Would this be a viable option for forcing gas prices down?

Question

Quoting from a post by Tyrus: "... I am taking part in the nation wide internet suggestion of discontinuing to purchase gas from Exxon and Mobile, given that the one day boycott of buying gas failed to have an effect on prices, it's now known to be wise to take one oil company at a time thus shut them down by not buying gas or other products from their stations."

Marenight: I'm afraid you're probably right.

Answer 1

Comet,

I don't know if 'shutting down the oil companies one company at a time' is a sound idea - even if it could be done! Some of the thousands of people working for oil companies are wealthy. Some of the mutual funds and such that invest in oil companies are doing well. BUT: if you could force a company to close would it affect: security people? administrative (clerical) employees? truck drivers? building janitors? window washers? data entry people? gas station owners and their many, many low-wage employees? How about the low-income elderly that rely heavily on the returns from mutual fund investments? All sorts of folks would suffer. The 'battle' to pay back the 'rich oil companies' would sure decimate the ground-level workers that must have week-to-week work just to survive. I will opt out of that action.

Answer 2

We Americans have enjoyed low gas prices for many years. Although we consider the current rates to be high, it's still one of the lowest in the world.

Answer 3

I'm afraid it wouldn't work, all it would do would be implement a monopoly by whichever company was left standing. Unless, of course, we're all going to quit driving our cars, and using our a/c and heat, and all the other things that oil fuels...

Answer 4

I am going to be honest with you. I don't think that there is one thing that we can do to make the gas companies lower there rates.

Answer 5

i guess we won't know unless we try