Would you boycott Exxon/Mobil in an effort to lower continual gas price increases ?

This is just another urban legend floating around.

Boycotting Exxon isn't going to work to bring down prices. If everyone stopped buying from Exxon and used the other providers, then the other providers would run out of gas pretty quickly due to supply and demand chain effects. What would happen is that they would buy their gas from Exxon and overall all prices would go up, not down.

Full mythbuster at Snopes.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasout.asp

To lower gas prices, you have to lower demand, which includes things like carpooling, public transportation, alternative sources of energy, and better milage vehicles.

Boycotts and Urban Legends will do nothing to solve the gas crisis however there is an article today in USA News, also one of AOL head story lines that offers a satisfactory solution that would hit these oil companies in their pockets where they are hitting us. Cut and pasted below is a quick glance:

Senators Raise Idea of Taxing 'Obscene' Oil Profits

By David Jackson, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON (April 24) -- Congress should consider a tax on excessive oil company profits, two senators said Sunday, as gasoline prices in some cities have risen above $3 a gallon. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said on CNN's Late Edition that President Bush should call for a windfall profits tax on the oil companies' "extreme, obscene profits."

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., appearing on the same program, said a windfall profits tax is "something worth considering," as well as legislation targeting consolidation of oil companies.

Republican congressional leaders, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., plan to send Bush a letter Monday calling for a price-fixing investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department, according to Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean.

The best thing we can do during this crisis is to write to our Senators and show support for an excessive profits tax and an investigation.

Let me answer your question with a question: Do you know where the gas in the Gas 'n Go tank comes from? It comes from the same truck that delivers the Exxon and Mobil gas and even theirs probably doesn't come from an ExxonMobil refinery. Dad used to deliver gas from a Standard Oil distributorship. He pumped the exact same preparation into a Kwik Pik's tanks as into the Chevron station's. Your gas comes from whatever refinery is closest or whoever is filling the pipeline to your town on that day. If, as here in Denver, there's a local refinery, the gas comes from there. Period. It's not worth it to haul it from somewhere else. Gas is a commodity. Boycotting Exxon stations will only hurt the station owners who are struggling.

I haven't knowing bought anything from Exxon since 1976 and will continue not to till I die. I last worked a job for Exxon in 1976. It left such a bad taste in my mouth that if I ran out of gas next to an Exxon station in the desert I would walk to the next closest station.(Hopefully not an Exxon Station). To me its obviously more than just the unreasonable gas prices.

I AM NOT BUYING EXXON GAS! I want to start something bigger than just this e-mail thing, I want bumper stickers, shirts, signs, commercials, everything, I'm afraid that everyone that sees the e-mail doesn't take it seriously because how many of us out there get those annoying freakin pass this on and you'll have good luck chain letters, I want our country to know THIS IS SERIOUS!!! This isn't another chain letter, this is something that real people are really doing, eventually we can make it work, THE CONSUMER HAS THE POWER!

Absolutely NOT! Oil prices are set by the free market NOT Exxon Mobil!

i've never thought of that, but it doesn't sound like a bad idea. as for the last guy's answer, he's pretty much right, except you can buy from a station like BP and not be buying exxon gas.

i've seen that e-mail around. i guess it reach you too. it sounds economic strategy from someone who think it's plausible for the consumer. would it benefit all of us if the masses support it?

couple of years ago, the same e-mail circulation were ineffective cause those conglomerate still distributed profit to their stockholder more folds than our increase in our salary. it cost us more due to their price which were sky rocketed that leave the consumer high and dry.

hope anybody from the government is watching this. they need to do something. we all need help to lower the price of the gasoline, fast...

I haven't purchased gas from Exxon Mobil for years, and I hope everyone else follows suit.

I am supporting the boycott.. besides i am a penny pincher and i've found that Firebirds and Meijer gas stations offer the best deals, plus meijer give you a 3 cents off every gallon coupon when you shop there!