Oil Boycotts

Looking through my myspace bulletins the other day, I ran across one of these beauties....

Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a
gallon by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down?

We need to take some intelligent, united action. This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that keeps circulating. The oil companies just laugh at that because they know we won't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It is more of an inconvenience to
us than a problem for them.

This is a plan that can really work. 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. Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN.

THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

Normally, I ignore this kind of economic ignorance, but I couldn't let it go today. Just frustrated I suppose. So I answered as short and to the point as possible.

Won't work. Oil is fungible. You stop buying gas from exxon, they sell their oil to other oil companies and those companies will charge you more for higher demand.

To be fair, she actually wrote back and said...

thats weak....thanks for the info. i'll deleted the bulliten

Now, I'm not sure 100% sure what she said, but I think she may have figured out where she was wrong.

I wish people would think about the consequences of their actions before blindly telling other people to do things.