Will this solve the gas problem? Kind of long.

[tuttlejr]

HHMMMM!! IT MIGHT WORK!!

When a man goes to the grocery store for eggs 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 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 two or three 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, don't give them
any more of your hard earned money than what you spend on gas, until
the prices come down..

**_Everyone should read this and send it on! Don't buy anything from Exxon/Mobil either!

[Jeffrey Schronce]

Aftert 43 years of owing 160,000 chicken house, my father in law says this is crap, cause you can control how many eggs a chicken has in one day! LOL!


Seriously, the concept is BS. The financial market take care of smaller fluctuations such as you describe through futures contracts.

[mschrank]

Maybe I'm missing something...but this doesn't make any sense to me. Whether I buy $10.00 of gas three times a week or $30.00 of gas once a week, I'm still buying the same amount over the course of the week.

The station owner will still be selling the same total amount of gas each day...but instead of selling $1000 of gas to 33 people, he'll be selling $1000 of gas to 100 people. Which he will like, because that's another 66 customers per day to buy soft drinks, snacks & cigarettes.

[CptanPanic]

This doesn't make sense at all, because you are not limiting the amount of gas you are using. The one that loses is the person that has to waste their time going back and forth to the gas station.

The only way gas will get cheaper is if we use less of it, by using more fuel effiecent vehicles, and using alternative fuels.

[tuttlejr]

The important part of the message is not to buy other items from the station as that is where there main profit comes from. Everything there is very expensive. Only mullets buy from a convenience store.

[LarryG]

There are some really questionable assumptions in this. A fifty-cent decrease in the price of gas from one day to the next? With the exception of the Arab oil embrago during the 1970s, I've never seen that big a change, up or down, in a WEEK, let alone a single day.

Mike has a good point about the increase of non-gasoline sales. The c-store owners (and these days virtually all gasoline is sold at c-stores) might well love this idea. Guy pulls up, buys his ten bucks worth of gas, and also buys a 20oz Coke for $1.19. He does that three times a week, never making the connection that while he's being so "smart" about his gasoline purchases, he's paying the equivalant of $7.62 a gallon for soft drinks.

[Russianwolf]

BUT.... if I buy $10 of gas three time per week instead of $30 once a week, the dtore owner looses money. Why you ask?

because I pay with my Visa check card. For me it's 3x$10 or $30 which are equal, but the owner has to pay a flat fee for me to use my card (I think it's a flat fee) in which case he has to pay 3x.25 instead of 1x.25.

If I'm right about the flat fee the he looses money overall, but he'll probably just raise his price further to get that money out of my pocket.

[spf45]

HHMMMM!! IT MIGHT WORK!!

When a man goes to the grocery store for eggs 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.

In real life, this decision to stop buying eggs would happen much sooner. It is the reason eggs were priced at $.60/dozen in the beginning of the story. The majority of farmers are not going to charge $.60 when they can get significantly more.

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.

This parallels real life. These people are engaged in an unhealthy lifestyle. They are indulging themselves and complaining that the result is someone else’s fault. In addition, the demand for eggs from these indulgent people are raising the price of ALL eggs. Even the people who are exercising moderation are penalized.

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".

At this point, the price of eggs would be cheaper at every point in the supply chain, including retail. The grocer and distributer would take a loss, which they would make up by selling a very large amount of discounted CHICKENS, which would hit the huge egg farmers’ books. Everyone would have learned their lessons and lived happily ever after.

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.

As long as consumers continued to burn the same amount of gas, it would not impact anyone other than the gas stations. Their transaction costs would go up, and they would pass that cost on to the consumers.

Just $10.00 each time you buy gas. Don't fill it up. You may have to
stop for gas two or three 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, don't give them
any more of your hard earned money than what you spend on gas, until
the prices come down..

There are many honest, hard working gas station owners out there who need to feed their families. Their children go to school with your children. If you do not buy their higher-margin items, they will raise the price of gasoline. If it drives customers away, they will go out of business. This will raise your taxes. (The gas station goes bankrupt and the underground storage tank system is an environmental hazard that must be addressed.) In addition, the service provided to the community is gone and people have to drive farther for gasoline, milk and diapers, beer and cigarettes.

I don't buy things in convenience stores and won't buy from a station that won't let me pay at the pump--I don't want to get robbed in the C-store.

**_Everyone should read this and send it on! Don't buy anything from Exxon/Mobil either!

You have very little control over whose gasoline you buy. It all comes from the same place. Texaco, years ago, used to supply their stations with their own gas. However, in today's world, the companies put different additives into the same gas from the same refineries. If you want to consume the same amount of gasoline and hurt the oil companies, stop buying the high octane fuel unless you need it. Unless your car knocks or pings with regular gas, you do NOT need the premium grades. Fantastic profits from the higher grades. THAT is a ripoff the oil companies don't want you to know. Unless you carry a balance, buy register online with Discover to receive a 5% discount on gas purchases for the next month or two.

