<rant>
Email to someone I don’t even know who has been spamming me with chain letters.
Date: Sun, 13 May 2007 09:57:50 -0400
To: ————-
From: Leslie
Subject: I’m blogging this. Thanks. Re: Gas WarDid you write this in crayon? Or worse, did someone else write it in crayon and you merely forwarded it because you liked the big purple letters? You obviously didn’t think this through.
If you do this you’ll drive the price up at the other gas stations…
- because most Exxon-Mobil gas stations are privately owned by local merchants, not by Exxon-Mobil
- because unbranded gas stations usually buy from the big oil companies, including Exxon-Mobil
- because when BP and Citgo and Hess and Lukoil stations run low on gas they’ll buy some at an exorbitant price from Exxon-Mobil
- because the small stations also increase their prices according to supply and demand – they have to make a living.
Consumers don’t call the tune in a capitalist society. Deal with it. The producers do and they employ sophisticated marketing strategies based upon well-established behaviorial psychology techniques to do so. Psychology in the US has been focused on predicting the actions of large numbers of people, and of MANIPULATING them. You don’t get to decide what you want – you buy without thinking why you prefer one brand over another. And you forward junk mail with the same lack of thought.
The real answers to the problem are too hard for Americans. Bicycle. Take the bus. Get a hybrid vehicle. Don’t use electricity from oil-burning power plants. Instead, set up solar panels and wind turbines to generate your own electricity, using commercial nuclear power as a backup only.
Let’s see… an food industry executive is an expert on the oil industry? What’s his name again? And the Halliburton engineer – knowing how to crack petroleum doesn’t make you an expert in Microeconomics.
According to Snopes.com, the Gas Wars email you sent me has been circulating since 2001. You missed the May 15th boycott by 6 years.
Who are you and where did you get my email address?
Leslie
</rant>
At 08:13 PM 5/8/2007 -0700, you wrote:
Date: Tue, 8 May 2007 20:13:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: ————————-
Subject: Gas War
To: ———————In addition to the Gas War set for 15th May 2007, here is something else we all can do ..jdowney01@GAS GAS WAR – an idea that WILL work. This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton.
It’s worthy of your consideration.
Join the resistance! I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a gallon by summer and it might possibly go higher! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea,
This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the “don’t buy gas on a certain day” campaign that was going around earlier!
… and lots more of the same. Click the snopes.com link above.
Bad Behavior
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