Gas Prices

I received this email, figured I would start a discussion. Do you think as consumers there really is anything we can do to help control the gas prices? I really think as consumers we need to unite and stick it to these companies that are just price gouging, but what would be the best way?

Anyway, here is the email:

THIS IS NOT THE 'DON'T BUY' GAS FOR ONE DAY, BUT IT WILL SHOW YOU HOW WE CAN GET GAS BACK DOWN TO $.90 PER Litre....hopefully

This was sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. If you are tired of the gas prices going up AND they will continue to rise this summer, take time to read this PLEASE.

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!
It's worth your consideration. Join the resistance!!!!

I hear we are going to hit close to $ 2.00 a litre by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down?

We need to take some intelligent, united action. 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 on and join with us!

By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.00 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $1.17 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 $1.14, 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,
ESSO and SHELL.

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 Esso and Shell 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 30 people. If each of us 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 group 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 e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all in. I suggest that we not buy from Esso and Shell UNTIL 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!!

I'll bet you 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. THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO BELOW THE $1.00 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK.
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Comments

  • How about just like conserving, buy a smaller car and walk more?

    Why elaborate organization of millions of people when you can fix most of the problems yourself?
  • I got this same email a long time ago, guess it didn't work
  • We don't have 300 million people in Canada, are we bringing in immigrants just so they don't buy gas?

    I found the flaw in the emails logic... people like Walmart. Think about this for a second and see if you can see the flaw too. Will post my reasoning about this tomorrow after I get to sleep (stupid insomnia)
  • There is not a whole lot we can do as consumers.
    A boycott will not hurt Shell and Esso. It will only hurt the folks that own the retail outlets since Shell and Esso would just sell more to the independents that may see more biz.

    They have us by the short and curlies. As BBC said buy a smaller car. Who the hell needs and Escalade or Hummer (the SUV you pervs) ?
  • I fueled at 1.23 yesterday.. crazy.

    But hey, as BBC said, walk, get a fuel efficient car, use your bike, rollerblades, public transportation, etc...

    It's not THAT bad... it costs me 50$ to fuel my car and it lasts me at least a week and a half to close to two weeks depending on what I do (I'm close from work - 20 minutes and my G/F works at the same place so we save alot).

    It sucks but there's nothing you can do...
    get a hybrid!
  • I don't even really pay attention to gas prices anymore...

    I've never paid more than $20 to fill my car! HAHAHAHAHA NOW GO AHEAD AND MOCK IT!!

    Mark
  • DrTyore wrote: »
    I don't even really pay attention to gas prices anymore...

    I've never paid more than $20 to fill my car! HAHAHAHAHA NOW GO AHEAD AND MOCK IT!!

    Mark

    You have to push-start it with your feet like Fred Flintstone right?
  • Still cheaper than $1.20 / litre

    :)

    Mark
  • Urban Legends Reference Pages: Don't Buy Gas on May 15

    I remember last year there were Facebook groups galore dedicated to this. I was getting invitations everyday, and it's all just nonsense.

    Not to say that nothing can be done, but it would involve people being seriously willing to change their lifestyles.

    Unfortunately, a lot folks find suggestions like BBCZ's to use a little less gas and walk a little more, just too drastic a change for their liking.

    My advice is to move someplace really beautiful. Anytime I can walk north here in Vancouver(facing the mountains) it's an absolute pleasure.
  • My neighbour and I got into a long discussion about environmentalism and oil. The conclusion was that it's only going to be the cost of oil (gasoline) that drives people to conserve. As soon as the prices go back down, all that work is lost (see 1970s).
  • Consumers won't be able to do squat against the gas companies. If you don't buy gas for one day it'll be a blip in their sales. They've already got your money from the day before where you filled up.

    You'll probably only see gas prices going down once auto manufacturers figure a way to start selling hydrogen or alternate feul cars to the average consumers for a reasonable price.
  • It's called Supply and Demand. Get over it.

    /g2
  • I would rather spend $5 more a week on gas and never worry about prices..I go to full serve, (+ another couple cents/litre) and didn't realize that the price of gas was over 105 until about a week ago. The difference in fill up price with my average size car is not significant.

    Conservation IS great..I bought a smaller vehicle this year, and I walk when I can so don't fry me here hippies: but I just don't see this issue as a really significant place to spend our energies?

    Orphans with diseases FTW!


    Edit: Kristy
  • g2 wrote: »
    It's called Supply and Demand. Get over it.

    /g2


    Agreed and guess what the Demand from China will continue to increase so we might as well get used to it. If you want cheap gas go to Venezuela

    CNN/Money: Global gas prices
  • The increasing amount of begging homeless on the streets of KW recently gave me an idea that I am seriously considering. I almost went to the Shell station on the corner of Victoria and Lancaster on Saturday (Gas was 1.22) with a sign, made of the back of a Woody's six-pack container of course, which states "Need $60.00....to fill my tank". I would of course be standing in front of my fuel efficient VW Golf.

    Let me know if you want in.

