This may be worth the effort

[Marmino]

For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY fuel from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any fuel, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

Petro is business partners with Exxon/Mobil
Pilot shares ownership with Marathon Ashland
Flying J has it's own refineries but let's face it they have to use other suppliers.
I have not been able to get any info on TA.

Nevertheless, if you look on the pump or on the sign most will identify the source of their fuel.

Strength comes in numbers!

 

[Marmino]

OOPS!

meant to post this as a reply to the other post:+

 

[Broompilot]

This includes most if not all Petro's great food terrible fuel. I will not buy any fuel ever from Mobil, Exon, Shevron, Standard Oil. Over priced and they use to gouge their own credit card holders cash price, credit price, just like Pilot.

 

[dhalltoyo]

I know this might really come as a shock to you, but oil companies do not underwrite credit cards. Although Exxon, Shell, BP, Pilot, FlyingJ, Marathon, etc may have their name on the card, they are NOT banks or lending institutions.

Here is a copy of the Exxon disclosure:

NOTICE TO BUYER: You also understand that credit on this Account, once approved, will be extended by GE Money Bank ("GEMB"), and that there is no binding contract between us until GEMB approves and accepts this Agreement.

Please note that GE Money Bank handles the transactions for the Exxon card. It is same scenario for all fuel cards.

Now you had better sit down and take a deep breath because this might be more than you can handle standing up. I do not want you to pass out when you read the next statement.

OK, here we go: Did you know that GE Money bank actually charges Exxon a fee every time you use a credit card? Therefore, if Exxon is charged a fee for allowing you to use your credit card why would you think they should sell you fuel for the same price as they would to a cash paying customer?

Moreover, the processing fee that banks charge vendors (gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants, etc.) is determined by the the volume of business and the number of transactions. Petro is probably getting charged a 1.75 to 2% processing fee for every transaction. At $2.79 a gallon it is costing them a few basis points more than a nickel per gallon to let you use that credit card. So if it is costing them more than a nickel per gallon, how is that gouging????????

If you don't like paying the extra for using a credit card, then pay cash. Isn't it wonderful to live in a country where you have the freedom to choose how you will spend your money.

Stop listening to the liberal media on your boob tube. Gouging is just another buzz word used by reporters who don't have a clue about economics.

 

[greg334]

Well dhalltoyo, you hit something right on the head. But as I said before there is a problem with the blame game.

Here in the great state of Michigan we have our great governor who is so useless it is unbelievable. She has taken our tax money to pay for a petition to send to the president to tell him to support a windfall profits tax so she can distract us from the truth. She, with the other useless people we have representing our state feel that it is alright to have one of the highest gas tax in the nation (when you calculate the sales tax on top of the state and federal tax plus the base price of the fuel) and it is necessary to punish corporations for profits they make.

On top of all that our media here in the state is the stupidest bunch of fools around. Listening to WJR yesterday on my way back home I was amazed that no one said that they should lower the tax or suspend it but rather promoted to sign the petition.

This state has a habit of blaming everyone else for things; we rank last in the nation for everything but rank first in dumb citizens who elect idiots.

 

[Deville]

I like Sunoco and Hess myself

 

[dhalltoyo]

There we go again with another buzz word from the liberal media. Oh my, lions and tigers and bears, uh, and windfall profits too!

NOT!

The oil speculators are making extremely high profits at this time, but that is what a free market society is all about. As long as the demand stays strong they will continue to buy oil futures at inflated prices. That translates into increased cost at the pump. It does NOT mean that the oil companies are ripping us off. You seem to forget that they buy oil in the marketplace and pay whatever the going rate is for that crude oil. For many years the oil industry has experienced marginal profits. Why do think we haven't built a new oil refinery in this country since 1976? The cost is so high and the risk is so great that oil companies did not want to over extend themselves finacially. The "tree hugers" have created such ridiculous environmental regulations that no oil companies wanted to spend huge amounts of capital trying to bring a new refinery on line.

Business Week magazine regularly compares the profitability of various industries and companies on the basis of profit margin. Traditionally, oil companies have trailed many other industries in this measure of profitability. As indicated in the graphic, the profit margin of oil and natural gas companies was slightly above that of all industry in the third quarter of 2005. However, the industry's profitability remained below the profit margins of other industries such as banking, financial services, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications and computer software.

