Lowering Gas Prices

( www.ChrisGreaves.com/Boycott )

A recent article in the Toronto Star suggests an effective means to lower gas prices in the GTA. The method is extensible to other cities, and indeed to all political or geographic areas.

“Boycott one gas company for a week; they will be forced to lower their prices to regain their market share”.

The period is up for debate - gas companies can easily weather a 1-hour boycott, even a 1-day boycott, but a 1-month boycott would dent a company, while a 1-year boycott would put the targeted company out of business.

The objective is that of Punitive Damages - enough economic clout to cause pain without ruining the business.

After all, we need all the gas companies in order to play them off against each other.

Competition for our gas dollar is a Good Thing.

Consider therefore a web site for the GTA which announced as the next boycott period approached that the new target was “Shell”.

Those drivers who subscribe to the mass-boycott idea would avoid buying gas at Shell and, being evangelical, would tell their friends and colleagues that “Shell” was the target this period.

How would anyone choose which company to boycott?

torontogasprices already announces the highest and lowest price for gas in the GTA. Score +1 against that company with the highest gas price at a random time each day. Then pick the company with the highest score. Over a short period, the company with the highest prices would float to the top of the list and be ready for a boycott.

The question is “Who picks the target?” and the answer is simple: In order to avoid any hint of collusion and legal attack, the web site would be hosted as a private web site, a blog perhaps, with the views expressed being solely those of the individual. There can be no legal complaint against an individual blogging and/or tweeting a disarmingly simple statement “This week I am boycotting Shell”.

An Example Page

An example page can be found at www.ChrisGreaves.com/Boycott . The page gives no reason for the boycott (and endorsement of the cheapest site). It merely states a decision that has been made.

The fun in all of this is, of course, that Chris Greaves doesn’t own a car, and rarely drives one. Even more rarely does he put gas in the tank.

It’s a fair bet that this week and next week, like last week, Chris Greaves will have no reason to buy gasoline.

So of course, he’ll not be buying gas at Shell.

Or Petro-Canada.

Or Esso.

Questions?

You might read the FAQ page .

Comments?

You can contact me directly: cgreaves@chrisgreaves.com or call me at 4166219348

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