-- Download The Wonkiness of Gasoline Boycott Emails as PDF --

Everyone once in a while there is an email going around explaining how consumers can use the free market to force a reduction in gas prices [see below]. These gas campaigns are always so alluring, but ultimately they ring hollow for me, and not just because I sold my car.

I think the following quote is somewhat contentious; I don’t believe it anymore [as much as I’d love to hate oil companies]:

> We all know that we’re being controlled by the oil companies. Does everyone
> remember how they drove up the prices way past a dollar and got the gas
> prices to where they wanted them, claiming there was a shortage of oil?
> Well, there isn’t any shortage now, and the oil is more abundant than it
> was 35 years ago when the price of a litre of gas was 29 cents!!!

And while the supply and demand subtleties of consumer gas prices are in the realm of elasticity voodoo, there has been a huge traffic spike recently in the whole debate about when we as a planet cross the point of increasing consumption, maximized extraction capacity, maximum refining capacity [may have been 8-12 months ago], and decreasing growth in new finds of deposits.

The Hubbert’s Peak idea may sum it up best. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_peak and http://www.HubbertPeak.com

> all of you that buy Petro Can and Shell….read on….
> It is rumoured that we are going to hit close to a $1.42 a Litre 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, this is a plan that can really work. Please read it and
> join with us!
>
>
> We all know that we’re being controlled by the oil companies. Does
> everyone
> remember how they drove up the prices way past a dollar and got the gas
> prices to where they wanted them, claiming there was a shortage of oil?
> Well, there isn’t any shortage now, and the oil is more abundant than 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 to
> think that the cost of a litre of gas is CHEAP at $0.78-$0.85, 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 are now one), PETRO CANADA, 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 PETRO
> CANADA and SHELL buyers. Its really simple to do!! Now, don’t whimp out on me
> at this point…keep reading and Ill explain how simple it is to reach
> millions of people!!
>
>
> I am sending this note to at least 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.
>(after all we all forward messages to people every day that have no impact
> other than entertainment!- why not something that could make a difference
> in our pocket books!)
>
> How long would all this 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!!! Ill 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.
>
> PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $0.64 OR LESS
> RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK!!!!!!!

Finis
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Stephen Elliott-Buckley

Post-partisan eco-socialist. at Politics, Re-Spun

Stephen Elliott-Buckley is a husband, father, professor, speaker, consultant, former suburban Vancouver high school English and Social Studies teacher who changed careers because the BC Liberal Party has been working hard to ruin public education. He has various English and Political Science degrees and has been writing political, social and economic editorials since November 2002. Stephen is in Twitter, Miro and iTunes, and the email thing, and at his website, dgiVista.org.

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