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BigBen · 08-25-2005, 07:20 AM

In economic terms, they are talking about the elasticity of demand, supply, and its effect on the price at the pumps.

For this to work:
1. people would stop buying gas (lets say at about 6 am on day 1) en masse,
2. the fuel stations would quickly find an over-supply in their distribution chain.
3. to get rid of this excess, they would reduce the price a small amount.
4. people still continue to boycot, and the reduction in price does not change the over-supply.
5. This happens again and again, until at the end of the day the stations are giving this fuel away for free. The protest has succeeded!

Ummm, wait. The distribution link in the chain would stop all of this. They would
1. phone (or more accurately, get a signal from a computer monitoring the fuel levels at the local tanks) the station and find out that there was no demand for the fuel at that particular moment.
2. then sit back and let the fuel collect in their massive resevoirs.
3. This communication would happen all the way down the supply chain, and reserves (you guys listen to that word used over and over in the news when people talk about the price of oil?) would stockpile.
4. Then the oil companies would INCREASE the price at the pumps, to offset the new volatility in the market.

"What do you mean we didn't make any profit today? Raise the prices to cover our costs..."

The oil reserves that the US is sitting on is measured in MONTHS. Do you think that any protest could last longer than a few hours? People would see the price drop (not to zero, btw) and say that they succeeded, and then merrily fill up. If it did succeed, the massive amount of reserves would increase by 1 day. Instead of having 90 days of reserves, they have 91.

And all of this is ignoring the spike of buying what you lost the day before or the day after...

08-25-2005, 07:20 AM	#6 (permalink)
BigBen Comedian Location: Use the search button	In economic terms, they are talking about the elasticity of demand, supply, and its effect on the price at the pumps. For this to work: 1. people would stop buying gas (lets say at about 6 am on day 1) en masse, 2. the fuel stations would quickly find an over-supply in their distribution chain. 3. to get rid of this excess, they would reduce the price a small amount. 4. people still continue to boycot, and the reduction in price does not change the over-supply. 5. This happens again and again, until at the end of the day the stations are giving this fuel away for free. The protest has succeeded! Ummm, wait. The distribution link in the chain would stop all of this. They would 1. phone (or more accurately, get a signal from a computer monitoring the fuel levels at the local tanks) the station and find out that there was no demand for the fuel at that particular moment. 2. then sit back and let the fuel collect in their massive resevoirs. 3. This communication would happen all the way down the supply chain, and reserves (you guys listen to that word used over and over in the news when people talk about the price of oil?) would stockpile. 4. Then the oil companies would INCREASE the price at the pumps, to offset the new volatility in the market. "What do you mean we didn't make any profit today? Raise the prices to cover our costs..." The oil reserves that the US is sitting on is measured in MONTHS. Do you think that any protest could last longer than a few hours? People would see the price drop (not to zero, btw) and say that they succeeded, and then merrily fill up. If it did succeed, the massive amount of reserves would increase by 1 day. Instead of having 90 days of reserves, they have 91. And all of this is ignoring the spike of buying what you lost the day before or the day after... __________________ 3.141592654 Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.