
that there are MOBIL stations all over the country, so let's pick them.
Starting right now, I suggest that NOBODY who reads this article buys
any more gas from MOBIL. It is permissible to buy from EXXON and
others affiliated with MOBIL. This will last until MOBIL posts a price
LESS THAN $1.50 per gallon. Hopefully, it will not take long, but we
should be able to hold out longer than they can. Remember that any
time any company goes
over that price we must immediately go back to our original plan.

There is an article in Snopes.com which says that this plan will not
work. I disagree with that article because MOBIL will not let itself
go out of business. If you don't use MOBIL anyway, you still have
something to do... pass this message on to as many people as you can.
Make copies and pass them on either personally, by mail or over the
internet by email or on your web page. If you do use MOBIL stop using
it immediately. I find that other stations are usually cheaper anyway.
If you have a credit card there, stop using it. You may even wish to
get a credit card with another brand of gasoline, or merely use your
Visa or Discover card. If your gas is paid for by your employer, be
selfish and think of the future. We want to see MOBIL stations with
NO CARS at all in them pumping gas. NONE AT ALL. That is very
important, otherwise we lose. Even if they sell their gas to other
companies they cannot survive with NO CARS buying from them. Similar
methods have failed in the past, but only because the people did not
follow through. I will do my part. Will you do yours?

Posted at: http://hometown.aol.com/jimferr/page67.html

.

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