If you are sick of gas prices, read this there is somthing we can do!

[Wackston]

Consumers have the power.
We as consumers have the power to control gas prices, but we have not used it.
Gas companies think that they can raise gas prices as high as they want, and we will pay it. Have you noticed that they always raise prices before holidays, and summer vacation. Then after the prices come back down, Is oil less plentiful during these times, or are they price gouging? If you are looking for the government to step in and help, don't hold your breathe, they make more money in taxes when prices are high. Some experts say we are paying as much as 30 cents a liter more than we should. We as consumers can control fuel prices by choosing where we purchase our fuel.

I encourage every consumer to boycott Esso/Exxon/Mobil for a period of 1 year starting June 1, 2007.

When this company has to answer to the share holders why profits are down gas prices will fall. Other companies will lower their prices to compete. In this way We can control fuel prices.

Don't think it will work? Remember what boycotting Star-Kist tuna did to the fishing industry, all tuna is now dolphin free.

Please pass this along to all your contacts. Tell your friends and coworkers. Lets send a message to the big oil companies, We are mad as hell, and we just won't take it any more!

copy and paste this on as many messages boards and e-mails as you can,,, lets get the word out there I for one am sick of being bent over the gas pump!

[eric-the-red]

Not another one, if you want gas prices to come down USE LESS

[jeepxj89]

u realize that since noone will be buying there stock of fuel, they can just sell it to other companies and still make there money right? unless you want our gas to be dolphin free i dont think it will work

[SizzleChest]

dolphin enriched tuna tastes better.

[rez]

some how its sound logical but again, as soon as esso or whatever company reduce their price everybody will go back to them for gas, and again they will increase their price( by then everyone has forgot about this stike)

anyhow I never go to esso case of other reason (war and bla bla....)

[Wackston]

yeah you boycott them and buy from one of the other major companies ie. shell or cheveron,,, they wont be buying exxon oil,,, only the smaller companies will buy their oil

[mabb]

Nobody really believes that boycott BS, do they? All the oil companies sleep in the same bed, kiddies.
Oridnarily I don't buy Exxon, but right now it's the cheapest in 100 Mile so I will.

Use as little as possible and always buy the cheapest you can get.

But then I'm old, so what do I know? I remember being told in my youth that the world would be completely out of oil by now ... guess what? Didn't happen.

[Lone Ranger]

It'll never happen.. Until we completely run out of it then we'll still find a way to produce it synthetically. We're so oil dependant its completely unbelievable, but then again what other fuel sorce produces so many BTUs so cheaply and readily?

Just keep living your life, enjoy it to the best of your ability, and be happy we have some of the cheapest fuel for a 1st world nation. That, and buy a diesel. Its pretty hard to pass up a current $0.20/liter-ish lower price, all while you're getting better fuel mileage. LR

And that all being said, I'm heading home to drive around my gas guzzling 4WD gasoline pickup and I'll put another $60 in it to top it off, drive all over hells green (and wet from what I hear) acres, then top it off again before I park it. So there, I'm doing my part to burn out the planet and kill the environment just like everyone else, whether you like to believe/admit it or not..

[fishead]

Just read an interesting article by the New York Times. According to the below article, high prices are caused by fuel consumption being something people cannot quickly reduce. A small shortage in fuel causes a sharp rise in price because people are willing to pay a lot more before they reduce. Read the article for more info. The silver lining is that with so much profit there will be more investment, then more supply.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/business/yourmoney/20view.html?ref=yourmoney


THE average price of gasoline in the United States set a record last week — $3.10 a gallon, according to the Energy Information Administration — up a nickel from the week before and 15 cents from a year ago.

Like night follows day, politicians in Washington immediately vented their outrage. Standing in front of the Capitol Hill Exxon station on May 9, Democratic lawmakers announced bills to punish “price gouging” and the record profits that oil companies earned this year. “Gas prices and oil company profits are both at record levels, and consumers are left with no way of knowing whether they are being taken for a ride,” said Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington.

Ms. Cantwell and others planted themselves at the Capitol Hill Exxon just one year ago, for much the same purpose, and countless other lawmakers have staged similar events over the years whenever gasoline prices have climbed sharply. But if the oil industry is so powerful, why did it let gasoline prices fall through the floor throughout the 1980s and part of the 1990s?

For that matter, why did it let gasoline prices fall sharply after they spiked in 2005 and 2006?

Many Democrats, and a much smaller number of Republicans, remain convinced that there is a villain.

One freshman senator — Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania — has introduced bills to tax the “excess profits” of oil companies when oil sells for more than $50 a barrel.

