PING: Economics Guys (Re: Exxon-Mobil Boycot Email)

[albionmoonlight]

If you have not gotten this in your inbox, consider yourself lucky. I just got my 4th forward this morning. Instinctively, I can tell that this plan (even if successful, which internet boycots never are) has major flaws in it. I, however, lack the language--or even the specific knowledge--to explain why this won't work. Can someone with a better grasp of supply/demand/markets/etc. come up with a short paragraph that I can send back to the people who forward this to me to explain why it won't do anything to lower the price of petrol?

Thanks.

(Oh, and I am talking about the actual plan. I don't need help to point out the flaws in the "300,000,000 people" argument.)

Join the resistance!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a gallon by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, unitedaction. Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea.

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that wasgoing around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew wewouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience tous 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 onand join with us! By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap.Me too! It is currently $2.79 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies andthe 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 consumersneed to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hitsomeone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurtingourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN havean 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 (whichnow are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined toreduce 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 at this point.... keep reading and I'll explain howsimple it is to reach millions of people.

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us sends it to at least ten more (30 x 10 =3D 300)... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 =3D 3,000)...and so on, by the timethe message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLIONconsumers. If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 millionpeople 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 wecan reach 300 mill ion and all you have to do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you justaren'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 oneday of receipt, all 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 messageon. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICESTO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN.

THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

[Pumpy Tudors]

YEAH! AND LET'S NOT BUY COMPUTERS UNTIL THEY DROP TO $23.95!!!!!

[Draft Dodger]

hookers too!

[Jon]

hxxp://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasout.asp

Snopes has a response to this.

[flere-imsaho]

Well, assuming you could get 300 million people to boycott Exxon-Mobil, I think it would certainly have an impact on Exxon-Mobil's bottom line.

However, I don't think it would have an impact on the price of gas. Since there'd be no change in the amount of gas people need, they'd just be buying it from other suppliers.

And, in this outrageously hypothetical situation, what Exxon-Mobil could do is sell their gas to other suppliers while they're being boycotted.


The price of gas at the pump is very simple supply-and-demand, with a little bit of regional price gouging thrown in. If Americans don't want to spend as much on gas, they should use less, simple as that.

[Draft Dodger]

If I don't send this to 30 people, they can't send it to 10 more, and so on, so, potentially in very short order, there's 3,000,000 people who's inbox isn't filled with annoying crap like this.

[QuikSand]

I don't think there's much need for "Economics Guys" to handle this one.

I do find the imbedded argument "we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace..... not sellers" is a pretty interesting one. As it turns out, it's by our own collective, long-term actions that we have ensured that, at least in the gasoline market, this is most decidedly not the case.

I'm also amused by the notion that Exxon/Mobil would "have no choice" but to drop their prices since they wouldn't have any business. However, the next step seems to be that the other oil companies and gas stations -- you know, the ones who have the long lines of perfectly willing $3.00/gal customers who were boycotting the Exxon stations -- would "have no choice but to follow suit." Is that so? No choice?


Overall, if your grand theory relies on emails being forwarded and everybody getting on board... you've got some weakness in your plan.

[ISiddiqui]

Actually had a debate on this on another forum. Most of us agreed that it was idiotic. One of the main reasons is because ExxonMobil doesn't own many of the gas stations out there. They own 10% of them, and the rest are franchises. You'll hurt them. ExxonMobil, if people aren't buying gas from their stations can simply sell refined gasoline to other stations if they want.

Also, the price of gas is a global market. These people aren't going to be going without gas, just taking their purchase somewhere else, keeping demand high (and perhaps making prices RISE at those other gas stations... perhaps to prevent shortages from the increased purchasing).

And no, this CAN'T really work. It also assumes that ExxonMobil has full control over the price of gas in the US... which is absurd. Obvious these people have never heard of OPEC.

[Masked]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

And no, this CAN'T really work. It also assumes that ExxonMobil has full control over the price of gas in the US... which is absurd. Obvious these people have never heard of OPEC.

Or speculators who are a significant factor in driving up the price of crude oil.

[wade moore]

there was actually an article in our super-small local newspaper about this yesterday...

you also have problems with places like here where there are very few gas stations anyways and not a whole lot of choice as to who you buy from...

[Solecismic]

There's one way we can affect the price of gasoline. And that's to buy hydrogen-powered vehicles.

Oh, wait a second, they still cost seven figures and there aren't any service stations in most areas selling fuel hydrogen.

[chinaski]

the idea is beyond absurd, boycotting the local gas distributor does nothing but hurt the little guy.

[sachmo71]

Originally Posted by Masked

Or speculators who are a significant factor in driving up the price of crude oil.

good posting

[stevew]

Some douchebag around here has a sign in his front yard that changes from time to time, but it is always "don't buy gas" from "company X." One of these days I'm going to get motivated and staple that snopes article to his stupid sign.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally Posted by stevew

Some douchebag around here has a sign in his front yard that changes from time to time, but it is always "don't buy gas" from "company X." One of these days I'm going to get motivated and staple that snopes article to his stupid sign.

Those Amish folks are hardcore.

[stevew]

Well, they may not use gas in their buggies, but the Amish, at least a lot of them, use gas powered generators to power their tools. Because electricity is evil or something. So they are at least feeling the pain on fuel costs.

[SFL Cat]

??? I'm assuming they don't know that same gasoline is often used as the fuel to help generate electricity.

[stevew]

Something is different between grid electricity and generated electricity. The guy that built my parents kitchen was using a generator powered sawzall in the back yard.

[Pumpy Tudors]

stevew is the Amish master around here. Don't mess with him!!