Do you want to lower gasoline prices? Do this.

Do you want to lower gasoline prices? Do this.

BOYCOTT Exxon/Mobil gasoline stations. Do not buy gasoline nor get your car repaired at Exxon and Mobil gasoline stations.

Do you want to lower gasoline prices? Do this.

BOYCOTT Exxon/Mobil gasoline stations. Do not buy gasoline nor get your car repaired at Exxon and Mobil gasoline stations. Yes, Exxon/Mobil corporation has donated heavily to the Republican Party. Call a local Exxon/Mobil station and demand they call the company executives and demand they get the price of gas down to $1.50 a gallon and that you will not patronize them until gas goes to that level. You can then at least buy somewhere else until the Exxon/Mobil gasoline station owner operators get the financial pressure and put pressure on the company executives.

I said the stations. This will pressure the station owner oprators to call the company executives to lower the prices.

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•  Sorry, but

  This is futile.  You must have escaped all the mass emails over the past year and a half from well-meaning souls like yourself, urging the same sort of boycott.  It doesn't work, the economies of scale just aren't there.  Oil companies buy and sell gas from each other, anyway, so limiting demand to only certain brands will, in fact, cause the price to rise at that given station.

  by Nancy in LA on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 09:06:27 PM PDT

  •  already there

    I've been boycotting Exxon/Mobil since Valdez.  Until they clean it up (which will happen about the time that GE clean sup the CFB's in the hudson, shortly before hell freeeze.

    Pretty tricky, too, since I use the NY Thruway all the time, and Mobil has a monolopy at most rest areas.

    by green in brooklyn on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 09:13:03 PM PDT

•  Want lower gas prices?

  Drive a more fuel efficient car, take public transit, or ride your bike.

  Boycotting one station, one day, one grade, or one hour of gas won't do a damn thing.  The demand is inelastic.  It's not like boycotting new music (something I've been doing for years.)  If you dont buy gas from Exxon, you buy it from Shell.  If not from Shell, from BP.  If not on Tuesday, then on Wednesday.

  The supply is shrinking.  The only way to lower cost is to reduce demand.

  by BrodyV on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 09:20:04 PM PDT

  •  Damn straight

    This boycott for a week thing pops up in my inbox once a year, and I have to keep myself from leaping down the phone line and politely slapping whoever sent it.  Jebus.

    by RakDaddy on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 09:25:49 PM PDT

    •  especially

      when it's one of the top articles at snopes.com

      by BrodyV on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 09:28:56 PM PDT

•  perfect storm

  This is perfect storm in every sense.  There is a lot of blame but not a lot of gas.

  You can walk or bike, do it.  You can carpool, do it.  Plan trips very carefully.  Use the most efficient vehicle in the family.  Etc.

  Accidentally, this morning I was passing Mobil station and it posted 2.59 for regular gasoline, and across the street it was 2.79.  I guess I would buy some, except I was on bicycle.

  by Piotr on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 09:38:31 PM PDT

•  You're pressuring the gasoline station owners.

  I'm not telling people to pressure the oil companies directly. When you stop buying gasoline and not get car repairs at an exxon mobil statiuon you pressure the GAS STATION OWNER OPERATOR!!!

  Listen to what gasoline station owners will say:

  NO GAS? NO REPAIRS? waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

  I'm calling my oil company. Customers have rebelled!

  Lower the price to $1.50 a gallon so I can sell gas and repair cars.

  by buckfush777 on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 10:24:43 PM PDT

  •  Gas station owners make most of their money

    from CAR REPAIRS.

    by buckfush777 on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 10:25:21 PM PDT

    •  You're a complete idiot

      Along with this, why don't you pick a random supermarket chain and insist that they sell you a container of milk for fifteen cents? fter all, milk once upon a time did cost $0.15, so they must be gouging!

      In case you hadn't noticed, the world is running out of oil, and guzzling down a hell of a lot of the stuff. High demand and restricted supply equate to sharply increased prices.

      I can't effing stand self-described "progressives" who display a level of understanding of market economics which would be exceeded by that of a lemur.