On Wednesday, the Joint Economic Committee will hold a hearing titled “Breaking Up the Oil Companies” and ask whether consumers have been harmed by industry megamergers like those of Exxon and Mobil, Chevron and Texaco, or Conoco and Phillips. “It’s just an instinct, but my instinct is that the lack of real competition in different phases of the oil business could be causing longer-term problems,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and chairman of the joint committee.

On Tuesday, the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on investigations plans a hearing into evidence of possible price gouging and other market manipulation by oil companies.

The chairman of that hearing will be Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan, who has introduced a bill that would define price gouging as a price that is “unconscionably excessive” or that “indicates the seller is taking unfair advantage of unusual market conditions.”

Ms. Cantwell, on the Senate side, has introduced a similar bill. But the two bills suffer from vague language that would probably prove agonizingly difficult to enforce. Both bills would instruct federal investigators to look for a “gross disparity” between prices before and after a supply emergency, without defining “gross”; or prices that represent “unfair leverage or unconscionable means” by a fuel supplier during an emergency, without defining “unfair” or “unconscionable.”

It goes without saying that gasoline retailers and oil companies will seek to maximize their profit, which usually means charging the highest price markets can bear.

But is that price gouging?

Because the demand for gasoline is what economists call inelastic, which means that people cannot quickly reduce their consumption when prices rise sharply, abrupt supply shortages lead to steep price increases without any immediate decline in sales.

The most common reason for such increases in gasoline prices is a steep increase in the price of crude oil. But crude oil prices are set in global markets, and even the biggest American or European oil companies are modest players compared with state-controlled oil companies in the Persian Gulf, Russia and Latin America.

Even the mighty Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which defines itself as a competition-limiting cartel, has only a limited grip on world oil prices. OPEC countries watched helplessly as oil prices plunged in the early 1980s and remained mired below $20 a barrel for most years (excluding the time of the Persian Gulf War in 1991) through the mid-1990s.

It seems hard to believe today, but world oil prices briefly drifted below $11 a barrel in 1998. Not surprisingly, few lawmakers in Congress took that opportunity to denounce “unconscionably excessive” price declines.

The Federal Trade Commission has been skeptical about accusations of price-gouging on gasoline prices. In 2004, the agency studied price changes in gasoline from 1991 through late 2003. It concluded that about 85 percent of the price variability — both up and down — reflected changes in crude oil prices.

To be sure, this year is different. Crude oil prices are actually a bit lower right now, at the onset of the summer driving season, than they were at this time last year. But gasoline prices are slightly higher than they were a year ago.

The Energy Information Administration is predicting that crude oil prices will average about $66 a barrel this summer, versus $70 last summer. But it predicts that gasoline will average about $2.95 a gallon this summer, up from an average of $2.84 last summer.

INDUSTRY executives say the anomaly reflects a temporary drop-off in refinery activity, partly because of scheduled maintenance and partly because of unscheduled interruptions. On top of that come ethanol prices, which have soared, because refiners now blend a small percentage of ethanol into standard gasoline.

The broader issue is that refinery capacity has not kept up with American demand for gasoline. Oil companies, caught with vast amounts of excess refining capacity in the early 1980s, systematically reduced capacity during the long lean years when energy prices and profit margins were the pity of Wall Street.

In theory, the allure of fat profits will attract heavy investment in more refinery capacity. And John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute, told reporters last week that oil companies have indeed been investing heavily in recent years.

But Congress could face an entirely new quandary in its desire to expand the use of renewable fuels. President Bush has called for producing 35 billion gallons a year of alternative fuels — from cellulosic ethanol to coal-based diesel — by 2017. Congressional Democrats might be even more aggressive.

If that’s the plan, will oil companies want to invest in more refineries? “You’ve got to ask whether the demand will be there,” Mr. Felmy said.

[Dan]

Well I guess I'm part of the solution since I never buy fuel from Esso/Exxon/Mobil

Its not on purpose though, I use Shell to get Airmiles unless I'm out of town then I use SuperSave to get the discount

its all about saving money, follow the gas truck sometime and realize that theres one truck serving five different gas stations.

[Burnabyburnout]

HERES some Info to Help to find cheaper gas. www.Gastips.com

[overthetop]

Also if you forward this to everyone in your contact list Bill Gates will forward you $10,000! Honest, my sister got a cheque for 22,497!

[Dan]

Also if you forward this to everyone in your contact list Bill Gates will forward you $10,000! Honest, my sister got a cheque for 22,497!


You dork, you don't get a cheque for $10000, you get an all expense paid trip to disneyland

[Moose good]

Actually, I had a friend who DIDN'T forward it. He aged a full decade over the next ten years......believe it or not !

[overthetop]

You dork, you don't get a cheque for $10000, you get an all expense paid trip to la-la-land


Fixed.