View Full Version : [OT] That chain letter about boycotting Esso
[OT] That chain letter about boycotting Esso
Anyone else got it? The campaigners are trying to get petrol prices
down to 69p. Apart from the sheer idiocy of believing oil companies can
actually cut prices by this much and stay in business:
People are driving half a mile to the shops instead of
walking. They're buying cars with unnecessarily big engines
(all the directors' cars at work are at least 4 litres, some
5 litres, in an overcrowded country with a 70mph maximum
speed limit). People buy 4x4s that do under 20mpg. 3 million
people are expected to be caught on speed cameras this year
- fuel consumption goes up with speed, rather dramatically
on motorways.
So tell me petrol is too expensive again?
Zog The Undeniable wrote:
> So tell me petrol is too expensive again?
PETROL IS TOO EXPENSIVE.
"Zog The Undeniable" <hrothgar19@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:40b646dd.0@entanet...
> Anyone else got it? The campaigners are trying to get
> petrol prices down to 69p. Apart from the sheer idiocy of
> believing oil companies can actually cut prices by this
> much and stay in business:
>
> People are driving half a mile to the shops instead of
> walking. They're buying cars with unnecessarily big
> engines (all the directors' cars at work are at least 4
> litres, some 5 litres, in an overcrowded country with a
> 70mph maximum speed limit). People buy 4x4s that do under
> 20mpg. 3 million people are expected to be caught on speed
> cameras this year
> - fuel consumption goes up with speed, rather dramatically
> on motorways.
>
> So tell me petrol is too expensive again?
Indeed, probably 90% of the people who complain about petrol
prices could have effectively halved them had they taken
more care choosing their last car.
Of course, the boycott idea is junk anyway because the
people it would hurt would be the retailers, who in many
istances are franchisees or independents, rather than the
oil companies directly. The oil companies will still sell
the same amount of oil overall. And if the boycott did put
their costs up, guess how they would recover them?
--
Tumbleweed
Remove my socks for email address
"Zog The Undeniable" <hrothgar19@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:40b646dd.0@entanet...
> Anyone else got it? The campaigners are trying to get
> petrol prices down to 69p. Apart from the sheer idiocy of
> believing oil companies can actually cut prices by this
> much and stay in business:
At 69p per litre - 17.5% of that is VAT - so price before
VAT = 58.7p / l Fuel duty for ultra-low-sulphur petrol is
47.1p per litre
So the retailer would take just 11.6 pence per litre (the
Government taking
57.4p / l). I don't think for a moment that any fuel
retailer would be able to survive getting just 11.6p /
litre for their petrol - I'm sure the raw cost is much
higher than that - add on refining and transportation
costs - and they'll be making a huge loss.
I think most petrol retailers will aim for only a 2 or 3
pence per litre profit in most cases. In a little table
below - I've put the cost at the pump on the left - with
amount of money retailer gets in the middle - and amount
government takes from duty and VAT on the right. Notice how
the amount the government gets through fuel duty and VAT
doesn't change all that much with price - but the amount
brought in by the retailer rises quite sharply with
increasing price at the pumps. The following works for Ultra-
Low Sulphur petrol and diesel until 1st September of this
year. I've put quite a large range of values on. Who knows
what some of the prices will get to if a new fuel protest
does go ahead.
58.3p / l - retailers taking nothing - govt taking 55.3p / l
60p / l - retailers taking 4.0p / l - govt taking 56.0p /
l 65p / l - retailers taking 8.2p / l - govt taking 56.8p
/ l 70p / l - retailers taking 12.5p / l - govt taking
57.5p / l 75p / l - retailers taking 16.7p / l - govt
taking 58.3p / l 80p / l - retailers taking 21.0p / l -
govt taking 59.0p / l 85p / l - retailers taking 25.2p /
l - govt taking 59.8p / l 90p / l - retailers taking
29.5p / l - govt taking 60.5p / l 95p / l - retailers
taking 33.8p / l - govt taking 61.2p / l £1 / l -
retailers taking 38.0p / l - govt taking 62.0p / l £1.05
/ l - retailers taking 42.3p / l - govt taking 62.7p / l
£1.099 / l - retailers taking 46.4p / l - govt taking
63.5p / l (highest UK pump price so far - found in
Blackpool, Lancashire) £1.342 / l - retailers taking
67.1p / l - govt taking 67.1p / l (price where the
government takings match the retailers income)
Zog The Undeniable posted ...
> Anyone else got it? The campaigners are trying to get
> petrol prices down to 69p. Apart from the sheer idiocy of
> believing oil companies can actually cut prices by this
> much and stay in business:
>
> People are driving half a mile to the shops instead of
> walking. They're buying cars with unnecessarily big
> engines (all the directors' cars at work are at least 4
> litres, some 5 litres, in an overcrowded country with a
> 70mph maximum speed limit). People buy 4x4s that do under
> 20mpg. 3 million people are expected to be caught on speed
> cameras this year - fuel consumption goes up with speed,
> rather dramatically on motorways.
>
> So tell me petrol is too expensive again?
