maniakes ([info]maniakes) wrote,
@ 2008-04-17 10:15:00
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How to lower gas costs with a boycott
http://www.deanesmay.com/2008/04/17/how-to-lower-gasoline-costs-with-a-boycott/

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[info]stride
2008-04-17 05:39 pm UTC (link)
It would be much easier to boycott gas if public transit was more efficient. :\

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[info]maniakes
2008-04-17 05:42 pm UTC (link)
True. Public transit only seems to work well when there's a critical density of people using it, and that only seems to happen in built-up urban areas.

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[info]herufeanor
2008-04-17 07:01 pm UTC (link)
Even in built-up areas, it's rather hit-or-miss. San Francisco has great mass transit, but San Jose not so much.

And even the "great" mass transit of San Francisco is still usually less time-efficient then driving yourself. It's just less prone to result in fits of violent rage, which is a serious hazard when you have to deal with San Francisco roads, San Francisco drivers and San Francisco pedestrians.

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[info]maniakes
2008-04-17 07:22 pm UTC (link)
It's a combination of a suitable location and actually building the infrastructure. And there's a chicken-and-egg problem of good mass transit not getting built because nobody uses it, and nobody uses it because it sucks.

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[info]herufeanor
2008-04-17 07:33 pm UTC (link)
Well, the Dean's World comment posting seems to be not working for me today, for some reason. So I'll comment here instead. :-)

This seems to me like an incredibly obvious statement. Boycotting for a day completely pointless. Boycotting a single producer to make them take up ethical business practices is great, but to make them lower prices is ridiculous. However, lo and behold, using less gas costs less money! And, amazingly, when you decrease demand, the price drops! Wow!

Of course, it's clearly not as obvious as it seems to me, because so many people still buy into these stupid boycotts.

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[info]maniakes
2008-04-17 07:46 pm UTC (link)
It's obvious to you because you have a good grasp of the basics of economics. But like logic, statistics, and physics, economics is a learned skill which often runs contrary to our untutored intuitions. And economics is very poorly taught to those of us who don't actively seek it out.

Most people see gas prices rising and hear that oil companies are making more profit, and they assume that the problem is that the oil companies are colluding to artificially raise prices. And one of the natural responses to that is to apply consumer pressure in the form of a boycott, as one would respond to unethical business practices.

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[info]punning_pundit
2008-04-17 10:30 pm UTC (link)
I read the other day that, through the 1990s, Gross World Product grew at something like 2.3%, but has been growing around 5.2% for the past several years. And so gas prices are going up because demand is going up.

Of course, since I don't own a car, gas prices are pretty theoretical to me...

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[info]maniakes
2008-04-17 10:42 pm UTC (link)
I believe it. The decline in the dollar's relative value "helps", too, as it means we have to bid more dollars in order to outbid the same number of Euros or Pounds or Yen or Yuan than we used to.

My commute is about three miles and I drive a civic, so it's pretty theoretical to me, too.

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