    This is outrageous.

    stp
  • what we need are pre-paid gas cards. Gas is one of the few commodities we cannot buy based on today's price for future consumption. We have it for home consumption, so why not your car? It would be easy for the gas stations to offer a 20 litre card for say $25. You could use the card in the future to purchase the 20 litres of gasoline, irrespective of the current price. Its a great idea, and someone could make a lot of money from this idea, but they won't do it because they can make more with the current strategy (i.e charge what we want). It would be easy enough for the gas companies to hedge their exposure based on the number of litres pre-paid at a specific price.
  • What we need is to stop bitching about it and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. As the world's population grows and develops DEMAND GOES UP. While the fossil fuel SUPPLY GOES DOWN. There is only one way price can go under those circumstances.

    Or you know, throw capitalism out the window and go communist or socialist. Really... that is basically what you are suggesting.

    /g2
  • The idea itself isn't horrible, if you stop shopping at one place in favour or another (for a significant period of time) the company will lose business, this will hurt their bottom line.

    Even the companies chosen aren't bad as they are not 'small' and won't close up shop to an extended boycott (therefore there's no guilt that you put people out of work)

    Reasons it can't work:
    1st fact: A group formed by random emails is un-organized, there's no way to communicate en-masse and ensure that all people have the message and get updates as the campaign marches on.

    2nd fact: People are weak and generally unmotivated, so let's assume that the plan works and the price of gas drops 5 cents at those 2 vendors.

    This leads to people like Wallmart, regardless of it's business practices, people don't want to pay 1 cent more when they don't have to.

    So gas prices fall by 5 cents, a percentage of the original boycotters immediately start filling back up getting a 'deal' and forgetting what the big picture was in the first place. As well, people who regularly shop at other gas stations are lured to the lower prices as well. This cycles itself through and tada we are back where we started.

    We only have a couple of potential solutions:

    1) Get the government to intervene. Good luck with that, you see what percentage of every dollar of gas goes to taxes? 47-48 cents?
    2) Stop using the stuff. Start being personally responsible for our consumption and stick to our guns.

    Anyways, my thoughts.
  • paraphrase:

    Buy this car to drive to work, drive to work to pay for this car...bitch about gas prices and traffic on the way.

    I envy your lifestyle
  • zunni74 wrote: »
    The idea itself isn't horrible
    Yes, it really really is.
    zunni74 wrote: »
    We only have a couple of potential solutions:

    1) Get the government to intervene. Good luck with that, you see what percentage of every dollar of gas goes to taxes? 47-48 cents?
    What do you think the government does with that money? Just keeps it? No! They spend it on us. It's called a standard of living. If they didn't tax gas as much as they do they would have to tax us some other way.
    zunni74 wrote: »
    2) Stop using the stuff. Start being personally responsible for our consumption and stick to our guns.
    That really is the only solution. Combined with the rest of the world doing that too. I'm looking at YOU North America.

    /g2
  • All I can say is...

    I think I'll spend a week counting the number of single drivers plowing down highway 24 between Guelph and Cambridge at a 100km/h, driving their big hummers / V8 Bubba truck (w/ a hemi of course) / SUV "Sport" edition without anything in the back.

    Meanwhile people laugh at my car, and then stare shocked when I pull out two gym bags, five hockey sticks, and a cooler.

    WFR violations

    mark
  • Just keeps it? No!

    Actually, there have been such excessive surpluses over the last few years, that yes, they do just keep it and pay down the national debt.
  • BBC Z wrote: »
    Actually, there have been such excessive surpluses over the last few years, that yes, they do just keep it and pay down the national debt.
    Paying down the national debt isn't keeping it.

    /g2
  • Paying down the national debt isn't keeping it.

    It's also not fixing the pot holes on the 401
  • BBC Z wrote: »
    It's also not fixing the pot holes on the 401
    Touché

    /g2
  • DrTyore wrote: »
    All I can say is...

    I think I'll spend a week counting the number of single drivers plowing down highway 24 between Guelph and Cambridge at a 100km/h, driving their big hummers / V8 Bubba truck (w/ a hemi of course) / SUV "Sport" edition without anything in the back.

    Meanwhile people laugh at my car, and then stare shocked when I pull out two gym bags, five hockey sticks, and a cooler.

    WFR violations

    mark


    I know we love hockey in Canada but why do you need 5 ?
  • DrTyore wrote: »
    I don't even really pay attention to gas prices anymore...

    I've never paid more than $20 to fill my car! HAHAHAHAHA NOW GO AHEAD AND MOCK IT!!

    Mark

    That's because if you filled it, all that extra weight on the one side would cause it to flip over.
  • DrTyore wrote: »
    Meanwhile people laugh at my car, and then stare shocked when I pull out two gym bags, five hockey sticks, and a cooler.

    But only one clown :D:D:D
  • Bah this is the way to beat the price of gas. Make money off the suckers with Hummers:

    Yahoo! Finance Charts

    Yahoo! Finance Charts
  • My suggestion: next time you feel you have to drive somewhere....masturbate instead. Takes a lot less petroleum.
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