Campaign to Reduce UK Petrol Prices

[Rasputin]

Sounds like an idea to me.




Subject: Campaign to Reduce UK Petrol Prices - a rip-off at 80p/litre

We are going to hit close to 89p a litre by the summer. Want petrol prices
to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. Philip
Hollsworth offered this good idea:

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy petrol on a certain day"
campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just
laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to hurt ourselves by
refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a
problem for them.

BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really
work. Please read it and join in!
Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to
think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP at 77p -80p, we need to take aggressive
action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace not sellers. With
the price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to take actin
The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is if we hit
someone in the pocket by not purchasing their Petrol! And we can do that
WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here's the idea:

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

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Esso and BP
petrol buyers. It's really simple to do!! Now, don't whimp out on me at
this point...keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of
people!!

I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each of you send it to at
least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at least ten
more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth
generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers If
those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then
30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further,
you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!! Again, all You have to
do is send this to 10 people. That's all (and not buy at ESSO/BP).

How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out to ten
more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably
be contacted within the next 8 days!!! I'll bet you didn't think you and I
had that much potential, did you! Acting together we can make a difference.
If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on.
PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE RANGE

Action:
It's easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your petrol
at Shell, Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons (75p), Jet etc. i.e. Boycott BP and
Esso.
MT Stafford


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

 

[jon_harley]

Your plan has at least three flaws:

1. Your calculations about how many people you can reach depends on nobody knowing anyone else's friends. In fact, friends form clusters and people in a cluster will just receive many copies of the message.

2. The fact that people do fill up at Esso and BP rather than at supermarkets where petrol is cheaper strongly suggests that those are exactly the people who don't care about the price.

3. Where do you think supermarkets get their petrol - from Tesco Value Oil-Rigs? No, they buy up spare capacity from the likes of Esso and BP. If the big oil companies see their own-brand profits falling, they'll just up the prices they charge supermarkets to compensate. And because the supermarkets have low margins they'll have to pass these rises straight on.

I'm all in favour of shopping where it's cheapest - I do that already - and I agree that consumer pressure can affect prices. But petrol is a cartel, and unless we break the cartel (eg by forming a petrol-importing co-op - like that'd ever be allowed) there's really not much chance of change.[/b][/i]

 

[GaryC]

Hello,

The only think I will say, is the tax! most of our money we spent in fuel are gone to the tax, the rising of crude oil will give us some impact in fuel price, but if we really want to reduce the fuel price, ask the government!

They always saying that big car generate more greenhouse gas, so they try to increase the fuel price to control it, but how many of their money are use to supporting the research for the future renewable energy, like biomass and fuel cell?

To be honest, I am a researcher in the university, who developing fuel cell electricity generating plant, with 10 to 50MW scale, and we can't get any penny of support from our government!

Such kind of research are highly support by government in USA and Europe, but not here in UK! The fuel tax is just an excuse, they are not trying to do anything about enviromental protection!

Gary!

 

[mike65]

80p = euro1.20, so I wont complain too loudly about prices here!

As for UK situation clearly its the chancellor you need to persuade. Something like 50p in that 80p goes to him.

Mike.

 

[catgate]

The whole business of taxes and politics is being used as a substitute for real democratic government, and is something we all should be worried about, not just MB owners. Things are rapidly reaching a point of irrecoverability and action needs to be taken before we get enmashed with the mortal sin which is the European Union. The original idea of a 'chain letter' to create action is fine, but the action needs to be sound. Can I suggest that the members of the MBOA go and have a long (and maybe difficult/uncomfortable) read at http://angelfire.com/realm3/accord .
There are no gimmick, nor bells and whistles, but there are some real truths that need support and action to alter the world as we know it. The first thing to do is to make as many people as possible aware of the true state of what is, and has been, going on, and the disemination of this site and/or its contents is the first step to our ultimate salvation from the power seekers.

 

[mike65]

. Things are rapidly reaching a point of irrecoverability and action needs to be taken before we get enmashed with the mortal sin which is the European Union. [/b].

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

Mike.

 

[catgate]

mike65 wrote..

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

I am not sure if these means he has been to http://angelfire.com/realm3/accord and agrees or not. Certainly unless he put the www. bit in front of the angelfire bit he would not have a chance. It just goes to show one should always ensure that the URL is correct and not rely on the automatic underlining as an indicator of integrity. Sorry about that. :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

 

[bacormack]

Sounds like an idea to me.




Subject: Campaign to Reduce UK Petrol Prices - a rip-off at 80p/litre

We are going to hit close to 89p a litre by the summer. Want petrol prices
to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. Philip
Hollsworth offered this good idea:

I wish.

Been paying 89.9p/Litre in my home town since the end of last year, 120 mile round trip required if you even wanted to get just 3p/litre cheaper. This type of action will never work, the government needs to be shown the error of it's ways.

 

[Rasputin]

Last famous words...

Thank you Corky for your contribution to the topic. I entirely agree with your statement "the government needs to be shown the error of it's ways" to echo Catgate's earlier comments.


