Gas Boycott on Monday

First the prices of oil stocks will not fall because traders will simply purchase more call and put options contracts to keep the price high!!! Secondly Wall Street likes cheap oil in order to keep inflation and future wholesale prices throughout the entire economy low!!! Get a clue about Finance and how the capital markets work before posting nonsense. Oh BTW ExxonMobil's stock price has dropped 5% in the last 2 weeks!!! You people are idiots!!!!

who's "you people"? this doesn't seem like a typical indymedia-type post if you ask me, i.e....well, you know what i mean. what do other folks think?

Arbitrarily boycotting gas purchases 1 day per week is an inefficient protest. Supporting fuel-efficiency legislation, working with an alternative fuel organization, like the Berkeley Biodiesel collective, or volunteering to help the SF Bike Coalition (which is trying to get more bike lanes, reducing the convenience and necessity for car travel) next week on "Bike to Work" day would be a much more immediate and effective action.
Also, to Ayn Rand, if you're so smart, why do you have to stoop to name-calling to punctuate your reasoning. You cretin.

>Arbitrarily boycotting gas purchases 1 day per week is an inefficient protest. Supporting fuel-efficiency legislation, working with an alternative fuel organization, like the Berkeley Biodiesel collective, or volunteering to help the SF Bike Coalition (which is trying to get more bike lanes, reducing the convenience and necessity for car travel) next week on "Bike to Work" day would be a much more immediate and effective action. <

Um, are boycotts and what you're talking about mutually exclusive? I don't think so...

bn

Ride your bike
http://www.berkeleycriticalmass.org/

Its all about supply and demand. If we had other forms of fuel that we could use then yes, it probably would work.
Boycott will not work, your wasting your time!.
Ride a skateboard or get a bike..

Hmmmm, the day I have to ride a bike or skateboard to work is the day I don't need that job. I wonder what would happen if people didn't go to work one day a week, in protest of the gas prices; think they would fire everyone???? Unemployment office would be mighty busy; wonder where they would get all the money to pay everyone. What kind of turmoil would that cause? I wonder...
Gas boycott; any chance is better than none; that's what I think.

if people boycotted gas on monday, wouldn't they just make up buying the same amount on sunday or tuesday? wouldn't the same amount of gas be sold overall, i.e. same demand? or couldn't they just raise gas prices every day except for monday, and all the non-activists will make up for the boycott loss by buying all their gas on mondays?

yeah, boycotts and radical alternatives aren't mutually exclusive, but do we really have that kind of time/energy to waste on something that really won't accomplish anything? if I can figure out how to solve the "boycott problem", chances are the professional plunderers will too.

plus, i'd rather not give would-be environmentalists an easy, useless way to alleviate some of their guilt....maybe if it has a chance to fester a little longer, who knows? REAL alternatives!

Boycotting gas on Mondays will be a beginning, but we need to do more. Using our bikes, car pooling, taking the bus, perhaps not putting gas in our cars 2 days out of the week, going to work and school 4 days out of the week, etc. This will only work if the whole country does it not just a few of us.
There is power in unity and together we can bring the gas prices down. If we don't do something about this soon, I am afraid things will only get worse. The worse thing about this is that there really isn't a reason for the oil prices going up. The war and the problem with the middle east is being used as an excuse, but the truth is that the answer is a political one and a way to make a buck and they (government) will get away with murder if we let them.

This particular gas boycott had strange and nasty bedfellows that I hope people were aware of. The right wing groups were big on this one...and it had nothing to do with lessening our dependence on fossil fuels in general...More with vaguely 'punishing the arabs', and encouraging invasive drilling elsewhere, or doing whatever is required simply to lower prices They of course care only about the bottom line $$$...

Talking about alternatives, why not Alcohol? I don't know exactly what the mix was, in Brazil they have Alcohol as one of their fuel options at gas stations, and when I first got there the prices for it were about half of what gasoline cost. Plus it's a fully renewable fuel, coming from plants.
I've heard that some places/companies are working with Hydrogen fuel cells, but I say the more options the better, because that increases the competition so companies would have to fight for their customers. Kinda like the fast food chains do, which resulted in the wonderful dollar menus.

HEMP . . . this is our answer to everything . . .paper . . energy . . . oil . . . etc etc etc . . . No harm to the environment and we can produce as much as our crops will allow.

This is a very complicated issue and can't be resolved in three paragraphs. I will try to be succinct in this comment. I support a gasoline boycott. Gasoline prices have been arbitrarily set for many years. The prices we pay in the Bay Area have typically been far higher than the rest of the nation, including Southern California. The difference cannot be explained by difference in taxes or polution control requirements because Southern California has the same taxes and requirements as Northern California.

The world is going to run out of fosil fuels in a relatively short period of time, but there is no shortage at this time. We should be searching for alternatives as well as reducing our consumption as individuals and as a nation. But in the meantime, the oil cartels and oil companies should not be filling their pockets with BILLIONS of dollars of unearned profits. Don't think the entire price increase is going to OPEC. Look at the profit statements of any oil company. Their profits are increasing at an unprecedented rate.

We have no choice but to buy gasoline because we currently lack adequate public transportation and other alternatives. A one day per week boycott will not hurt the pocketbook of the oil companies. Nor will it increase their supplies because their sales will go up on the days before and after.

The only effective way to boycott the oil companies is to select the two largest companies and refuse to purchase from them, 24/7 until their prices reach a reasonable level. It is my guess that if the citizens of this country truly unite, this could be accomplished rather quickly.

The oil companies say they are only practicing free enterprise, which is to say they can charge whatever the customer will pay. In free enterprise we expect enough competition to stop greed from taking over an entire industry. But when a cartel that controls a major portion of the supply colludes to withhold the product, prices can be artificially raised above free enterprise levels. Our government is supposed to monitor vital industries to curtail this with laws that are currently on the books. Don't expect help from either political party. Both parties are highly financed by the Oil Companies.

We must make it clear that we will not allow the cartel to attack the world economy and hold us hostage in this manner. If the two largest American distributors of gasoline suddenly stop buying from the cartel because they can no longer sell enough gasoline, they will be better able to negotiate with the cartel. These companies will have to find other ways to cut their costs or the boycott would put them out of business. They won't let that happen. Thus the prices could be lowered to a reasonable level.

if i snuck across to mexico, would they give me a driver license for their country. How 'bout health care ? just wondering....

Nobody knows that http://www.DarkMonday.com is the website link to the boycott. Pass it around ;