It’s not even May yet and a new version of the "Great American Gasout" chain letter is already making the rounds. This latest incarnation pretends you can magically bypass supply and demand by simply boycotting a single brand of gasoline.
I won’t waste the space putting up a copy of the email I got yesterday evening. It’s one of those things that appeals to emotion and skimps on the analysis. In other words, a typical chain letter. (Snopes has a copy along with a reasonably good analysis of why it’s a waste of time.)
I do understand the frustrations though. A couple weeks ago, various news sources were claiming that average gas prices were 25% higher than at this time last year. I don’t know where they got those numbers. Last year at this time, gas in the Germantown area was around $1.89 per gallon. If prices were 25% higher, they’d have been around $2.36. What I was seeing at the time was closer to $2.79 and just this past weekend I had my first sighting of a station charging more than $3.00 for a gallon of regular!
So yeah, I do understand the frustration, but wishful thinking won’t change anything. The best way to pay less for gasoline is to use less of it! Sadly, as the Snopes article points out though, using less gasoline doesn’t seem to be something people are willing to do.
In no time at all, I expect my email inbox will be filled with copies of that chain letter that have been forwarded dozens of times without anyone bothering to remove the list of forwards. So here’s my plan: Let’s forward copies of the Snopes link instead!
Need a copy? 🙂 http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasout.asp