Monday, May 08, 2006

please explain to me if I am missing something

If you are a myspace user, or a friendster user maybe, or just read a lot, or what not, you have probably been exposed to one of these urgent messages to collectively not buy gas on X date so that "the oil companies" will know that they "aren't in control". The most recent one I heard this morning was a discussion on Elliott in the Morning about a myspace bulletin looking to harness the power of the 70-however million users. Okay so then I have a question. What does 70-million people not buying gas on a Tuesday, let's say, actually do? You know what? I don't buy gas on what, let's see:
I buy gas approximately once every 9 days, maybe 10. Let's say 10. There are 365 days in the year. So I buy gas approximately 3 times a month or 36 times a year. Which means I DO NOT buy gas 90% of days. How is me not buying gas on that random Tuesday going to make ANY difference. How is 75 million people not buying gas on that random Tuesday going to make a difference. You know what? I don't need gas today. I must be telling those damn oil companies that I don't need them. But then I'll run out of gas! And I'll have to buy it on Wednesday maybe! Oh no!
Guess what, folks. Not buying gas ONE DAY does not do shit. You want to make a difference? Take the bus or the metro or ride your bike or walk. That's the only thing you could maybe even do, and you should do that anyway for the environment, not to push gas prices down.
Take an economics class. Let's say we, as a population, reduced our demand for gas. Well, what would happen is that gas prices would go down. And then, when we started using it again A LOT because OH ITS SO CHEAP? Its gonna go right back up.
Am I missing something?

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