Copy and send this e-mail about Mobil and Exxon, take consumer action NOW!

[Sgt. Peppers]

Think about this when you take a trip. Interesting.
>Subject: gas,,,,,,,,please read n send,
>Join the resistance!!!!
>
>I hear we are going to hit close to $3.00 a gallon 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, 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 $1.97 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 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 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 may not be a
>mathematician. But I
>am ... so trust me on this one.)
>
>How long would all that 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!!! I'll bet you I 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.

_________________________________________________________________
Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee® Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

[meegbear]

1. Armchair activism usually doesn't work

http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/exxon.html

[WildClarySage]

2. See Snopes.com

for a thorough debunking of this.

[HFishbine]

6. Stupid, unworkable idea -- explained by Snopes

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/gasout.htm

A boycott of a couple of brands wouldn't result in lower overall prices: Prices at all the non-boycotted outlets would rise due to the temporarily limited supply and increased demand, making the original prices look cheap by comparison. The shunned outlets could then make a killing by offering gasoline at its "normal" (i.e., pre-boycott) price or by selling off their output to the non-boycotted companies, who will need the extra supply to meet demand. The only person who really gets hurt in this proposed scheme is the service station operator, who has almost no control over the price of gasoline.

The only practical way of reducing gasoline prices is through the straightforward means of buying less gasoline, not through a simple and painless scheme of just shifting where we buy it. The inconvenience of driving less is a hardship too many people apparently aren't willing to endure, however.

[truthspeaker]

3. copy and send it again?

It already made the rounds here two months ago.

[BlueEyedSon]

4. Sorry, debunked....

Claim: Boycotting a couple of gasoline brands will bring overall gas prices down.

Status: False.

Examples:

<snip, basically your email>

Oil companies can manipulate their prices somewhat by controlling how much gasoline they produce and where they sell it, but they can't alter the basics of supply and demand: prices go up when people buy more of a good, and they go down when people buy less of a good. The "gas out" schemes that propose simply shunning one or two specific brands of gasoline won't work, however, because it's based on the misconception that an oil company's only outlet for gasoline is its own branded service stations. That isn't the case -- gasoline is a fungible commodity, so if one oil company's product isn't being bought up in one particular market or outlet, it will simply sell its output to other companies:

Economics Prof. Pat Welch of St. Louis University says any boycott of "bad guy" gasoline in favor of "good guy" brands would have some unintended (and unhappy) results.

. . . Welch says the law of supply and demand is set in stone. "To meet the sudden demand," he says, "the good guys would have to buy gasoline wholesale from the bad guys, who are suddenly stuck with unwanted gasoline."

So motorists would end up . . . paying more for it, because they'd be buying it at fewer stations.

And yes, oil companies do buy and sell from one another. Mike Right of AAA Missouri says, "If a company has a station that can be served more economically by a competitor's refinery, they'll do it."

Right adds, "In some cases, gasoline retailers have no refinery at all. Some convenience-store chains sell a lot of gasoline -- and buy it all from somebody else's refinery."

A boycott of a couple of brands wouldn't result in lower overall prices: Prices at all the non-boycotted outlets would rise due to the temporarily limited supply and increased demand, making the original prices look cheap by comparison. The shunned outlets could then make a killing by offering gasoline at its "normal" (i.e., pre-boycott) price or by selling off their output to the non-boycotted companies, who will need the extra supply to meet demand. The only person who really gets hurt in this proposed scheme is the service station operator, who has almost no control over the price of gasoline.

The only practical way of reducing gasoline prices is through the straightforward means of buying less gasoline, not through a simple and painless scheme of just shifting where we buy it. The inconvenience of driving less is a hardship too many people apparently aren't willing to endure, however.

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/gasout.htm

[Viking12]

5. Errr, wrong answer!!

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/gasout.htm

"A boycott of a couple of brands wouldn't result in lower overall prices: Prices at all the non-boycotted outlets would rise due to the temporarily limited supply and increased demand, making the original prices look cheap by comparison. The shunned outlets could then make a killing by offering gasoline at its "normal" (i.e., pre-boycott) price or by selling off their output to the non-boycotted companies, who will need the extra supply to meet demand. The only person who really gets hurt in this proposed scheme is the service station operator, who has almost no control over the price of gasoline.


The only practical way of reducing gasoline prices is through the straightforward means of buying less gasoline, not through a simple and painless scheme of just shifting where we buy it. The inconvenience of driving less is a hardship too many people apparently aren't willing to endure, however."

[LeahMira]

7. Oops!!!

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/gasout.htm

... in case someone hasn't already posted it.

Hey... what's this about bringing gas prices down to $1.30 a gallon? I remember when it was .30 a gallon! I guess that's what they mean by "make the pie higher."