Gee, based on the chart below we should stop using banks, cash in our 401K's or IRA's, flush all our medicines down the toilet, toss the cell phones out the window, blow up all our computers, and stop eating in restaurants, because every one of those industries made MORE profit than the oil companies.

Again, stop listening to the liberal media, turn off the TV, go to the library and grab a few books on the history of the petroleum industry. Oh, and pick up a book on economics will you are there.

PS. If you don't like the governor vote her out. If you don't like living in Michigan; move! Come on down to Ohio. We have decent roads and we actually enforce our laws.

 

[greg334]

Actually I can speak with confidence that one pharma company that maintains a 33% profit margin, the world's largest. They have consistantly been the highest by 8 to 10% of any pharma companies and even had a great idea - promote the medicare drug plan, help get it past and then raise the prices across the board to maintain the 34% profit margin they had that year.

I did't vote for the ***** in the first place, but leave.. I am surely trying.

 

[raceman]

dhalltoyo, thank you for your input on this topic. I was trying to make a point about this topic under the thread GAS WARS, but due to my opinion and emotion kind of blew it.

There is certainly something to be said for doing a little economic research to get a better picture.

I spoke to a Trooper today really about the lack of turn signal use but we got on this topic. He said he and fellow officers see no change in the driving habits of people which lead him to saying the price is just not a problem yet. People are doing very little on the roads to conserve. I would agree based on what I see.



Raceman
OTR O/O

 

[highway star]

I heard an "expert" on the radio say that if everyone cut down 5% the price would plummet. Seems like most people could do that easily.

 

[terryandrene]

The following stolen from one of my favorite sites, snopes.com:

A boycott of a couple of brands of gasoline won't result in lower overall prices. Prices at all the non-boycotted outlets would rise due to the temporarily limited supply and increased demand, making the original prices look cheap by comparison. The shunned outlets could then make a killing by offering gasoline at its "normal" (i.e., pre-boycott) price or by selling off their output to the non-boycotted companies, who will need the extra supply to meet demand. The only person who really gets hurt in this proposed scheme is the service station operator, who has almost no control over the price of gasoline.

The only practical way of reducing gasoline prices is through the straightforward means of buying less gasoline, not through a simple and painless scheme of just shifting where we buy it. The inconvenience of driving less is a hardship too many people apparently aren't willing to endure, however.

 

[outwardbound 2]

Hey you got me convinced i'll join your cruisade!

The big ape said while beating his chest! :+

 

[highway star]

I think a lot of people could save through routine maintainance. I swear there are many thousands of people out there who don't know how to operate an air pressure gauge. Add a new set of plugs and wires to that and things might be a lot different.

 

[EASYTRADER]

Fuel prices are high becuase the LIBS for more than 20 years have been
legislating american crude production and refining out of bussiness.

Our country has the best oil reserves in the world but we can't drill them because the conservatives don't have the guts to tell green peace to stuff it. The republicans have a majority in the house, the senate and even the presidency - If they had any juevos we'd be in anwar now drilling like mad, while similtaneously building refineries in the midwest - and outlawing these stupid California boutique fuel laws - Just take the cleanest burning formula and produce it for the whole country!

We have oil in almost every state in the union not to mention huge reserves off the coast of florida, caifornia and alaska. Incidenly the cubans are drilling off the coast of Fl now.

Did I mention Anwar, so evry time you fill up you tank remember to thank you local liberal as you go broke.

Or just switch the whole country to bio-diesel, that would ##### off the arabs and make our farmers happy, plus the exhaust smells like french fries

 

[greg334]

You know i listened to someone today, Boortz or Limbaugh and they were lisitng the percentage of oil we import but he did not mention what we export. I forget what we do export so I checked, it averages around 1.7M bbls a day and our import is 13M bbls a day. that 1.7M bbls a day is still over 10% of our daily intake, why send it away?

Well here is what we do. Most of the Alaska crude goes to japan and china - so if ANWAR were to be opened to drilling we would have to make changes to the path of the oil to make sure it does get down here instead of Japan or China. The problem I see is that we use tankers to move oil out of Alaska to bring it down here, we much set up large enough docks to handle off loading oil with the permission of the California enviormentalist.