      Do big oil companies gouge? They sure do. But to suggest that the differential between today's price and the $1.50 price is all gouging is utterly halfwitted.

      By the way, if you think that ExxonMobil care that their independent station owner/operators are in pain, you're sadly mistaken. The oil majors have been putting those poor schlubs through a relentless wringer for the last 20 years; in real terms, the station owner keeps less of the money which you pay for a gallon of gas than ever before.

      Try managing a station sometime, and ask to look at the books. You might learn something. And it's pretty evident that you need to do just that.

      And, by the way, where I live, station owners do not in fact make "most of their money from CAR REPAIRS". They make margin out of cold drinks and lottery tickets instead. There's a rapid and increasing segregation of the fueling and repair functions, and for good reason.

      I am an engineer. I'm also a mechanic. And I can tell you that modern cars have become incredibly specialized and difficult to service. The ability of a small general-purpose garage to do much more than change the oil or patch a tire is vanishing fast. Go sit an ASE auto technician's qualification exam sometime. You'll learn something from that, too.

      by marquer on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 11:18:50 PM PDT

    •  thans for the 1

      May I suggest changing your handle to "BUCKWIT77IQ".  Would be more appropriate.

      by HiD on Thu Sep 01, 2005 at 03:38:13 AM PDT

  •  sorry but this is stupid

    First Exxon is only 15% of the market at most.

    Second, you'll never get 100% of people to play ball.

    third, if net demand stays the same, no price drop.  Exxon can just dump extra gas into the very liquid market.

    The only way to get prices down quickly is to reduce demand.  Get everyone in the country to stay home for 2 days.  That's 18 million bbls of mogas or about 5X what has been lost so far in the NOLA area.  Then keep demand down by 10% for a month.  When the system is full of gas, prices will abate.

    by HiD on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 10:54:44 PM PDT

•  Get real

  OH please......this idea comes up in spam e-mails just about every day and do  you see ANY sign that it works.  People are creatures of habit...they buy gas at whatever local station appears to give a good price, or they pay very high rates because they buy into the ad hype that THEIR gas is special.  People may NOT buy at one brand station, but sooner or later they need gas and if Exxon or somebody else temporarily doesn't get a sale, another gas company will.  It all evens out.

  Part of the problem with energy is that both this administration particularly, and much of our country in general, has its head up its ass when it comes to energy conservation.

  Instead of encouraging fuel efficiency and the purchase of fuel efficient vehicles, we reward mammoth vehicles with tax breaks and do everything we can to avoid actually calling on the auto industry to improve its fuel efficiency fleetwide.

  People buy Hummers and then complain that they have lousy gas mileage.

  We do everything we can to sabotage mass transit including Amtrak.

  And then we all stand around and blame the oil companies and the Arabs.  Go look in the mirror idiots.....you waste energy like nobody else in the world, despite warnings that the world's demand for energy is almost equal with our total output.  Even a small glitch in the energy network could be a major problem.

  Well the glitch is here with Katrina and it ain't minor.  Reports that at least five and maybe 20 or more oil platforms in the Gulf are destroyed and/or missing and each of them had from 4 to over 100 wellholes.   8 of the nation's overworked refineries are out of service and not clear  how long before they can be restored.

  Serious concerns that the skyrocketing cost of fuel could push several of the nation's airlines into bankruptcy within weeks.

  People clearly beginning to curtail other expenses and reduce non-essential travel to pay for rising costs of energy which could have a serious negative impact on the economy.  That weekend trip to the wine country becomes less a fun time and more a costly option and tourist related business suffers.

  You can lash around trying to find someone to blame, but the plain fact is we love our big cars and today, we are our own worst enemy.

  by dweb8231 on Thu Sep 01, 2005 at 12:28:10 AM PDT

  •  I'd rate you a 4

    but the author has had his little hissy so it would hurt rather than help.

    It's amazing how gullible some people are.

    by HiD on Thu Sep 01, 2005 at 03:35:52 AM PDT