RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events E-Mail Won't Lower Gas Prices

Following Chain E-Mail Won't Lower Gas Prices, Experts Say

Is the high price of gasoline getting you down? Want to do something about it, but you're not sure where to start?

Well, don't turn to a chain e-mail that's picking up steam on the Internet. Experts say it's a waste of time.

The e-mail encourages readers to boycott Exxon and Mobil gas stations in an attempt to force gasoline prices down. It also calls for readers to forward the e-mail to 30 people in an effort to spread the idea exponentially.

"Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas," the e-mail says. "But we can have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war."

While it may sound like a good idea in light of record gas prices, don't be taken in: This is the third year that a version of this e-mail has made the rounds.

Snopes.com, which tracks urban legends and attempts to verify or debunk them, has posted the current e-mail and two earlier versions on its Web site.

Barbara Mikkelson has run the Snopes.com site with her husband, David, since 1995. She said she's never seen one of these chain letters succeed.

"We want someone to blame, someone to be responsible when things aren't going the way we want them to," Mrs. Mikkelson said.

But clogging the in-boxes of friends and relatives isn't the answer: She said there is no way to track the authors of these e-mails or determine where they began.

"Our position is that it's really not going to help the consumer," said L. Susan Stewart, a spokeswoman for AAA Ohio Auto Club.

Analysts say the problem with rising gas prices boils down to simple supply and demand. It isn't where motorists buy gas, it's how much gas is being produced and purchased.

The Energy Department said last week that average daily gasoline consumption for the month ended March 5 was 8.9 million barrels, up from 8.5 million barrels for the same period a year earlier. It's at a time when oil production and inventories are down.

With consumption on the rise and the price of crude oil at historic levels, the price of gas hit an all-time high Tuesday of nearly $1.74 a gallon nationwide, according to AAA.

The e-mail advocates a boycott of Exxon and Mobile gas stations until their prices drop to about $1.30 a gallon.

Exxon Mobil Corp. makes an easy target. The world's largest publicly traded oil company is coming off a year of record profits. It earned $21.51 billion in 2003 on sales of $246.74 billion.

But a boycott of Exxon or other stations could actually help drive up prices, said Patrick J. Welch, a St. Louis University economics professor.

A boycott would shift demand among suppliers, and those gas stations seeing a sudden increase in business could raise prices because of the additional demand and the need to buy more product.

Also, there's no guarantee that the stations being boycotted would respond by lowering prices, Welch said.

"I just don't see how it would lead to lower prices," he said.

File this under the "no fucking shit" category.

You'd think.

But I get this damn email every few weeks and, sometimes, from people who should bloody well know better (for example, an atttorney at the NYS Appellate Court once forwarded it to me--which might explain the sorry state of NY law).

So that's why I posted this.

Those emails annoy me. Of course there's always one or two people that send that crap out to me all the time. I always get the forward saying, "Forward this on to all Hotmail/Yahoo/AOL users or you'll lose your email address!" There should be common sense rules telling people that if they can't use their brains to determine what to forward and what not to forward, don't forward at all!

my parents send me shit like that too, but I love it when I get those "send this to 50 people and a video will pop up and say something funny! OMG I didnt believe it but I tried it anyway and its R3AL!!1!" but they only sent it out to like 10 people. or that one where you'll get $1,000 dollars for forwarding the email to test an email tracker. good times good times...

Are you guys getting that

"i am the high council's wife that fled and we're stuck in somegoddamweirdcountry and need you to help us invest funds" letter too?

i get a shit full of these. what utterly stupid people