[Joe Lyddon]

HHMMMM!! IT MIGHT WORK!!

He ate 2 eggs a day. ...

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....

And them chickens kept on laying....

Eventually, the egg farmers cut their prices because they were
throwing away eggs they couldn't sell. ...

And the customers starting buying by the dozen again.

Now, transpose this analogy to the gasoline industry.

Think about it.

**_Everyone should read this and send it on! Don't buy anything from Exxon/Mobil either!

Very good thoughts... but just a tad flawed...

1. Eggs contain a huge source of Cholesterol... the current diet guideline is 2-3 eggs a week!

2. Chickens cannot be controlled... they don't have a spigot to increase / decrease the output.

3. Oil production can be controlled... just turn the spigot...

4. The Exxon / Mobil merger should have never been approved...
We have been using Mobil because they seem to be more competitvely priced... I guess Exxon stations are much higher than Mobil...

Before, we could boycott one or the other... Now, we have to boycott BOTH of them.

5. I think if the oil just kept on flowing no matter what, it would help make your story work... but it doesn't... It doesn't spoil like food either...

Back in the 70's when the Saudis did it to us, we did several things...

1. We reduced the speed limit to 55 mph nationwide.
I see it as high as 70 mph now... I can be going 60 and be passed like I were standing still!

2. We were hot on the road to developing other means of energy...
Wind, solar, water, fuel cells, etc. all having tax credit incentives to get into them. The Government was talking it up and concentrating on energy conservation...
I think all incentives have been removed... The Government went on to better things like Spending Money we didn't have.

The Saudis, et al, have not changed their way of thinking toward us.

3. We have forgotten the way it was... Now, it's coming back to bite us.
... again...

[TJG]

BUT.... if I buy $10 of gas three time per week instead of $30 once a week, the dtore owner looses money. Why you ask?

because I pay with my Visa check card. For me it's 3x$10 or $30 which are equal, but the owner has to pay a flat fee for me to use my card (I think it's a flat fee) in which case he has to pay 3x.25 instead of 1x.25.

If I'm right about the flat fee the he looses money overall, but he'll probably just raise his price further to get that money out of my pocket.

I'm guessing that the store owner takes the flat fee into account when setting the price for gas, snacks and all items sold. So, he may make less profit when someone uses their Visa check card, but he doesn't lose money. In fact, some stations use to give a discount on the price per gallon for people paying cash, although you don't see it often anymore.

[LarryG]

1. We reduced the speed limit to 55 mph nationwide.

I'd sooner pay $10/gal for gasoline than go back to driving 55 MPH on the Interstates.

What little actual gasoline the NMSL saved was more than offset by the colossal waste of the truly most precious commodity there is: human time.

[just4funsies]

Maybe I'm missing something...but this doesn't make any sense to me. Whether I buy $10.00 of gas three times a week or $30.00 of gas once a week, I'm still buying the same amount over the course of the week.

The station owner will still be selling the same total amount of gas each day...but instead of selling $1000 of gas to 33 people, he'll be selling $1000 of gas to 100 people. Which he will like, because that's another 66 customers per day to buy soft drinks, snacks & cigarettes.

Not only that, but all the customers now are having to go to the store three times a week, they'll use more gas just to go buy more gas...

Another fallacy to the egg example is that oil is not perishible. The suppliers can just sit on it until the consumer HAS to buy, and then they have even more leverage. That, and the fact that not everybody can get by on just 2 eggs a day, even if they wished they could...

[jwaterdawg]

All this talk about chickens and eggs and coke from the store is making me hungry. I think I'll drive to gas station get something to eat (I'll leave the engine running while inside) and then eat it in the parking lot with the engine running, AC on full blast, and windows down.

[LarryG]

All this talk about chickens and eggs and coke from the store is making me hungry. I think I'll drive to gas station get something to eat (I'll leave the engine running while inside) and then eat it in the parking lot with the engine running, AC on full blast, and windows down.

Before you step inside, don't forget to crank your stereo up, to entertain all those cheery folks pumping all that expensive petrol:

KAAAAAAAA ..... BWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM ......

Being forced to listen to that kinda crap while I'm being wallet-raped always makes MY day.

[Joe Lyddon]

I'd sooner pay $10/gal for gasoline than go back to driving 55 MPH on the Interstates.

What little actual gasoline the NMSL saved was more than offset by the colossal waste of the truly most precious commodity there is: human time.

Hey Larry,

You're working too hard!

Too much stress is getting to you...

Cool it... Take some time out to smell the roses...

You'll be happier...

I used to be a gong ho busy busy guy... always had a Tums or Rolaid in my mouth too!

Not any more! I have maybe had one Tums , etc. in the last 3 years!