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Heath
06-13-2006, 07:45 AM
Yes I know, its ANOTHER one of those, lets force the price of gas down ideas... It came in my e-mail, and its a funny story if nothig else... (well I found humor in it, but I'm kind of twisted anyway).


FOR $$$$$$$$ in your pocket



A man eats two eggs each morning for breakfast. When he goes to the grocery store he pays .60 cents a dozen. Since a dozen eggs won't last a week he normally buys two dozens at a time.



One day while buying eggs he notices that the price has risen to 72 cents. The next time he buys groceries, eggs are .76 cents a dozen. When asked to explain the price of eggs the store owner says, "the price has gone up and I have to raise my price accordingly".



This store buys 100 dozen eggs a day. I checked around for a better price and all the distributors have raised their prices. The distributors have begun to buy from the huge egg farms. The small egg farms have been driven out of business.



The huge egg farms sells 100,000 dozen eggs a day to distributors. With no competition, they can set the price as they see fit. The distributors then have to raise their prices to the grocery stores. And on and on and on. As the man kept buying eggs the price kept going up. He saw the big egg trucks delivering 100 dozen eggs each day. Nothing changed there.



He checked out the huge egg farms and found they were selling 100,000 dozen eggs to the distributors daily. Nothing had changed but the price of eggs.



Then week before Thanksgiving the price of eggs shot up to $1.00 a dozen. Again he asked the grocery owner why and was told, "cakes and baking for the holiday". The huge egg farmers know there will be a lot of baking going on and more eggs will be used. Hence, the price of eggs goes up. Expect the same thing at Christmas and other times when family cooking, baking, etc. happen.



This pattern continues until the price of eggs is 2.00 a dozen. The man says, "there must be something we can do about the price of eggs".



He starts talking to all the people in his town and they decide to stop buying eggs. This didn't work because everyone needed eggs. Finally, the man suggested only buying what you need.



He ate 2 eggs a day. On the way home from work he would stop at the grocery and buy two eggs. Everyone in town started buying 2 or 3 eggs a day.



The grocery store owner began complaining that he had too many eggs in his cooler. He told the distributor that he didn't need any eggs. Maybe wouldn't need any all week.



The distributor had eggs piling up at his warehouse. He told the huge egg farms that he didn't have any room for eggs would not need any for at least two weeks.



At the egg farm, the chickens just kept on laying eggs.



To relieve the pressure, the huge egg farm told the distributor that they could buy the eggs at a lower price. The distributor said, " I don't have the room for the %$&^*&% eggs even if they were free".



The distributor told the grocery store owner that he would lower the price of the eggs if the store would start buying again. The grocery store owner said, "I don't have room for more eggs. The customers are only buy 2 or 3 eggs at a time". "Now if you were to drop the price of eggs back down to the original price, the customers would start buying by the dozen again".



The distributors sent that proposal to the huge egg farmers. They liked the price they were getting for their eggs but, them chickens just kept on laying.



Finally, the egg farmers lowered the price of their eggs. But only a few cents. The customers still bought 2 or 3 eggs at a time. They said, "when the price of eggs gets down to where it was before, we will start buying by the dozen."



Slowly the price of eggs started dropping. The distributors had to slash their prices to make room for the eggs coming from the egg farmers. The egg farmers cut their prices because the distributors wouldn't buy at a higher price than they were selling eggs for.



Anyway, they had full warehouses and wouldn't need eggs for quite a while.



And them chickens kept on laying.



Eventually, the egg farmers cut their prices because they were throwing away eggs they couldn't sell. The distributors started buying again because the eggs were priced to where the stores could afford to sell them at the lower price.



And the customers starting buying by the dozen again.



Now, transpose this analogy to the gasoline industry.



What if everyone only bought $10.00 worth of gas each time they pulled to the pump. The dealers tanks would stay semi full all the time. The dealers wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the huge tank farms. The tank farms wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the refining plants. And the refining plants wouldn't have room for the oil being off loaded from the huge tankers coming from the Middle East.



Just $10.00 each time you buy gas. Don't fill it up. You may have to stop for gas twice a week but, the price should come down.



Think about it.



