Last year on April 30, 1999, a gas out was staged across Canada and the U.S. to bring the price of gas down, and it worked. It's time to do something about it again.
Only this time lets make it for three days instead of just one. The so-called oil cartel decided to slow production to drive up gasoline prices. Lets see how many Canadian\American people we can get to ban together for a three day period in April, NOT TO BUY ANY GASOLINE, during those three days.
LET'S HAVE A GAS OUT. Do not buy any gasoline from APRIL 7, 2000, THROUGH APRIL 9, 2000. Buy what you need before the dates listed above, or after, but try not to buy any during the GAS OUT.
If you want to help, just send this to everyone you know and ask them to do the same. We brought the prices down once before, and we can do it again.
Come on North America lets stand together. WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
Even if you receive this 100 times keep passing it around, this way you know everyone is being informed and no one will forget!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Origins: Although
it went into hiding for several years, the one-day "gas out" craze is back ? and with it a reminder that protest schemes that don't cost the the participants any inconvenience, hardship, or money remain the most popular, despite their dubious effectiveness. A one-day "gas out" was proposed in 1999, and a three-day-long event was called for in 2000, but both drew little participation and had no effect on retail gasoline prices because they were based on a flawed premise.
By definition, a boycott involves the doing without of something, with the renunciation of the boycotted product held up as tangible proof to those who supply the commodity that consumers are prepared to do without it unless changes are made. What the "gas out" calls for isn't consumers swearing off using or buying gasoline, even for a short time, but for them to simply shift their purchases by one day. The same amount of gasoline will be run through the cars of the boycotters during the "gas out," and the same amount of gasoline will ultimately be purchased by motorists (albeit some of it a day earlier or a day later). Because the "gas out" doesn't call on consumers to make a sacrifice by actually giving up something, the threat it poses is a hollow one.
Not buying gas on a designated day may make people feel a bit better about things by providing them a chance to vent their anger at higher gasoline prices, but the action won't have any real impact on retail prices. An effective protest would involve something like organizing people to forswear the use of their cars on specified days, an act that could effectively demonstrate the reality of the threat that if gasoline prices stay up, American consumers are prepared to move to carpooling and public transportation for the long term. Simply changing the day one buys gas, however, imparts no such threat, because nothing is being done without.
Moreover, the primary effect of the type of boycott proposed in the "gas out" messages is to hurt those at the very end of the oil-to-gasoline chain, service station operators ? the people who have the least influence in setting gasoline prices and survive on the thinnest of profit margins. As such, the "gas out" is a punch on the nose delivered to the wrong person.
News accounts from across North America about previous "gas out" non-events have documented both their low level of participation and their ineffectiveness:
Friday's gasoline boycott was an effort that sputtered, coughed, then died. Motorists continued to fill up gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles and trucks alongside smaller vehicles despite a one-day protest aimed to pressure oil companies to lower gas prices.
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The one-day boycott was loosely organized by World Wide Web surfers angry about gasoline prices in California. Fuel prices rose dramatically in March but stabilized [just before the boycott] and in some cases decreased.
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Although a gasoline boycott that began as an electronic mail campaign kept some drivers nationwide away from the pump, dealers say they saw little, if any, effect on their traffic.
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In Seattle, there were so many cars waiting to get into [a] Texaco station . . . yesterday afternoon that it caused a backup five cars deep into [the] right-hand lane.
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Reports indicated few motorists paid attention to a nationwide boycott touted initially by Internet e-mail and later by word of mouth.
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A planned nationwide boycott protesting the high price of gasoline didn't have much effect on local gas stations.
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"We were expecting something substantial," said Mark Johnson, the owner of a Chevron station. "We haven't really noticed much of a difference."
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Irving stations in sunny Halifax said the boycott had no effect on business.
"It's been busy as a bugger here," said Bruce Riley, manager of one station. "We haven't been busier in the last two weeks," added the manager at another Halifax outlet.
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Gas stations [in Ottawa] reported "busier than ever" conditions at the pumps on the day of The Great Internet Gas-Out.
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The owner [of a Chevron station near downtown Sacramento], Ross Relles, complained that gas stations are the wrong targets.
"Whoever is promoting this idiotic day, all it's hurting is the small retailers like me."
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Independent gas station owners say they raise their prices to keep up with the rising prices from suppliers.
"The high prices upset us, too, and the people usually get mad at us. But we have no control over it," said [service station owner] George Dekermenjian.
And, contrary to the claims made in the latest "gas out" exhortation, shifting one's purchase of gasoline by a single day will not jam up stockpiles and thereby cost oil companies billions of dollars:
[The "gas out"] was really sort of a hoot, because the initiative was so, well, American in that it didn't require sacrifice or inconvenience. Rather than urging a prolonged vehicle-use moratorium to emphasize consumer power, gas out organizers simply recommended not buying gasoline [on Friday]. This means overall consumption won't be affected, thereby accomplishing nothing.
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"If no one bought gas today, half would have bought yesterday, and half would buy today," said Scott Espenshade, the Independent Petroleum Assn. of America's chief economist. "That doesn't change the demand, it just moves it to a different day."
Oil companies, which run their inventories on a weekly basis, wouldn't even notice the change, he said.
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The trouble is, experts say it won't work, short of repealing the laws of supply and demand.
"It's all the same to the oil companies and OPEC whether you fill up on Thursday or Friday," says chief economist David Wyss of Standard & Poor's DRI in Lexington, Mass.
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Despite all the publicity, many economists said the boycott would do little to ease gas prices.
"It's a purely symbolic event that will have no real effect on the market," said Severin Borenstein, head of the Energy Institute at the University of California at Berkeley.
Gasoline is a fungible, global commodity, its price subject to the ordinary forces of supply and demand. No amount of consumer gimmickry and showmanship will lower its price in the long run; only a significant, continuous reduction in demand will accomplish that goal. Unfortunately, for many people achieving that goal would mean cutting down on their driving or opting for less desirable economy cars over less fuel-efficient models, solutions they find unappealing.
An event like a "gas out" can sometimes do some good by calling attention to a cause and sending a message. In this case, though, the only message being sent is: "We consumers are so desperate for gasoline that we can't even do without it for a few days to demonstrate our dissatisfaction with its cost." What supplier is going to respond to a message like that by lowering its prices?
Last updated: 13 May 2004
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