More Proof We Have the Government We Deserve

When I got into work this morning, I found that a friend had forwarded me the following:

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 $2.09 for regular unle! aded 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.

This was my response:

Please tell me this is a joke.

This isn't about ExxonMobil -- it's about oil prices (i.e., what oil companies like ExxonMobil have to pay for) going from $33/gallon six months ago to closing in on $60/gallon right now. It's about the rapidly growing industrialization of China and India rapidly increasing worldwide demand at a faster pace than in the past. It's about the greater difficulty (and higher cost) of extracting oil from the earth (all the easy oil has already been used), as readily accessible supplies continue to reduce over time (after all, oil is a non-renewable energy source).

What further amazes me is that the author completely rejects the possibility of consumers being responsible for demand. How about people walk when the place they're going to is less than half a mile away? How about people stop buying their SUVs so demand goes down? Sounds like the author's attitude is that they'll have to pry the keys to my SUV out of my cold dead fingers.

On top of the basics, there's the obvious point -- if you boycott one company, you increase demand on all the others, and drive their prices up. So you end up paying even more for gas than you would have without a boycott. It almost makes me wonder if the original author of this piece works for another oil company.

Sorry to go off like this, but the feeling of entitlement to cheap oil sickens me. Oil prices are going to go inexorably higher because of demand and supply -- that's basic economics. The way to slow (because over time you won't be able to stop) the increase in those prices is to reduce demand, not switch our allegiance to different oil companies (when they're all acting the same).

Feel free to pass this e-mail along to those you sent your e-mail to (or not, it's completely up to you).

My friend did forward my e-mail to those she sent the first e-mail to, as well as the person who sent it to, with an apology for not reading the original item carefully before sending it along. It'd be nice if the person who forwarded it to my friend does the same, and passes it back to the other people she sent it to, and back up the line, repeat as necessary.