it might work

[sneakypete]

Buy Gasoline like eggs


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 doze 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 sell 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 and 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 buying 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 a little under half full. The way prices are jumping around, you can buy gas for $2.65 a gallon and then the next morning it can be $2.15. If you have your tank full of $2.65 gas you don't have room for the $2.15 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, no cigarettes, no bread,milk or chewing gum, don't give them any more of your hard earned money than what you spend on gas, until the prices come down.. Oh, some folks may not see this message. Can you afford to print 10 at a time and pass them out where you buy gas? If you can afford more, you may think of putting them on windshields at the mall.



Makes sense to me, how about you?

[Neilp]

This would make the independant operators broke inside a month handing more control to the fuel companys, making the price go up further


Neil

[Ratmick]

The main difference is that the refineries, unlike chickens who poop an egg out every day, have the option of NOT making petrol. Or indeed, just scaling production back to make the amount of petrol that they need.

Perversely they can (will and do) ramp up the cost of this reduced flow so they get the same amount of profit from a smaller amount of petrol. And guess what - people will whinge, bitch and carry on like pork chops, but at the end if the day (and this is the killer) THEY WILL STILL BUY IT.

Upstream they just slow/stop pumping it out of the ground/sea floor and transporting it to the refineries. Let's face it, it ain't going anywhere unless they pump it out . The profit is such that the infrastructure was all paid for long ago.

The only people missing out are the guys manning the refinery cat-crackers, and the guys out on the oil rigs. Don't forget the guys in the servos (owner-operators even if they are a big company franchise) operate on a shoe-string. They make fark-all profit from petrol, most of the profit comes from the stuff in the chillers and in the confectionary aisles.

Fact: The oil companies don't give a shit. You have a car/bike/lawnmower/train/plane/whatever, you WILL buy their product and it doesn't matter a shit how much they will charge you for it.
Fact: The government makes most of the profit. Ask the pricks to lower the farking tax and see what response you get. These are the same bunch of two-faced pricks that slag off smokers and rake in billions of dollars in tobacco tax.

/rant off

Sorry guys, got a bit carried away .

[MadKaw]

Alternatively.. fit LPG.
I paid 44 cents a litre yesterday..

But then again don't, if the demand increases too much the price will go up...

[Lucas]

Their is about 6,500 petrol stations in Australia with only 300 being fully independent
As ratmick said refineries will just slow production if we stop/slow buying fuel

Seeing the Government makes so much from doing nothing (about 56%)
Don’t you think its time they either lowered the tax/excise or capped the amount they taxed ......... say $1

As some of you may know I work in the petroleum industry
I build/rebuild petrol station fuel systems
Each rebuild costs between $500,000 and $1,000,000 without cost of any land or high level soil removal

This has to come from some where

I’m not going to turn this into a political discussion but the answer is quite simple

Stop using you car so much........ Walk to the shop........ Limit your use of it..... Only use it when you really have to


Petrol is not going to get cheaper there is suppose to be only 38 yrs worth of crude oil left at the current rate of usage
The harder it is to find the more it’s going to cost

[Lucas]

Alternatively.. fit LPG.
I paid 44 cents a litre yesterday..

But then again don't, if the demand increases too much the price will go up...

i think the tax has been capped or not on this product till 2009 or 2011
then watch what price it goes to

[MadKaw]

It won't go up as much as petrol will in this time..

"In late December 2003, the Federal Government announced fuel excise reforms, which will ultimately mean motorists using Autogas will pay an extra 12.5 cpl by 2015.
Currently, fuel excise tax does not apply to Autogas, whereas petrol is taxed at 38.14 cpl. Starting in 2011, fuel excise tax will be added to Autogas at a rate of 2.5 cpl. This will increase by 2.5 cpl for five years, until the fuel excise on Autogas reaches 12.5 cpl in 2015. In today's terms, this will mean that in 2015, motorists will be paying approximately 30% more for Autogas when they fill up. However, it is anticipated that motorists using Autogas in 2015 will still be paying significantly less than those motorists who fill up with petrol.
The Federal Government also announced that between 2008 and 2011, a $1,000 subsidy will be offered to consumers who purchase a dedicated or dual fuel vehicle. However this subsidy is only available to those who purchase new vehicles."