Political Gas

I recently wrote an email to some friends in response to someone's suggestion that we all boycott Exxon/Mobil in order to drive gas prices down. I figured that, since I haven't posted anything interesting in a few weeks, maybe I could just cheat by pasting that email into my blog. So here it is:

I personally have the idea in my head that the gas that those other
guys sell (possibly with the exception of Shell/BP) is full of sand,
sugar, and the blood of indentured servants, so I like to buy clean
gas from the industry leaders. That said, I have no problem with
sticking it to "The Man", that horrible person who is constantly
dictating to me what I'll buy and how much I'll pay. The problem is,
the world market is mostly driven by two things: (perceived) supply
and (perceived) demand. We demand gas all the time, for everything
that we do, and we have this perception (whether accurate or not) that
there simply is not that much gas out there. So, even though we want
our gas to cost as little as possible, we like to buy the stuff
whenever we want. That's the demand. Most of us probably can't live
without gas, so we're going to keep paying whatever the suppliers want
from us, until we hit that critical point (is it $4.00? they're fine
paying a lot more than that in Europe) where we say "this is getting
ridiculous" and then we change our habits. Exxon/Mobil doesn't just
sell us the gas, they extract and refine the oil as well, in a lot of
places. Consequently, the "little guys" are often buying their gas
from refineries run by Exxon Mobil.

Basically, my point is that I'm not sure targeting a single huge
corporation is going to change the gas price, unless we also decide to
start using just a little less of the stuff (that's not a drug
reference). In order to put my money where my mouth is, I have decided
to stop driving my SUV 6 blocks to campus three or four times a week,
and I will be swimming the Atlantic this summer instead of taking a
gas guzzling plane as I normally do.

B.F.

ps. I take no responsibility for any of the "information" I have
injected into this email. I am an archaeologist, not an economist,
scientist (*gasp* I mean "earth scientist"!!!!), mathematician, or
even an activist, but I did read that one book about economy in the
ancient/modern world by that guy who studies stuff.