Don't Buy Gas on May 15th - Are You Kidding Me?

Spam irritates me anyway let, but some just really underscore what a thoughtless practice forwarded messages to everyone in your inbox or even encouraging other to do so can be. I admit I do find information that I pass on to groups of friends via email. I usually judiciously pick which friends the subject might be of interest to and only send to them, not my entire mailbox. Another practice I have begun is putting everyone I am sending to in the BCC field and not the TO field. I think this helps with keeping the email addresses of those I send to private from each other. Most mass mailings I get have not only the names and email addresses of the most recent people this was sent to on the TO line, but also those that it was sent to previous in the body of the email as history. Thus, giving all of their friends and families names and email addresses to complete strangers.

The spam that I am ranting about today is the Don't Buy Gas on May 15th email. This is a great example of people just quickly forwarded on a message without actually thinking about what they are sending. How about not driving on that day. That would actually cut down the amount of gas that is being purchased from the gas companies because it is not being used. Not buying gas on a certain day does not lessen the amount of gas that is purchased that week. One will buy the gas on the 14th or the 16th and still give the money to the gas companies.

Oil Prices Rant

With Exxon posting record profits it has brought me back to a rant I have had for several years as I have seen several oil companies posting record profits.
Some would argue that we would cheer on a company in a different industry if they made profits like this, even if their product is more expensive. The problem is that we can't choose not to buy gas for the most part. They could charge us anything they wanted to. I pay for the gas not just for my car, but also for the gas of companies that I buy other products and services from, since they are forced to raise their prices when gas prices are up. Unfortunately I don't get to charge my employer a higher rate if gas goes up in price.
The auto companies are being slow to get alternate fuel vehicles to market. The gas-electric cars are such fluff. You are still using gas and not really using that much less of it.
Where is the competition? Where are my choices?
I guess Exxon has more than made back the cost of the clean up of its oil tanker. My guess is that even before gas prices took a spike they made back that cost in the first few weeks after the accident.