Lower Prices?

We have all received them, the e-mails begging us not to buy gas on a certain day, or not to buy gas from the "big guys" or "bad guys" in order to get gas prices to come down. If we all pull together and drive by the Exxon station in favor of the smaller lesser known gas station we can bring the gas companies to their knees and lower prices because the big evil gas companies are driving the market. I recommend any of you go to snopes.com and read the analysis of this claim. We have come to become a society where if it shows up on the internet it must be true. I shamefully admit I have fallen for this more than once. The Exxon/Mobile email starts A Coca-Cola executive came up with this one and was supported by an employee of Haliburton. This lends the credence to the news letter. The snopes analysis of this sounds much more plausible because gasoline is a fungible commodity just the opposite would happen. A smaller gas chain which does not have the supplies available to meet such a demand for fuel would turn around and have to buy its petrol from whoever has the supplies available which would be the boycotted station and could and would most likely have the reverse effect, instead of driving prices down, it would drive prices even higher than the market normally would.

Face it folks, the only way to change the gas prices is t affect the basic law of supply and demand. Supply and demand is the immovable force in the economics world. The tighter the supply and the higher the demand the higher the price. The larger the supply and the smaller the demand the prices go down. However as a society we do not want to be inconvenienced, we just want the prices to go down. We still drive our big gas hogs and the amount we drive has not changed any, if anything it has gone up in a lot of cases.

We do have options though, but it involves pulling in our belts a bit and some minor inconveniences. Rather than boycotting a gas station where it would hurt an innocent retailer in most cases rather than a big oil company. We change our driving habits. My family definitely has. Rather than driving the 2 1/2 hours to Quincy to get my daughter at college for holidays and weekends, we drive to Dover which is only 1 hour away and she takes the bus from Quincy to Dover. While a little inconvenient in relation to times the bus runs, it saves fuel as well as my time on the road and a reduced amount of tolls I have to pay. My wife and I are looking for a new vehicle for her, instead of the minivan she drives we are looking for a more fuel efficient car. To many people are joined at the hip with their gas guzzling SUV's. They don't want to drive any less either. We all want the other guy to suffer for gas prices rather than ourselves. It kind of reminds me of the quote from General Patton which states "we don't win a war by dying for our country, we win the war by making some other poor bastard die for his country" This will not work in the war on prices folks. we have to sacrifice ourselves in order to make the oil suppliers sacrifice. Mobil and Exxon do not control the prices either. Yes to some extent the Arabs do control the prices in the form of the cartel of OPEC but we have the power also.

Rather than going away on vacation explore the things your local area has to offer, museums you have not been to, historic sites you have always been meaning to see. How about exploring your own back yard? Rather than running to the store every day, can you either plan your shopping a little better? or do without? How about using a bicycle more? or walking more and these would have a few more more pleasant side effects like getting rid of the spare tire around your middle. I know I have rather than getting in the truck and driving somewhere t do something a little mindless, I dusted off my snowshoes which I hadn't used in ages and went out in the woods with my dog this winter, it was fun educational, and exhilarating.

Face it folks the only way to affect gas prices is to sacrifice ourselves take public transportation when you can. Do without when you can, and conserve when you can we will all become a little less dependent on oil and maybe discover a little more about ourselves in the long run. One less flight a year, one less car trip a week, turn you heat down a few degrees in the house, and your air conditioning up a few degrees. I moved my thermostat from 68 to 64 degrees this winter and drastically cut my oil usage, you can do it also.

Can yu imagine how much oil we could save in this country if every driver was able to cut out even only 2 gallons a week and every building was able to use 1 gallon less of heating oil per month?