If gas prices continue to rise, what can be done to drop prices?

Question

Even with all the boycott e-mails and such, still Americans seem to just pay the price?1 I know I for one, limit my driving because I just can't afford it. Is there any truth to these boycotts? Will they help? Why don't Americans as least try?

Answer 1

to tell you the truth....those boycott emails are nothing but dust on the floor of a museum....they dont care about it...because they are in control of the gas....and they say what they want to charge....people like us have no affect on them what so ever...

Answer 2

We have reached the end of the rope. Gas prices are going to continually go up for the rest of our lives. Demand has surpassed Supply. If we are not willing to pay what gas companies want someone else is. If gas companies are not willing to pay what oil sellers want someone else is. If America doesn't buy up all the oil then Europe and Asia will.

Bush hit the nail on the head when he stated we are addicted to oil. How much ground have we made stopping addictions? It doesn't look good.

To stop the flow of oil drastic measures would have to be taken. Here are a couple examples.

Make it illegal to operate a combustion engine within any metropolitan area with a population of 1 million or more. Urban areas could easlily operate with electric motors.

During off-peak hours dampen the electrical output to residential areas. The dampeners would have to be per house so as to regulate the electricity consumption per household. If the house has too much consumption they will have their own self-induced brown out. In addition do reducing overall consumption this would spark the interest in self-generating electricity.

Phase out the production of fuel based appliances then eventually ban them. Currently natural gas is cheaper than electricity but if more of the market was focused away from fossil fuels and towards non-petroleum electricity then they would be forced to develop new resources.

Ban the building of any more fuel based power plants. Forced to create electricity we will see an increase wind, solar, nuclear, hydroelectric, and geothermal power resources.

Phase out gasoline engines. First require hybrids and flex-fuel engines. Then a combination, a flex-fuel hyrid. Then eventually shift to ethanol only hybrid engines.

No more farm subsidies. Any unused land will be required to grow crop. The increase in demand for ethanol will make corn and sugar cane a bumper crop. If they can't grow either of these two then they can take up the slack with produce that the others have stopped producing because they are now producing ethanol.

These are all off the deep end and will never happen but if they did not only would the price of oil drop but our demand would fall through the floor while the rest of the world continues to answer to their addiction. The american based oil companies will still produce and make money but it will be foreign money flowing our way thereby increasing the value of the U.S. Dollar.

Imagine...

Answer 3

There are at least two main problems that I see with the boycotts : 1) the are not "advertised" enough meaning lots of times most people know nothing about them until they've already bought gas that day and 2) boycotting for a single day does nothing to a company that has billions of dollars of profits in a single year - profits after taxes, employee wages, millions of dollars in retirement plans, etc.
What would happen if people stopped buying gas from the large distributers? Initially we might pay more but these larger companies would drop their prices to get their customer base back up. I liked the egg story and the same applies here if you started going to a farmer who had chickens and bought eggs from him and lots of people did this the big manufacturing companies would reduce their price to get their customers back. The people must work together on solutions or the same will continue.

Answer 4

Well, the boycotts don't work, I think because everyone needs gas to get to work. So, they pay the price.
We as Americans should follow Brazil's lead and get completely off the grid. They no longer depend on oil.
Brazil's fuel is ethenol, made from sugar cane . We here could use the corn the government has farmers dispose of for one example.
I think we should seriously try, we would all benefit in the long run.

Answer 5

The only way a boycott will work is if people stop buying gas from the Largest Gas Suppliers. Shell, Chevron specifically, When the Largest companies sales start to drop they will be forced to lower the price. Supply and Demand theory at its finest. Buy from everyone else but Chevron and Shell. but be careful they also supply gas to other chains. Do this for the rest of the year and the prices will start to lower. The one day boycott does not work, it needs to be a long term conscious effort on all americans... Shell is redicilious, the refinery is in my County in Contra Costa County in Northern California sf bay area and we pay the most for Shell GAS. You can go to Idaho and pay 25-50 cents less per gallon. Last time I checked someone had to transport the gas to idaho, they can walk it to us in the east bay. but we pay more, and they pollute our air, pollute our rivers and waterways, just so we can pay more per gallon than the rest of America!! Capitalizm at its finest!!

Answer 6

The only thing that I know about is what's written in those chain emails. They say that what we are supposed to do is boycott a specific type of gasoline station because they import the gas from other countries and if we boycott them then they will need to reduce their rates. Then I also hear that the prices are from the chemicals they are putting within it. I don't know, I agree with you it is absolutely ridiculous. The cost for everything else is rising now due to the transport costs.....grrrr.........

Answer 7

I think that the boycotts don't work because for the most part the oil industry really doesn't care what you, the individual consumer, thinks. They are an incredibly powerful force with huge advertising and lobbying front to persuade the consumers and the lawmakers that they are not doing any wrong. A president without ties to the oil industry might help, as would someone seriously embracing alternative energy ideas.

Answer 8

the government can release some oil from the stragetic reserve, they can impose a price ceiling on the prices, they can threaten to impose economic sanctions on the oil producing companies. americans must pay the price because of our oil dependency. even if america didnt drive for a day, the ecnomy would take a huge hit because most goods are delivered by truck, which run on gas. there is no truth to the boycotts because the oil companies make so much money that not paying for gas one day will not really hurt them, to us it sounds like a huge amount of money but to them, its really nothing. also, people have to buy gas everyday. people commute, truck needs to get shipments in. so, we just have to grin and bear it and hope that the prices go down.

Answer 9

Why not just boycott one oil company, the largest, most crooked one of them all. ExxonMobil would be the one. If everyone would stop buying their product, they would be forced to substantially lower their price, causing all the other companies to lower their prices. I don't buy from them because of the blatant price gouging that they have been screwing us with. Read the news, they report that higher oil prices equate higher gas prices at the pump, but they posted a record profit for ANY US company in history!!! Then they really werent made to answer up to their very apparent raping of the average American!!

Answer 10

No, unfortunately, the boycotts won't do anything. This is simply because these one-day boycotts are usually bookended by spending gluts: nearly everyone who participates in them will either fill up their tank the day before or the day after.

The only way to get prices to go down (and this is S&D at its most basic) is large-scale, long-term usage reduction. For example, if noone used any gasoline for six months, tthen we would see a drop in prices.

Answer 11

We people have been spoiled by potential of gas expenditures that are below in the different u . s . a .. rather than attempting to get the fee of gas to drop we ought to constantly each and each objective to diminish our very own gas expenditures. it rather is a lots greater effective long term answer, for the two your wallet and the ambience, than delaying your gas purchase by potential of an afternoon (which may be the consequence of lots of the chain-mail boycotts) locate undemanding techniques to minimize your guy or woman using. Carpool or use public transportation if it rather is accessible on your section. attempt to be useful once you run errands, so which you at the instant are not using in circle or going decrease back to the comparable place each and all the time. force an power useful call. in case you do no longer survive snowy mountain street possibilities are high you do no longer must be using an SUV. using a hybrid automobile ought to cut back your gas rate in 0.5, yet even some conventional autos are turning out to be almost as useful.