How to reduce the price of gas by several Dollars/Gallon

Are you sick and tired of having to pay more and more of your hard earned money for gas?

Did you get one of these nice SUV’s when they were offering them with huge discounts, 72 months financing, employee pricing?

What about all the other things that seem to get more expensive daily? Are you ready to shout and find someone to blame?

I know how you feel. I just bought 2 apples for my wife for $3 and they weren’t anything special. The same purchase last years was about $1.49. Also, for the first time since I own my car (which only allows 16 gallon per filling) I actually reached the $75 limit at the gas station before the tank was full.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a big fan of protecting the environment, recycling what we can, and finding new technologies for the future, like Hybrid cars and hopefully soon, electric cars.

What makes me angry is the story of inevitability we are being fed every day. The government says that it isn’t in the business of regulating free enterprise. Ok- but why would you then allow the oil companies to keep tax benefits when they make more money than ever?

The oil companies say they can’t do anything about these insane prices because the oil is traded on the world markets and they only buy it for the barrel price the market dictates.

Actually, that’s not really true because these same oil companies are the ones that pump the oil out of the ground. Do your really believe the Saudis invented their own systems? No, they brought in the western companies, just like the Iraqis are doing now, the Kuwaitis did, the Mexicans did, even the South Americans.

In some cases, especially South America, the socialist governments decided to nationalize the equipment after the fields were ready to produce, but they didn’t come up with the technology.

Lately Congress, the oil companies, consumer advocates, politicians, and anybody else you can find have begun blaming the speculators at Wall Street for the high price of gas.

There is probably some truth in all of these arguments and taking it all together brought us ever closer to $5/Gallon.

So what will happen next? – I bet the prices will keep going up until somebody finally takes action and stop the robbery of the customer at the pump.

I assume while you reading this you are probably nodding and asking yourself who this someone is going to be?

Well, let me tell you. It’s you and me and good old fashion demand-and-supply.

Why is it that we are very aware of demand and supply, getting told about it every day, but accept that it doesn’t really apply when it comes to getting gas?

In my town and many places I visited around the country and actually around the world, there are several gas stations, but curiously, gas is always priced within a few cents of each other, no matter where you go.

We are paying the same if the gas is pumped in the Gulf o Mexico or the California Coast, basically on our doorstep, as we do for the gas that comes here all the way from Saudi Arabia. How is that possible?

I tell you how. The oil companies don’t consider us, the consumer, in the pricing. They look at every aspect, from taxes, to transportation, to refining, to sales volume of the gas station owner, but not at you and me.

Economy works best when the product that gets the most sales has an advantage over the one with the least sales. – Sounds familiar? Sounds like Economy 101?

Yes it is. So what we need to do to force some change for the prices at the pump is being selective.

In reality every expert will tell you that the quality of the gas you pump is so similar across all brands that it doesn’t make a difference if you choose Shell, Exxon, Mobile, Union 76, Citco, BP, or any of all the other brands. In the vast majority of cases it doesn’t even make a big difference if you get regular or premium (your engine might run better and smoother, but it would run with regular if you let it)

If we want to take back the influence we can have over gas prices at the source of sale, I suggest to avoid pumping any gas from any of the largest station, like Shell, Exxon, Mobile, Texaco, and BP. Typically within a few miles you will find plenty of other choices.

I am sure if we all stop getting gas from the biggest oil companies they will start asking themselves what happened. Quickly they w ill realize that the consumer is getting gas at other places. I am sure you agree that they still want to sell us gas and make the Billions of dollars of profits, so they will have to start competing.

When they lower prices, we can all switch to them and force the rest to review their prices, and so forth. Only when we take back our power as consumers will we have some influence on the prices. We can do that through conservation and jumping on new alternatives as they become available. In the mean time, let’s only get gas from the little guys and leave the tanks of the large oil companies full.

I am telling my more than 3000 readers here today. If you forward this idea to everybody you know (typically about 50 – 100 people) and they do the same, we will have millions of consumers by the end of next months taking back their power over gas prices.

I am sure that will change the prices. Supply and demand has always won over foreigners, speculators, currency fluctuations, and whatever other reason they throw towards us. I hope you join me in this effort and tell as many people as you can about it.

Axel Meierhoefer, AMC LLC