Rolling Gas Boycotts

[none]

Have any of you changed your driving habits because of gas prices? I haven't and don't plan to. At least not at this time. But I have to tell you, about some of the things that I continue to hear. One of my favorites is "Gas is 5 cents cheaper over on the east side". So they drive to the east side to fill up. Now, I'm a do the math kind of guy. Just to use round numbers, let's say;

$3.00 a gallon 30 miles to the gallon. That's 10 cents a mile for fuel.

Drive 10 miles to the other side of town, buy 20 gallons of gas, save .05 per gallon total savings $1.00 Drive 10 miles back to the house. Round trip 20 miles @ .10 fuel per mile, total spent on gas $2.00 But they will tell me over and over that they saved money going to get gas at that station.

The other good one is "We're not going to the lake this year, we just can't afford the gas." From my house it's about a 300 mile round trip, and again using round numbers, let's say,

The truck gets 10 MPG pulling the boat, it's 150 miles one way. That's 15 gallons of gas to get there, and 15 back. If gas went from $2.50 to $3.00 a gallon the price of the trip has gone up 15 bucks! If you figure a dollar increase then it now costs $90 where it used to be $60. If you can't afford thirty bucks extra for a weekend of fun, you should sell the boat.

And these people go to Starbuck's and spend $6 on some special coffee drink. If they spent $1.50 on plan coffee, that would be the financial equivalent of 30 gallons of gas a month.

Alan

 

[Kelly]

I have a 13 gallon tank. I can't see going out of my way to save .03 or even .05 per gallon. So I save .39? Or best case scenario, .65? I don't think I'll sweat it. Oh, sweat it....fraudian slip! An extra 5-10 miles makes my A/C run even harder, thus reducing my fuel efficiency.

 

[Toejam]

Same as me, I have a 10 gallon tank, so even .10 difference is just a difference of a $1.

 

[mike cummings]

I think you're a little confused Jackee, Chevron isn't owned by Venezuela, they are headquartered in San Ramon, CA, and was originally known as Standard Oil of California. I think you got Chevron mixed up with Citgo

Valero is another string of gas stations that is owned by Venezuela that should be avoided.

 

[HEMI6point1]

I have a 13 gallon tank. I can't see going out of my way to save .03 or even .05 per gallon. So I save .39? Or best case scenario, .65? I don't think I'll sweat it. Oh, sweat it....fraudian slip! An extra 5-10 miles makes my A/C run even harder, thus reducing my fuel efficiency.

The "A/C makes you use more gas" myth is just that - a myth. Edmunds tested a Chevy Tahoe on the freeway and the difference when using the A/C was negligible at best.

It's a good thing as down here in FL driving without A/C is pretty much an impossibility! There are many times I will have to put the A/C on full blast, lock the doors and go back inside my house for 5 minutes, otherwise my car is an oven!

 

[Kelly]

I disagree. I drive in the heat and humidity for 9-10 months a year. I have tested it many times. I get 3 mpg less when I run the A/C. BUT, keep in mind I have a window cracked for my 'breathing treatments'. I quit smoking for almost a year and regularly got better gas mileage without the window cracked.....I kid you, not.

 

[yoda]

I disagree. I drive in the heat and humidity for 9-10 months a year. I have tested it many times. I get 3 mpg less when I run the A/C. BUT, keep in mind I have a window cracked for my 'breathing treatments'. I quit smoking for almost a year and regularly got better gas mileage without the window cracked.....I kid you, not.

Ah, the wonders of aerodynamics, huh Kelly?

 

[Too many to list here]

I just park the F-150 and the Duster and drive the Mazda.

 

[Don]

URL: KnoxNews: National
Boycotters full of gas
By JAY AMBROSE
May 9, 2007


The Internet is a powerful tool, and we may get some inkling of just how powerful when May 15 rolls around. That's when there's supposed to be a nationwide boycott of gas stations. If it comes off -- if millions and millions steer clear of the pumps -- we'll know that an organizing effort via e-mail, Web sites and chat groups produced extraordinarily successful results.
But because the premise of this boycott is that U.S. oil companies are greedy, exploitative and conspiratorial, we will also know that these millions of our fellow citizens haven't the slightest notion of economic reality.

