Don't Pump on April 15th

Why does it say gas is nearly $1.20 a liter? What country uses a dollar sign and the metric system? Must be Canadian.

But anyway, this is a good idea. I would like to protest gas by never buying it again, but what are you gonna do?

 

It's actually worse out by me. It's getting nearer to $1.30/litre.
That title is horrendously misleading..

 

Sure worked great if it's at the prices we have now.

 

Did Speculation Fuel Oil Price Swings? - 60 Minutes - CBS News

What is the boycott going to accomplish? Not much you can do.

 

yeah i thought it meant pump iron, so i was like naw i gotta get swoll. but if its gas then i can participate

 

Seriously... whether you buy gas today, or gas tomorrow... they still make the same amount of money at the end of the week. People need gas to get to and from work. If I need to gas up twice a week, I'll still spend the same amount of money.

The only effective way to hit them in the pocketbook, is for everyone to switch to public transportation or everyone car pools for a week... or month. Only morons think that this one day of not fueling their cars will have any effect.

 

I'm not sure this is gonna actually accomplish that. But, i guuuueessss I can not pump for a day, just for you Scopey =]

 

In the first place, this Facebook event is identical to chain emails sent out practically every year. There are ones from 1999 all the way to the present.

Spoiler

Wow, guess what? Neither of them did anything.

The Great GAS OUT of 1999 - Netlore Archive
Don't Pump Gas on May 15 - Gas Boycott - Urban Legends

For those who have not taken economics, there's this theory of supply and demand.

Spoiler

When supply rises, prices generally lower. When demand rises, prices generally rise. When supply lowers (artificially in the case of oil) and demand rises, we get a steep increase in price.

What we have in the case of OPEC is a significantly-large group of oil sellers who regulate prices in their favor: upwards. What we have in the case of well-organized boycotts is a significantly-large group of who consumers band together to try to regulate prices in their favor: downwards.

Besides price, these essentially unionized buyers and sellers also will try to create sociological effects; notably, OPEC is infamous for banning oil trade to America to influence the outcomes of Middle East conflicts.

The main reason that this single day protest will not work is simply because it's only on a single day. Even if every single American refused to fuel up on that day (in all likelihood, a vast minority), they will fuel up - and it will probably turn out to be within a half a week. This is enough to make up for any perceived loss in profits for that one day. It isn't as if every day, Americans need to go to the gas station. A truly effective boycott entails the long-term decrease in demand of the product. A day is not long-term.


You know what would be a better way to remove OPEC and its member countries' stranglehold on the price of oil? Remove the thirst. Stop using foreign oil at all. Invest in other sources of energy, preferably ones that America actually has sovereignty in accessing - clean coal, natural gas, and oil deposits (particularly in ANWR, but don't bring out your environmentally-friendly pitchforks and torches; it's just something to note). Oh yes, and the "renewable" alternative sources of energy as well (e.g. solar, wind, geothermal, etc.).

But honestly, that's not happening in the near future. As much as some individuals want to assert their independence from corporations, they are inevitably tied to them; not out of a lack of any other option, but because the other options are too hard for them - and ultimately, people are too lazy to truly change*.



*As a preemptive response to people who say "We are changing, look out our development in renewable energy technology!", this is only when other options become less difficult compared to our current option. Practically every time OPEC creates sanctions against us so that we cannot buy oil, we freak out and start reinvesting in renewable energy sources. Predictably, every time these sanctions are lifted, we stop caring. Too expensive in the short term. But in the long term, we'll be dead.





TLDR, this is stupid and won't work.

 

Well said, few people look at the socio-economic state of affairs regarding fuel consumption. Most people just say, "why don't we use our own oil", or all buy electric cars and such. The most movement that has ever been accomplished in the "alternate fuels" front was during times of very high gas prices. And I mean very high.

In the late 1970's and early 1980's the first fuel efficient cars started to be made and a lot of money was thrown into alternate fuel research. That soon stopped when oil prices sank after the embargo was lifted by OPEC. The United States then went on a truck spree. Now comes mid 2000's. Oil prices begin to rise again, in some areas past $4.00 a gallon. Truck sales stall, and it is a rare event to see a hummer on the road. A lot more money is thrown into alternate fuels research and we get more horse power electric cars, hybrid cars, hydrogen fuel cell research, and ethanol research, out of it. An enactable plan is actually starting to emerge. Prices then drop again and people resume spending on trucks and gas guzzlers, (not hummers, but still).

