If big business is going to control the prices then we the people should control the demand!  We should boycott each major gas company one at a time for one month!  Start with which ever one we like shell, amoco, BP, speed way, or what ever.  We can send a message to them that we will fight the big buisness that runs this world by getting in their pockets.  Why do you think they are making record profits?  Price fixing? [-!-!-]                       [sniper]

I am involved in a movement to begin by boycotting Exxon/Mobil at the moment. Let everyone start there. They are the largest, and posted the highest earnings last quarter. 44% higher than last year same time.

I admire your spirit, but there's too much apathy. Try telling some of the local "homies" why they should buy gas somewhere else. Yah, right!

Are you an apathetic homie or are you going to boycott Exxon/Mobil?

I've been organizing a boycott against Exxon/Mobile in my community and I have about 80 "homies"  partcipating.


Wakebrdr your kind of attitude never gets anything accomplished.  So you're welcomed to sit on the porch.

quit the mobil exxon brand.arcos the place

I started riding my bike to work, why waste a couple of bucks on a gallon of gas when you can get a round of .50BMG instead.

All I know is if we dont stick together we won't get anything done.  It will take more than the ar15 addicts to do this tell everyone to post messages here so we can get it together.  If the prices keep going up and the unemployment keeps going up then we are all going to be in a world of shit.  My house was robbed once and it will happen more often if people are out of work and prices for utilities and gas are out of sight.

The hit-and-miss boycotts are not gonna work.  If you want to hurt the cash flow, you must do so over an extended period of time.

In order to make it work over a long time, you must reduce consumption.  This is the key.  The "majors" swap fuel and refinery capacity in order to keep themselves happy.

Unless someone can come up with a way to get me to work without buying gas, the oil companies are gonna keep getting rich.

Flame retardant suit on.  Stop driving those gas sucking SUV's.  Flame away!

That's a bunch of cr@p. Was Exxon/Mobil controlling the price of gas two summers ago when I was paying $.88 per gallon?

If you want to lower the price of gas, increase the supply... Drill more.

If you want to blame someone, blame OPEC. They are the ones in control of how much oil there is.

If you want to make a difference, tell the President and your congress critters to:
1. Stand up to the environmental wackos and allow more domestic drilling (off coast of FL, CA, TX and in Alaska).
2. Reign in the EPA and relax the regulations that prevent the big bad oil companies from building new refineries.
3. Reduce the federal, state and local taxes on gasoline. The taxes comes to about $.65 per gallon in my VA county (and that doesn't count superfund and other environmental fees).

Exxon/Mobil makes about $.03 to $.07 per gallon (check their year end reports). Your gov't gets 10 to 30 times that amount.

As to ar15sniper's comment about why they are making record profits:
1. It takes 6-9 months for crude to be refined, put in the pipeline, moved to a holding tank, sold to the station, moved to the station, priced and sold to the end-customer.
2. If the price to the customer goes up in that timeframe, the oil company gets a windfall (increased profits). If the price goes down, the company takes a beating (decreased profits).
3. The oil companies don't set the price... You do. The price will be as high as the demand allows. If the price is too high, the customers will buy less and the oil companies will have a backup at the refineries (they would then have to lower the price). If the price is too low, the oil companies will run out of product and will not have enough.
4. The price is set based on the total amount the oil companies can produce vs the amount that consumers will buy.

Which ever company you buy from, you are still contributing to the overall demand.

Boycotting the companies one at a time would be futile b/c they will know that the business will come back around when the next company gets boycotted.  BTW, how responsible is OPEC for the gas prices vs. the petroleum corporations?

I just have one or two things to add to this conversation.

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Nuff said?

SAMHAIN44

I agree with the sentiment, and definately think that if consumers pulled their heads out of their asses long enough to look around, it [I]COULD[/I] work.

However, even on this board, there are PLENTY of people who can't part with the $35.00 to join a pro-2nd Amend. group, so the thought of them actually bothering to "inconvenience" themselves by avoiding the major petrolium companies ain't gonna happen.

Like another post above stated, as long as apathy prevails, we ALL lose.

