I received an email today with the subject line, “No Gas On May 15th”. Hmmm, I though perhaps it was another tribute to the shooting / massacre at Virginia Tech (see OneDayBlogSilence.com). Ok, I thought that was a silly idea too, but I’ll bite. Oh no, it was even better. It was about forcing the oil companies to lower gas prices. Nice! The email content is below:
Don’t pump gas on MAY 15th
In April 1997, there was a “gas out” conducted nationwide in protest of gas prices. Gasoline prices dropped 30 cents a gallon overnight.
On May 15th 2007, all internet users are to not go to a gas station in protest of high gas prices. Gas is now over $3.00 a gallon in most places.
There are 73,000,000+ American members currently on the internet network, and the average car takes about 30 to 50 dollars to fill up.
If all users did not go to the pump on the 15th, it would take $2,292,000,000.00 (that’s almost 3 BILLION) out of the oil companies pockets for just one day, so please do not go to the gas station on May 15th and lets try to put a dent in the Middle Eastern oil industry for
at least one day.If you agree (which I cant see why you wouldn’t) resend this to all your contact list. With it saying, ”Don’t pump gas on May 15th”
After reading that I scratch my… ummm… head and think to myself, “That doesn’t really make sense to me.” Let’s put this into perspective. Say I’m driving to work. Yeah, I know I work from home, but this is a hypothetical situation so bare with me. I notice that my gas guage is down to an eighth of a tank. I better stop and get some petrol. But wait! It’s May 15th, I can’t. I’ll have to get it tomorrow. Do you see the problem here?
To just not buy gas on one day out of the month is ludicrous. If I drive my vehicle the same amount during the month of May, then I’ll be using the same amount of gas and therefore just shifting the day that I purchase that gasoline to a different day of the month. Wouldn’t it be a better campaign to say…
“No driving on May 15”
If that were the case then the gas and oil companies would truly lose profits during that one day and would be forced to lower prices. Possibly. Then again I believe a lot of the controlling factors of gas and oil prices are not only impacted by supply and demand as one might think but a lot of it is controlled by futures marketing of investors who actually buy and hold “shares†of oil and speculate on when they can get more money for it. The cost is also controlled by environmental factors such as war and natural disaster. Anyway, I’ve done a little reading on the matter. Just enough to know that it’s a very complicated economics system and far above my head.
Here are links to a couple of articles from the Federal Trade Commission on the subject:
– Pipelines: Interstate Highways For Gasoline
– World Events And Crude Oil Prices: How They Affect What You Pay At The Pump
Of course as always you can just Google it yourself and see what turns up! Try doing a little research and you’ll be amazed at what you find. 🙂