And this process is just going to repeat itself. As long as gas prices settle back down, which they always do, there will not be the driving need to resort to alternate fuel. It sounds like a no brainer to use such methods if we have the technology but it is actually much more expensive to create the infrastructure around those changes than it is to buy the oil from OPEC. Ethanol stations would cost billions to install all around the country. Hydrogen fuel cells, also billions to put in any serious amount of cars and they do not have the horse power that fossil fuel has.

So while best intentions should be followed, the issue is definitely not black and white.

 

I don't see why the government won't use domestic oil. Supposedly there is just as much oil under Indiana as the is under Saudi Arabia, just in smaller pockets, and at this point it may be cheaper for everyone involved to go for those small though expensive to find pockets rather than the forgein oil that has had it's prices artifficially raised.

 

You'd think so but no. Intercontinental drilling within the United States is the smallest % of our oil and it is insanely expensive to both survey possible oil sites and to set up drilling platforms that will not harm the environment, because any oil site located in the continental USA would have to be at least somewhere near a population center. Most of our domestic oil comes from off-shore drilling in the gulf or drilling in Alaska. That oil still takes a lot of money to refine and purify which is why we export it to Japan or other countries who cannot get their own oil. Surprisingly, getting our oil from foreign markets is still much cheaper than it would be to use our own. Europe has prices upwards of 5 to 6 dollars a gallon, so don't think the USA has it rough

 

Was just thinking that. All it does is cause the economy to slow down and hurts more than it helps. Let me explain something strange about saving/spending money.




Here is what most people think;

Spending money has short term benefits. You get something in turn for your currency.
Saving money has long term benefits. You can get bigger and better things and have more money.

Here is the reality, from a more global aspect;

Spending money has both immediate AND long term benefits for both you and the entire economy. It stimulates growth and helps promote the flow of money, which is what creates a good economic system. This leads to more jobs, better pay, more money for the government to spend on running a country, etc.
Saving money benefits ONLY you, and only until you spend the money. Meanwhile it hurts the economy, attacks companies bottom line's and forces them to cut back on spending (aka pay their workers less, lay off, or buy cheaper materials... I dont really want a car made out of plastic and mud tbh so that sounds terrible) and starts an economic pitfall.




I'm basically saying that the MOST LIKELY outcome of this is an immediate drop in gas prices, followed about six weeks later with a huge increase and layoffs. In fact, I would be willing to bet that less than a year after that strike back in '97, gas companies saw a HUGE increase in profits because they had to cut back in time for everyone to start buying again. Less spending and more income? Sounds like the total opposite of your goal.


Ecoyoyo Out <3

 

I pumped...

 

This "protest" is actually relevant largely only to a specific province in Canada, so I'm not sure exactly how people on facebook are spreading this further. I'm not sure about the US, but a few years ago when gas was up to $1.50 a litre (that's $5.70 a gallon) the government decide that it would "regulate" gas prices. However, this regulating gas prices turned into somehow gas costing more than a dollar a litre in many provinces and people seemed to forget that it hadn't been that long since gas was .80 cents. The regulation of gas prices consists of gas prices only being able to shift on a certain day, in many provinces every Tuesday. Thus, you can't have gas skyrocket five cents a day for a week, it now magically take two or three weeks for it to get that high.

PEI, the province this was originally directed at regulates gas prices only twice a month, the 1st and the 15th of every month. So PEI hasn't been hit with quite as massive of a shift yet as the rest of the country has. So originally their hope was that if everyone boycotted buying gas, the prices would shift so massive.

Apparently someone took this and turned it into a national protest..

Regardless of this not working, I buy gas like once a week so it's nothing for me to take part in this. Something has gotta give when it comes to gas soon.

 

I know the gas stations near me are charging close to 3.50 a gallon. Which is extremely high and I cringe every time I have to buy gas and that's not all! It's supposed to go near the four dollar mark more towards the summer, which makes me want to smack someone.

 

I'm not gonna fill up that day.

But I definitely will the day after. And that's what the gas companies know.


$3.57 at the moment, can fluctuate by like 10 cents within the day too :/

 

On the 15th, if you drive an suv, do your part by crashing into another suv.

 

Petrol in the UK is forecast to hit £1.50 a ltr which works out at $2.40 a ltr. Its a disgrace. I have a 2.0Ltr GTi which I can barely afford to run at the moment