MrP understands how it works!
Heck I live in East Texas boys and at one time we kicked butts and took names with all the drilling we did...Now all the wells are capped and producing nothing!
I know for a fact that most (about 70%) of the "Other brand" gas stations...(Conoco,Amoco,Chevron etc,etc,etc) in this area BUY THEIR GAS FROM THE SAME PLACE in Beaumont and it is from Exxon/Mobil!
So how is a boycott gonna work? It will not work! Just get ready for it to get a little worse before it gets better!
8 years with no Energy Policy cannot be fixed in 3-6 months it will take a while.
I think everybody should buy stock in the gas companies and buy them a SUV!
Lynn   [heavy]

Yea, go ahead and boycott the "big oil companies".  Why not join HCI and the rest of the liberals instead and save everyone here the hot air.  You're playing the liberals game since that's what they want you to focus on.

Liberals hate big oil companies and love Big Government.  MrP and BigDozer are right, the real enemy here is the government: federal EPA, taxes, state and local taxes, etc.  

You think that big oil is making a profit, multiply the daily gallon usage and multiply by +.45 per and see how much government is getting and they don't have to drill, refine, store or deliver it.  Rush is right: its the government that's causing the price of gas to go sky high.

Flame on.

Merlin

Why increase domestic production?  Use up the Arab's oil so we'll have our domestic supply when it counts.

High fossil fuel prices encourage conservation.
High fossil fuel prices encourage research into alternate fuel sources like fuel cells, stirling engines, wind, solar, etc.

Alternate fuel sources reduce damage to the immediate environment, reduce damage to global ecosystem, and reduce reliance on imports (the sunshine in California is as good as the sunshine in Saudi Arabia; the wind in Iowa is not inferior to wind from Venezuela).

The only drawback to high fossil fuel prices is a little inconvenience to our personal pocketbooks today.  Whining over it is the very height of selfishness.  And while I am no fan of intrusive governments, the EPA is probably the grandest organization the US has ever produced.  I think they do great things.  

And I cheer every time gas goes up.

BattleRife
Hoping  for $3/ gal by the end of this summer.

Battlerife is right.  I drive a Ford F150 so it hurts me worse than most others.  Right now special intrests control fuel prices and prohbit alternative fuel programs.   There is technology out there to help ease the fuel consumption problems and help the environement.  It's all going to run out one day and we will all be screwed if we don't find other ways. Like it or not, we need to find other ways to get around.

I've been doing my part lately.  Instead of filling up each time at the pumps, I only put in $20 worth.  

Roy D Mercer would say that it won't be long and it will cost you $100 to fill up yo car! By Gawd it ain't funny boy!
Lynn

People will tell, you that the U.S. pays less for gas than any other country. This is true, but don't tell me that 6 months ago when the price was $1.30 that now there's suddenly a oil shortage and now the price is around $2.10.
It all boils down to the oil companies,OPEC, foreign and domestic abusing the prices, because they know we need gas and will pay for it as there is no other way around it.
The only thing we can do is buy gas for a few cents less at the discount stations like Speedway or Clark and not buy from higher priced stations like Shell, Mobil or Amoco.
Or try buying a few large 5 or 10 gal gasoline containers and filling them up while the prices are still low and use them as reserves when the prices get higher. Just store them safely away.
I never thought it would happen, but it is now cheaper to shoot and maintain my AR15 and other firearms than it is to drive my car.

MrP is right.

Unfortunately, a majority of you have bought into the liberal media's lambasting of the oil companies because they are "price gouging."  How ridiculous.

The problem is quite complex, but here are a few of the major problems (and it's not the oil companies' faults):

A) The EPA has gotten the reformulated gas initiative inacted...with a majority of U.S. Refineries unprepared for the major re-tooling required to bring them online for RFG.  This is the main source of the supply problem...and you can thank Bill and Al for this.

B)  OPEC has cut back delivery, at the request of Bill and Al...YES, they actually asked for it 14 months ago because they wanted Russia and Mexico's oil exports to have a higher value so that they could pay back the bad loans made to them by the U.S. (yet again, Bill and Al).  That's right...we give out a bad loan, and the American people are the ones who pay it back in higher prices.

