People's Petrol Union - Power of the Purse
I took a road trip this weekend; just a short trip to visit an art show in a community along the Mississippi River. It's a favorite place of mine to visit, because the river is so beautiful (even though it's very muddy water - They don't call it the Big Muddy for nothin'!)
Anyway, halfway between my small town and the Mississippi is another small town that has a Pilot gas station at the exit off the interstate. I don't know much about Pilot, but their gas is always priced at least $.20 less than anyone else's in the region. Right now, it's $.39 less - $4.40 vs. $4.79 in towns all around and pretty much statewide. Needless to say, I was happy to stop and fill up on my way back from my little trip.
In the same small town where Pilot is, every other gas station has met or exceeded their price....BP and Walmart are at $4.39. It occurred to me, then, that oil companies can, indeed, afford to sell their gas at a lower price. In such a local market, they can't afford NOT to sell at a lower price, because obviously, everyone would go to Pilot rather than pay their higher price.
So then an idea came to me that we should form a national union of gasoline users (virtually ALL of us) to begin "bargaining" with oil companies about their prices. Begin by approaching the biggest; say, for example, BP: We request that they lower their price by $.40 per gallon within the next two days, and if they don't, then the People's Petrol Union members (all of us) will stop patronizing their gas stations and go to any other gas station besides them (essentially a boycott of BP). After some time, when they've lost all their customers, BP will see the light and lower their prices. Immediately, everyone will flock to their lower priced gas, thus making up in volume what they lost in price the previous two days. The kicker will be that all the other gas stations will than have to follow BP's lower price in order to maintain their customer base. Virtually overnight, gas is now down $.40 per gallon nationwide.
We enjoy this reduced price for a couple of weeks, and then again approach BP with the request that they lower their price by $ .40. They will immediately understand this request, and overnight, their prices are lower by $.40. In another day or two, all the other gas stations are also down another $ .40. Voila, in a couple of months, gas prices are down by $ .80 nationwide.
Rinse and repeat....
Let's show them we are not at their mercy nor at the mercy of the government taking a tax holiday on gas..... We have the numbers and power of the purse. Let's use it and take control of this situation!
(Remember, you heard it here first!) 