The thesis of the boycott organizers, or at least those I have encountered, is that the oil companies can set just about any price they want and are now getting unbelievably rich at the expense of all us poor slobs who either have to pony up what's demanded or walk to our various destinations.

It's a narrative that just about anybody can grasp because it makes the world oh so simple. You see, there are bad guys and good guys, and if the good guys will just stand up for themselves, they can bring the bad guys to their knees.

Now there are in fact some known, open conspirators, the OPEC nations that attempt to control the flow of oil to also control the prices so vital to their own economies, but after that, it gets more complicated. These nations have a powerful influence on supply, and that is crucially important to prices. Also important is demand, not just here, but around the world and especially in China's emerging economy.

The U.S. companies have virtually nothing to say about this. Especially since they are cut off from vast fields of oil in Alaska and offshore, they have a meager impact on total supply, but do have to adjust to world prices because if they don't make something quite a bit higher than their costs, they grow ever punier and risk going out of business.

If you look at what they are making in absolute dollars, it may make you cringe, but if you look at their 10 percent profit margins -- the difference between all their costs and their revenues -- you will find they are making a lot less than many other industries, such as chemicals and computers.

Could they get by with something less than that? They could try, but they desperately need to make money to attract investors and to undertake their expensive, risky operations when they can because they so often make far less profit and put much back into their operations. Over a period of two decades, columnist George F. Will has pointed out, ExxonMobil invested more than it earned.

If the planned boycott really reduced demand significantly over a prolonged period of time, it could bring prices down, but it won't. Most people who participate will likely make up their one-day avoidance of gas stations by buying more on previous or later days. The less dramatic but more certain way of bringing prices down is to alter driving habits significantly over the long haul, cutting out much of what is nonessential. The fact that this isn't happening more than it appears to be is a signal that as high as oil prices have climbed, they haven't climbed higher than what many people feel they can afford.

Of course, the oil companies could get scared at public anger and damage themselves and the prospects of further price-reducing discovery of new oil resources by intentionally lowering their profit margins. This would serve the nation poorly. It could ultimately have the opposite effect of what the boycotters seek.

What the Internet organizers should focus on instead is persuading environmental groups to drop their opposition to drilling in places where it is now inexcusably prohibited. They could also demand lower gas taxes and an end of mandated use of costly ethanol. Not everything gets solved that way, and you can argue the gas taxes are needed, but all this would make more sense than the goofy tactic of a gas-station boycott.


(Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado. He can be reached at SpeaktoJay(at)aol.com.)

Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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Copyright 2007, KnoxNews. All Rights Reserved.

 

[DrRocket]

True bottom line, minus all the hype, hysteria, and political bullcookies?

If you want to see lower gas prices:

USE LESS GAS!

It is THAT simple, folks.

 

[Jenn]

True bottom line, minus all the hype, hysteria, and political bullcookies?

If you want to see lower gas prices:

USE LESS GAS!

It is THAT simple, folks.

Unfortunately, for some, it's NOT that simple. I try not to make special trips for anything. If I have to go somewhere, it's usually at least two stops and the more the better. I still put well over 300 miles a week on my car.

I live in an area where mass transportation is poor at best, there is a rail runner station 6 miles south of me, but most of my work is at least 18 miles north, and the RR only runs twice a day until demand for it rises.

 

[mick]

from what i've heard here in MN the retail markup on gasoline is diminishing
to the point where convenience store profits come more from in-store products
than gasoline/diesel sales.
The store i purchase my gas from, i pay with a credit card and also have a
.03 off per gallon 'discount card' that this store participates in.
The store manager told me their fee for my credit card payment along with my .03 per gallon discount leaves maybe .01 or nothing for profit.

 

[Nitrohaulic]

True bottom line, minus all the hype, hysteria, and political bullcookies?

If you want to see lower gas prices:

USE LESS GAS!

It is THAT simple, folks.

That's not guaranteed to work, either. I've heard for years that one reason gas is cheaper here than say, England, is the volume we refine and use it in. I believe the price of a barrel of crude is the price of a barrel of crude. Everyone in the chain has to eat. If you're selling 10 million gallons a day you can afford to make a lot less per gallon than if you're selling 10,000. Based on that, even if the boycotts WOULD effect the bottom line, they'd just change something ABOVE the bottom line so that the bottom line would come back, such as the PRICE they sell it for.