I don't mean to rain on someone's parade here and I'm no economist but...by not buying your gas from Mobile/Exxon, more demand is placed on the remaining distributors. Higher demand equates to higher price, and if the remaining distributors are unable to fill this shift in demand, they most likely will have to purchase additional supplies from Exxon/Mobile, passing that expense on to us as consumers. I believe the key here is to reduce overal demand and allowing us to get @ the oil we have in our own country. It's not going to be easy or convenient. Global demand (China's bourgeoning economy for example) is only going to grow creating more strain on foriegn supply chains. Your plan to get 3+ million to change their behavior is a noble one and would be wonderfull if it works (I'll forward the message to people I know) but I think efforts towards reducing the tax per gallon, reliance on foriegn supply, and alternative energy would have a more lasting impact. Just my $.02..........now let's get fishing!!!!!!!!!
It will take years for this to ever evolved into something effective. Think about it, there are so many gas guzzling suvs, trucks, and cars out there right now. The demand from the boating and rv community is kind of small in perspective but does force all of us to buy tow vehcles to pull them plus the gas they burn on their own. So in short, those vehcles whether we own them or we sell them off are still going to demand fuel from them until they end up in a bone yard.
Who is to blame? Everyone! The car companies for producing these vehicles, us for wanting them and creating the demand, gas companies for.. well, screwing us, and the goverment for not having enough foresight and responsiblity to pass laws to both auto makers and gas companies to prevent the crisis that we are near. As for alternative fuels that oil companies burned us there as they kept gas cheaper over the years which has allowed a market to grow in demand instead of become more managable.
My question is what affect do you think this will have in regard to boating? Especially now that they are mixing junk (ethanol) into our fuels which is bad for our boat motors that are not ready for them.
What would be nice is for auto makers to create an electric tow vehicle. Something that still has an 8 cyl. gas engine but only runs all cyl. when towing. I think GM were working on this but have not heard about it for a while.
As for those looking to save money using gas cards, there is a rewards plus card from Chase that is pretty good and gives you 5% cash back for fuel, pharmacy purchases, and supermarkets.
