The idiotic Don't Buy Gas Day email

Like clockwork when the price of gasoline goes up, the incessant forwarders among us seem to send out about a million copies each of this sort of email:

It has been calculated that if everyone in the United States did not purchase a drop of gasoline for one day and all at the same time, the oil companies would choke on their stockpiles.

At the same time it would hit the entire industry with a net loss of over 4.6 billion dollars which affects the bottom lines of the oil companies.

Therefore May 19th has been formally declared "stick it up their behind" day and the people of this nation should not buy a single drop of gasoline that day.

The only way this can be done is if you forward this email to as many people as you can and as quickly as you can to get the word out.

Waiting on this administration to step in and control the prices is not going to happen. What happened to the reduction and control in prices that the Arab nations promised two weeks ago?

Remember one thing, not only is the price of gasoline going up but at the same time airlines are forced to raise their prices, trucking companies are forced to raise their prices which effects prices on everything that is shipped. Things like food, clothing, building materials, medical supplies, etc. Who pays in the end? We do!

We can make a difference. If they don't get the message after one day, we will do it again and again.

So do your part and spread the word. Forward this email to everyone you know. Mark your calendars and make May 19 the day that the citizens of the United States say "enough is enough".

The magnitude of the silliness of this proposal is only exceeded by the mathematical illiteracy of its proponents.

Change in only two things can affect total gasoline consumption — overall fleet efficiency and total number of vehicle-miles driven. Because overall fleet efficiency takes a very long time to change significantly, the only way to reduce gasoline company sales in the short term is for consumers to drive fewer miles. The proposal makes no mention of doing this.

While its true that worldwide volume of petrol stocks in storage is not very big, there is some such capacity. Stored stocks, save for the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, are nearly empty right now. And that is one cause of the big price increase! (The Republicans don't want to open themselves to the same criticism they heaped on Al Gore during the 2000 election season by opening the reserve, but they might have to if gas lines develop.)

One day of reduced deliveries might even help the companies catch up a bit. But given the current situation, it'll hardly matter. If everyone drove 10% fewer miles for a week (savings of nearly 10 million barrels of fuel), then the price might nudge a bit. Send that out, you forwarders!