Don't Buy Gas on 5/15? Huh?

This year on May 15th, as I have each May 15th since 1999, received an e-mail that reads something like this. See if it sounds familiar...

"Attention all MySpace.com members! You are being asked not to pump gas on May 15th, to send a message to the oil companies. If people stopped pumping gas for one day, the oil companies would lose $3 billion dollars that day and would possibly cause them to drop the price of oil and gas. This worked in the past."

What genius came up with this idea? How is this going to change anything? The e-mail doesn't ask us to cut down on our gas usage, it just says to not buy gas one day. This isn't going to hurt anyone or change anything, that just means that all the gas that would get purchased that day gets purchased the evening before or the day after. This would have absolutely no effect on the oil companies, this would just make life hard on the people that work at your local gas station when their business spikes abnormally. It'll make their life hard, and it'll make life hard on the local distributors - usually mid-sized local trucking companies with contracts to move fuel from the refinery to the local gas station. These are people that have no control over the price of fuel. Local gas stations are usually franchises with local/regional owner/operators. These people don't set the price of gas. They, like you and I, just pay what the market demands then mark it up a couple of cents to cover their costs.

Haven't you noticed that there are no "gas stations" anymore? They're all mini-marts. That is because there is no money in selling fuel. Americans demand cheap fuel and vote on the basis of how full their wallets are. Your local congressman and big oil lobbyists make it impossible for anyone but the big oil companies to make money selling petroleum products.

Here is what I suggest...the next time you get an e-mail like that, reply to the sender suggesting that if they really want to change the world then they should get their head out of their ass and trade in that 454 Denali for a hybrid, eat a salad, walk their fat ass around the block once in a while, turn off Springer, read a newspaper and stop being an uninformed BAD AMERICAN. No wonder the world hates us...