05.15.07
national boycott of gasoline to protest high prices?
www.UrbanLegends.com
Comments: Wrong, wrong, wrong.
1. There was no nationwide "gas out" in 1997. There was one in 1999, but it didn’t cause gas prices to drop 30 cents per gallon overnight. In fact, it didn’t cause them to drop at all. Despite the popularity of the email campaign, the event itself attracted scant participation and was completely ineffectual.
2. There are over 205 million Internet users in the United States, far more than the 73 million claimed.
3. If, say, a hundred million drivers refused en masse to fill up their tanks on May 15, the total of what they didn’t spend could amount to as much as $3 billion. However, it doesn’t follow that such a boycott would actually decrease oil companies’ revenues by that amount, given that the average sales of gasoline across the entire U.S. is under $1 billion per day in the first place.
4. Whether the total impact was a half-billion, 3 billion, or 10 billion dollars, the sales missed due to a one-day consumer boycott wouldn’t hurt the oil companies one bit. Think about it. Every single American who doesn’t buy gas on Tuesday is still going to have to fill up their tank on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, making up for Tuesday’s losses. Sales for the whole week would be normal, or very close to it.
A meaningful boycott would entail participants actually consuming less fuel — and doing so in a sustained, disciplined fashion over a defined period of time — not just choosing to wait a day or two before filling up as usual.