C)  EPA and environmental idiots (and their willing accomplices in the media) have slowed down our drilling in the U.S.  The answer is supply, not conservation alone.

Also, I want to dispell yet another myth about "fossil fuel" and the shortage of oil.  Saudi Arabia ALONE with its CURRENT WELLS has enough oil supply to support world demand for the next 50 to 70 years!!!  That is without any new drilling on existing reservoirs.

Want an example from Kuwait?  A friend of mine was an onsite consultant for Kuwaiti Oil Company before, during, and after the Gulf War.  We all know how Saddam burned thousands of wellheads that burned uncontrollably for over a year.  Kuwait basically sits atop a single reservoir system, so all those wells with uncontrolled release of gas and oil affected the same reserve.  Guess how much pressure the reservoir lost after 18 months of unrestricted let-off?  LESS THAN 1 PSI OF PRESSURE!

People, let's just stay calm.  People in Europe pay $2 a liter always.  Let's just work on getting rid of ridiculous RFG requirements, drilling restrictions, and confiscatory taxes (don't forget, you are being taxed on your NET paycheck after taxes).

Sorry for the vent...

There is an effort to boycott Esso/Exxon worldwide,

I'll try and post the links
Lets all support it,
Pick them off ONE by ONE
there are tens of thousands already boycotting Esso/exxon

Just pass by the esso/exxon station and goto chevron or shell, lots of people already doing it,
tell others

I have seen alot of different opinions here but the bottom line is record profits and higher prices goes hand and hand.  I don't want all my money going to a greedy government and big buisness.  The oil companies have a monopoly people can't just make there own gas and for the jerk that agrees with the tree huggers here is a little something to suck down.  Corn is fuel!!!! cleaner burning more power and it keeps growing every year.  That is not a new discovery, who is stopping that from being used?? Maybe someone that might loose money because people arent buying gas.  

ar15sniper,

Ethanol (corn fuel) is not a viable fuel option for a variety of reasons.

1. Ethanol does not and can not exist in the quantities that are necessary to meet the demands of consumers. There is currently no way to produce billions of barrels of product at a competitive price.
2. While ethanol can run small engines for short periods, the real need is for a fuel that can power trucks and trains (i.e. diesel).
3. There is currently no infrastructure for the production and distribution of vast quantities of ethanol. Current pipelines are specifically constructed for the distribution of petroleum. I have no doubt that the pipelines could be re-tooled to carry ethanol, but that would be of considerable expense.
4. Read above for any currently producible “alternative fuel”.

It's not some vailed conspiracy by the oil companies that keep alternative fuels from coming to market. The fact is that we have a system that works at in cost effective manner. There is ample supply of petroleum and an infrastructure that supports an efficient/cost effective distribution to the end customer.

Until the supply of gasoline is so scarce and the cost so high that the expense of other fuels makes financial sense, “alternative fuels” will remain a dream.

By building additional petroleum refineries, drilling domestically, and reducing taxes we can keep the price of energy low enough to continue the highest standard of living and greatest freedom of any people in the world.

If you are so concerned about the oil companies profits, then buy their stock. The profit that a company makes is directed to its shareholders (after it pays expenses, salaries, R&D, and of course those black ops that keep the alternative fuels in the closet) [:)].

An old texan once told me:

"If it ain't broke... Don't brake it..."

I think that works for our alternative fules discussion.

Our gas prices have dropped from $1.609 to $1.579 since Wednesday in East Texas.
Our local news does a poll daily of the cheapest gas "around". The winner was $1.469 in Goodrich (65 miles) and next in Livingston (45 miles) from Lufkin.
What kind of genius would drive 1.5-2 hours round trip to fill up with gas...Only a yellow dog liberal arse democrat who blames GWB for catering to the "BIG OIL" companies.

When I buy a car, clothes, food, shoes, AR's, pistols, magazines etc, etc, etc...I do not buy the cheapest crap that is available...And I don't buy the cheapest gas that there is either.

Don't buy into the liberals calling for GWB to get involved with the gas prices...That is "BIG GOVERNMENT" not less government.
My $.02 worth.
Lynn    [heavy]