As an added note...When I buy $10.00 worth of gas, that leaves my tank under half full. The way prices are jumping around, you can buy gas for $3.05 a gallon and then the next morning it can be $2.75. If you have your tank full of $3.05 gas you don't have room for the $2.75 gas. You might not understand the economics of only buying two eggs at a time but, you can't buy cheaper gas if your tank is full of the high priced stuff.



Also, don't buy anything else at the gas station, don't give them any more of your hard earned money than what you spend on gas, until the prices come down..

mattadams
06-13-2006, 07:58 AM
I think someone needs to take an Economics 101 class :).
Seriously, what difference would it make if I bought 10 gallons now and 10 gallons tomorrow, or 20 gallons now and none tomorrow? The gas station will still have to purchase the same amount of gas from their supplier. The fact taht they don't have room to store it won't make a difference because they are still selling the exact same amount of gas as they were before. I am still buying the same exact amount of gas as I was before, so the idea that now they are going to have too much doesn't apply, because they are still selling the same amount. If anything else this would be counteractive, because gas stations that have to pay credit card royalties when people use credit cards would now be paying more since people are just filling up with $10 at a time rather than $50.

Now, if everyone in this fictional town decided to stop using as much eggs... say, instead of 2 eggs for breakfast every morning he just had one egg and more bacon, and everyone else in town did hte same thing, then you'd start to be making a difference.

Now no offense to you Heath because you know I love you and all... but I get sick and tired of people coming up with "schemes" to lower the price of gas. For example, don't buy on a certain date... or don't buy from a certain gas station, etc. The fact is, if you want to lower the price of gas, just use less. And get everyone else to use less. Not buying on a certain date, not filling up your tank when you get gas, this and that will make no difference on the price of gas because everyone is still using the same exact amount of gas as they always have been, and since most gas stations get gas from one of the big gas companies (even if it isn't a major chain like BP/Amoco/Conoco/etc.) so if you boycott one station, the other station down the street could very well be getting gas from the same company and you just don't know it.

So heres my advice. Everyone move clsoer to work. Or carpool. Or ride the bus. Ride your bike. Talk your boss into letting you telecommute once or twice a week. Combine trips so you can go to the grocery store once a week instead of 3 times a week, run multiple errands while you are in a part of town so you aren't going to the same spot over and over and over. Get a more fuel efficient vehicle, or convert over to using e85 if you have a gas station near you that stocks it... if you have diesel, start using biodiesel.
Everything else will be a waste of your time.

Heath
06-13-2006, 08:52 AM
[quote=Heath]Yes I know, its ANOTHER one of those, lets force the price of gas down ideas... It came in my e-mail, and its a funny story if nothig else... (well I found humor in it, but I'm kind of twisted anyway).



Hey, :heath: did you miss the disclaimer at the begining!!! I'd make it flash and have shimmering lights to if I knew how... Just so it could stand out more for you...

P.S. Your sig shows true again!!!

mattadams
06-13-2006, 08:55 AM
yeah but the problem is shit like that gets passed around the internet once people think its actually going to solve the problem. I've gotten it by email 3 times already that think that is the solution to the problem. It's nowhere close.

Heath
06-13-2006, 09:01 AM
Yeah, and there are people trying to sell Air Guitars on ebay to... If people are gullible enough to spend money on something then its their problem...

And in all actuallity the part at the end where they talk about having your tank full of $3.05 cent gas and the next day its lower does have merrit... Around here I've seen it fluxuate by 20 cents from day to day... You can't tell me that when you've just filled up at one price and the next day or two days later its 10 cents a gallon cheaper that it dosen't piss you off just a little bit!!!

mattadams
06-13-2006, 09:05 AM
I can see that part... but what about when it goes up 10 cents? :). Around here it's been pretty steady though, some minor fluctuations... I think the money you spend going out of your way to the gas station makes up for the few cents difference myself.

Heath
06-13-2006, 09:32 AM
I do find that to generally be the case... I usually get gas at Flying J here now because I get 3 cents off w/flying J card... Its always at least 5 cents cheaper than the Chevron right accross the street, even before the 5 cents off... And they're both close to work... Other than that if I'm going ove by Sams Club (which I ususally do on Tuesdays anyway to get video's at the video store) then I just fill up there instead...