Sensible Gasoline Boycott

Howabout all Prius owners siphon gas at night from SUV owner's month?

h34r:

 

Not really. You are advocating trying to subvert market forces to prevent Exxon from selling it's gas. You can't accomplish that unless you plan to boycott Exxon and reduce consumption by an amount equal to their production. If consumers continue to consume the same amount of gas, then they will still be buying Exxon's gas. It will just be bought from someone else.

That's a whole lot different from driving past an Exxon station to the one down the street because the one down the street is charging $0.20 less per gallon. That's exactly the way free markets work and that will lower Exxon's price.

You propose not buying gas from Exxon, even if they lower the price or even give it away for free. Since gasoline is a limited resource and other oil companies wouldn't be able to make of the difference, they would have to buy gasoline from Exxon to meet demand.

But lets say, for the sake of argument, that you succeeded in preventing Exxon from selling their gas. That would be a temporary effect at best, because prices at other gas stations would sky rocket and the pumps would run dry. Why? Because without Exxon, the oil industry doesn't have enough gas to meet the demand. So, when Shell starts selling gas for $7 a gallon and the gas stations start running out of gas, how long do you think it would take for consumers to decide to go across the street to that Exxon station that has full tanks and cheaper gas? And do you really think Exxon would be still selling their gas at $2.59 at that point?

It's horribly unrealistic.

So, go to the station with the lowest price. That will keep the higher priced companies in line. Along with that, reduce your demand. That's the recipe for success.

 

i agree. people will naturally go to the cheaper gas station. i believe most brand loyalty in the gasoline business is dead. eventually the higher-priced station will drop prices to match other stations. as far as i know, most gas stations are actually required to keep prices at or below the levels of their competitors. don't quote me on that, it's been years since i knew anything about gas station business practices.

here in the med center area of town, gas prices are all the same no matter what company is selling. nearer to my house, they're higher, but still all the same. across town, same thing. what mediates prices is locality.

 

Actually, I think the press has done a good job of doing precisely what is being suggested. Newspapers everywhere are printing the "Exxon 9B Profit!", you can bet that headline alone is going to cause many people to drive by the local Exxon station who are now thinking, "greedy bastards!" notwithstanding any rationale.

 

If we were targeting BP or Citgo or 76 or Shell, I'd be in on it. But I don't use Exxon or Mobil, mostly due to location. That, plus the one lonely Mobil around here I tried a while back didn't seem to work very well MPG-wise. So they made all their profit without me anyway...

 

Nothing.

Society has become too complacent. We're easily sedated by television, computers, videogames, priuschat.com ( h34r: ) , etc. No one is going to start any serious rabble-rousing until it REALLY starts to hurt us in some way shape or form. I really cringe at saying this, but I think we've enjoyed relatively low gas prices for many, many, years (we became an SUV society right?), such that now, its time to pay the oil piper... We only started to bitch when gas approached/exceeded the $3/gal mark, what does that say? That our tolerance of gas prices is pretty damn high.

 

I hope gas companies gouge us even more.... say $5/gal. If they can sustain it.

Image....
more people working closer to home.

stop cruising around... I saw 5 prii over the weekend crusing the mountain roads near my house within 30 minutes because they find Prius cost less to cuise now...

more people taking public transportation.

more people moving to more fuel efficient cars... less gas guzzers.... :wub:


My point being... why the hate? This is a free market with the oil companies. Like many said, changing gas brands would not stop the market demand... we have to change the demand first.

If the point is getting cheap gas, new oil refinaries need to be built. The problem is no one wants them in their backyard.

 

I take it large numbers of the populace were FORCED to buy gas at Enron stations, that was priced much higher than competitors, Right ?

Because otherwise, this thread is nonsensical.

 

The only ones hurt would be the local Exxon dealer. If the stations were boycotted Exxon would find other channels for their product. The locals cannot exist on sales of milk and eggs or whatever else they sell. I am pretty sure that the locals make out okay whenever there is a shortage.

The oil companies really can't afford to store gasoline or any other oil product for very long so they try to set the price at the shelf clearing price when supply = demand. If people don't pay the price then it will come down.

Higher prices are incentives for the companies to get more oil through whatever means.

It acts as a fair rationing system since people will use less so there will be gas available for whoever really needs it. The companies make more profits but we still all have the gas we need.

We have seen a lot of consolidation within the industry which is usually an indiation that the industry overall is usually not that profitable.

Finally higher prices encourage investment in alternative energy sources.