Gas war-- can it really happen?

[Moser]

My sister sent me this in an email.. think it could really happen?

Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $3.00 a
gallon by the summer and it might go higher!! 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
$2.39 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 whimp 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 e-mail 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
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. Kerry Lyle, Director, Research Coordinator

[Neo]

Interesting idea, though to bad theres no national-news like coverage on this, then it might actually happen, lol.

-Neo

[Ragnarox]

That is a very interesting idea.

However, if people are really fed up with high gas prices and don't want to buy gasoline from major companies, why not just use Bio-fuels? They are pretty much free and provide roughly 85% of the energy that gasoline would provide, and they are enviornmentally(sp?) friendly.

[singo]

Hey, you lot dont know how good it is over there.

we pay 80p for a liter, making £3.20 a gallon, more than $6.

Of course, we use cars with half decent fuel economy. So we probably spend only a little more actually

I reccomend you do the same.

[Ender]

We would, except we don't HAVE fuel efficient cars.

This won't happen. Too many people need to do things important, like work and take their kids to school.

[singo]

We would, except we don't HAVE fuel efficient cars.

This won't happen. Too many people need to do things important, like work and take their kids to school.

Most nations import them. you dont NEED huge V8 powered monstrosities that do gallons to the mile instead of miles to the gallon.

[Graeme]

Eh, it'll never happen. I find it difficult to rally spirit even in my school of 700 people. Trying to get millions of people to all do the same thing must be near impossible :P.

It's a nice idea though! ^_^

[kongurous]

Eh, it'll never happen. I find it difficult to rally spirit even in my school of 700 people. Trying to get millions of people to all do the same thing must be near impossible :P.

It's a nice idea though! ^_^

Pope Urban II could do it, but he rallied 34,050 troops, not 300,000,000.

[FeralKhan]

I doubt that anything like this could be successful without decent media coverage...

Probably even given decent media coverage, it would not be successful. Even though you might, for some inexplicable reason, hurt the treasury of one of these giants, it would probably be no real concern to the oil moguls who own them. Most oil companies are subsidiaries of other companies (e.g. Exxon owns Mobil, if I remember right), so buying from another company makes no real difference to them. Though even given separate companies, they are probably in such collusion (you do not really think these prices are coincidental, do you?) that they would share profits so that the company getting hit hard could survive.

Besides, the tenacity of the general public has always been weak, lol. It would be near impossible to get them to do this.

[GrassDragon]

Sounds like your average chain letter:

it would be, you guessed it... THREE HUNDRED MILLION
What are we, complete morons?

As for if it'd actually work, I'm inclined to say no. It really won't reach that many people, and not everyone will follow along anyway.

[Nahotnoj]

I doubt it would work... as GD stated, the letter resembles your average chain letter, and it relies on the idea that everyone who recieves the letter actually reads it and sends it to 10 more people.

[Moser]

I doubt it would work... as GD stated, the letter resembles your average chain letter, and it relies on the idea that everyone who recieves the letter actually reads it and sends it to 10 more people.
True, but do you think the concept of the letter would work if it didn't completely depend on this chain letter, if it actually did get around to people.

[GrassDragon]

True, but do you think the concept of the letter would work if it didn't completely depend on this chain letter, if it actually did get around to people.
Yes, maybe. If this came in my email though, as soon as I started reading it and diagnosed it as a chain letter, I would just delete it. And I'm sure I'm not the only one like that.

[Mattimeo]

This couldn't work, not because people don't hear about it but because of how Exxon and Mobil do business. Time is money in today's world and Exxon and Mobil have their little speed pass thing on everybody's keychains. People will value their extra time saved by using the speed pass more than they do the cheaper gas they could get (not) from this plan. They'd continue to use their speed passes at Exxon and Mobil and the plan would fall apart.

~Don't Panic

[Kazansky]

Did someone say... GAS WAR?

http://www.aboutww2militaria.com/gas_masks/gas_suit.jpg

Heheheheh... of course, there's always the option of stealing the gas from the gas station, which can be easily done, actually. Just load up a container or two... or three... or four... and run like hell! Of course, y'all have to be wearing a ski mask and... bla bla bla.. It's been done in our town several times, I believe.

[Modred]

Wouldn't work. This email assumes that Exxon-Mobil does most of its business in the United States. Second, gas prices are much higher in Europe (around 5 or 6 Euros per litre in some places I believe), so any losses in the US would most likely be made up there and in other markets (such as Japan, which buys as much or more oil than the US).

If Exxon-Mobil stations have a large surplus due to something like this, they will simply sell their excess to other stations doing good business, so you end up buying Exxon-Mobil gasoline anyway, thus you are not hurting them. Most likely a large scale effort such as this would only drive gas prices higher, because fewer stations would be supplying to the same number of customers and the cost of retransporting the gas from Exxon-Mobil stations to others would add a few cents per gallon also.

[hammocksleeper]

Wouldn't work. This email assumes that Exxon-Mobil does most of its business in the United States. Second, gas prices are much higher in Europe (around 5 or 6 Euros per litre in some places I believe), so any losses in the US would most likely be made up there and in other markets (such as Japan, which buys as much or more oil than the US).

If Exxon-Mobil stations have a large surplus due to something like this, they will simply sell their excess to other stations doing good business, so you end up buying Exxon-Mobil gasoline anyway, thus you are not hurting them. Most likely a large scale effort such as this would only drive gas prices higher, because fewer stations would be supplying to the same number of customers and the cost of retransporting the gas from Exxon-Mobil stations to others would add a few cents per gallon also.

Good show, chap. :)

Btw gas prices always go up in the summer, they alter the formula in order to make your gas better in the hot weather.

[ChaoRayne]

nope it wont work, because quite a few of the people in the us are rich so gas prices dont bother them that much, plus if ppl font buy gas then how will they get places... -_- i still support tho, we need lower gas prices ^^

[xodkrm]

Hm...a gas war?
I guess its gonna happen SOME day...maybe in the next 10million years, i don't know, but its gonna happen some day when we run out

[Kabam]

Not possible. Isn't Chevron the biggest gas company...? Because it is in Oregon.