With regard to your comment "This type of action will never work,":-

Have you heard this before? What happened to the creativity afterward?

We are all born creative. But bad experiences can sometimes cause us to be inhibited when it comes to new ideas.

It is important that we recognize the impact of habits and attitudes on us as we try to brainstorm.

Confucius said, ?Habits take us where we were yesterday, and our attitudes keep us there!?

Habits can make us rigid, unreceptive to change and not open to new possibilities.

We need to move beyond our natural paradigms and comfort zones and put on our thick skins.

Famous Predictions

"It will be years - not in my time - before a woman will become Prime Minister."
- Margaret Thatcher, 1974

"That rainbow song's no good. Take it out."
- MGM memo after first showing of "The Wizard Of Oz."

"You'd better learn secretarial skills or else get married."
- Modelling agency, rejecting Marilyn Monroe in 1944.

"Radio has no future."
"X-rays are clearly a hoax."
"The aeroplane is scientifically impossible."
- Royal Society president William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, 1897-9.

"No imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urging investment in the radio in the 1920's.

"You ought to go back to driving a truck."
- Concert manager, firing Elvis Presley in 1954.

"Forget it. No Civil War picture ever made a nickel."
- MGM executive, advising against investing in Gone With The Wind.

"Very interesting, Whittle, my boy, but it will never work."
- Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at Cambridge, shown Frank Whittle's plan for the jet engine.

"We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out."
- Decca executive, 1962, after turning down the Beatles.
"The Beatles? They're on the wane."
- The Duke of Edinburgh in Canada, 1965. They went on to produce a string of No 1s.

"The atom bomb will never go off - and I speak as an expert in explosives."
- U.S. Admiral William Leahy in 1945.

"Television won't matter in your lifetime or mine."
- Radio Times editor Rex Lambert, 1936.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.

"There will never be a bigger plane built."
- A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that carried ten people.

"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will."
- Albert Einstein, 1932

"With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the US market."
- Business Week, August 2, 1968

"Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 19,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1.5 tons."
- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949.

"I think there's a world market for about five computers."
- Thomas J. Watson, chairman of the board of IBM.

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.

"But what [...] is it good for?"
- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
- Ken Olson, president of Digital Equipment Corp. 1977

"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'"
- Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication."
- Western Union memo, 1876

"Airplanes are interesting toys, but they are of no military value whatsoever."
- Marechal Ferdinand Fock, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre

"No matter what happens, the U.S. Navy is not going to be caught napping."
- U.S. Secretary of Navy, December 4, 1941 before Pearl Harbour..

"While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility."
- American Radio pioneer Lee DeForest, 1926

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible."
- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."
- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."
- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.
.
"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy."
- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."
- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
- Bill Gates, 1981.

"What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?"
- The Quarterly Review, England, March 1825

"The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it. [...] Knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient."
- Dr. Alfred Velpeau, French surgeon, 1839

"Men might as well project a voyage to the Moon as attempt to employ steam navigation against the stormy North Atlantic Ocean."
- Dr. Dionysus Lardner, Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College, London, 1838


To mention but just a few?..

 

[catgate]

I can understand Corky's point of view, but I have to agree with Rasputin that throwing up the hands and claiming that nothing can be done is not the answer. We are conditioned by our upbringing and education (in the university of life). The net result is hypnosis, sleep and an apothetic acceptance of "whatever will be will be". For an explanation of how this came about see http://www.angelfire.com/realm3/accord/normal.htm

There is nothing there that you do not already know, but much that is presented in a different way. It also has a very strong bearing on the price, not only of petrol, but also on everything else that we need.

In addition to all this I still can not understand just what the precise operational sequence is for the rear w/w on my '98 C250TD auto. estate. When used simply as a wiper it wipes for about 110 degrees, pauses for some seconds, then completes the 180 degrees sweep and continues with the reverse 180 degrees before pausing again prior to continuing ad nausium. Does anyone have clue about the timing method/mechanism, pleas?

 

[bacormack]

Rasputin,

You certainly put a fair bit of time & thought into the subject & put up a good argument. To put myself in context, I personally would support this type of action (it's much better than the don't buy on a certain day) I just feel that the great majority of the UK public wouldn't.

Take my home town (or even county) for instance, you can only choose Esso, BP or Shell petrol, shell has only 3 or 4 pumps, Esso & BP have nice big sites. In the event of action the queues for Shell petrol would cause chaos & most people would soon get fed up & return to their normal buying habits. I can see this situation being repeated all over the country. What about all those drivers that have company fuel cards, they are going to keep buying from Esso & BP just because they have no choice.

Call me sceptical but the British general public have a poor track record in my opinion, it's high time we stood up & make ourselves heard just like the French Farmers Etc.

To put our fuel prices into context, I work overseas & can buy top grade petrol here for 20p/Litre & diesel for 16p/litre. Now if we could tie the fuel protest into the election & vote some of the big hitters (say a couple from each party) out of their constituancies the goverment would start to take notice as they fear for their jobs.