Petrol is too expensive, which is why I don't use it, 'cept
in the motorbikes, generator, strimmer, chain saw, lawn-
mower, compressor and molotov cocktails .. ;)
--
Paul
(8(|) Homer rocks .. ;)
> People are driving half a mile to the shops instead of
> walking. They're buying cars with unnecessarily big
> engines (all the directors' cars at work are at least 4
> litres, some 5 litres, in an overcrowded country with a
> 70mph maximum speed limit). People buy 4x4s that do under
> 20mpg. 3 million people are expected to be caught on speed
> cameras this year
> - fuel consumption goes up with speed, rather dramatically
> on motorways.
>
Also with company cars, the marginal cost of a journey
is zero- in fact it's less than zero, because by filling
up your nice big tank you get air miles, loyalty-points
or whatever.
My company doesn't offer a cash-in-lieu option, so although
it is perfectly feasible for me to cycle to the station, get
on the train and cycle at the other end, it costs me every
time I do because I have to pay for both the rail ticket and
the fuel (in tax).
So, the sooner the government bans flat-rate fuel-benefit
the better. I have pointed out to my company that by giving
me a company car and fuel card they are paying for an open-
ended commitment. I could drive to France every weekend, say
1,000 miles per week, 50,000 miles per year, at 30p per mile
(roughly AA figures), that's £15k. I've suggested that they
limit this by giving me a simple salary increase of
approximately one-third of this, and I'll make my own way
(rail fare is £5.80 per day, total per annum roughly
£1,300). I win, they win, the environment wins, they save on
time wasted because there are too many cars in the car park
at work and people miss meetings because some clown has
blocked them in.
Naturally this suggestion is too radical, and has been
rejected.
So, fuel is clearly NOT too expensive.
Peter
"Zog The Undeniable" <hrothgar19@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:40b646dd.0@entanet...
> Anyone else got it? The campaigners are trying to get
> petrol prices down to 69p. Apart from the sheer idiocy of
> believing oil companies can actually cut prices by this
> much and stay in business:
Petrol retailing is a cut throat business and oil
companies (I work for one) make very little money in terms
of pence per litre profit, the vast majority is of course
tax and then you pay VAT on the tax itself! You can make
more money selling sandwiches and coffee in the shop than
selling fuel.
Unless people haven't noticed, the price of crude oil has
*doubled* over the past 18 months or so and it is impossible
to get the price of petrol to 69p unless the oil companies
actually subsidise the price by diverting profits from their
crude oil business to the retailing division, which is
illegal - unless you're a supermarket apparently.
Of course the chancellor could cut tax until it's 69p.
--
Simon Mason Anlaby East Yorkshire. 53°44'N 0°26'W
http://www.simonmason.karoo.net (http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/)
Zog The Undeniable wrote:
>
> So tell me petrol is too expensive again?
Absolutely. We should encourage this view and get people to
boycott all the petrol stations until the price is halved.
This would mean them not using their cars and going instead
by public transport/bicycle/foot but that is a sacrifice I
am prepared to make ;-^)
Tony
"Tony Raven" <junk@raven-family.com> wrote in message
news:2hpfbiFfiv7gU2@uni-berlin.de...
> Zog The Undeniable wrote:
>
> >
> > So tell me petrol is too expensive again?
>
> Absolutely. We should encourage this view and get people
> to boycott all
the
> petrol stations until the price is halved. This would mean
> them not using their cars and going instead by public
> transport/bicycle/foot but that is
a
> sacrifice I am prepared to make ;-^)
>
> Tony
>
It wouldn't be if you used public transport, put more than a
few extra % on t and it would be completely unusable. The
trains I sometimes get out of Waterloo or into Paddington
are often *completely* full. If several thousand, maybe tens
of thousands of additional people tried to use them, you
couldnt even get in the station or onto the platform, let
alone the trains.
--
Tumbleweed
Remove my socks for email address
In news:40b7d33d$0$6375$afc38c87@news.easynet.co.uk,
Tumbleweed <tumbleweednews@mysockshotmail.com> typed:
> It wouldn't be if you used public transport, put more than
> a few extra % on t and it would be completely unusable.
> The trains I sometimes get out of Waterloo or into
> Paddington are often *completely* full. If several
> thousand, maybe tens of thousands of additional people
> tried to use them, you couldnt even get in the station or
> onto the platform, let alone the trains.
The trains coming out of Bimingham at rush hour are busy but
no one's standing and the trains are the normal size and the
schedules aren't altered to take more people at that time.
In my experience (limited) more or less the same obtains for
other large cities in the UK with one exception. I'd suggest
that there's probably a need to be ensuring that job growth
follows spare capacity in infrastructure in this country.
A
Ambrose Nankivell wrote:
> In news:40b7d33d$0$6375$afc38c87@news.easynet.co.uk,
> Tumbleweed <tumbleweednews@mysockshotmail.com> typed:
>>It wouldn't be if you used public transport, put more than
>>a few extra % on t and it would be completely unusable.
>>The trains I sometimes get out of Waterloo or into
>>Paddington are often *completely* full. If several
>>thousand, maybe tens of thousands of additional people
>>tried to use them, you couldnt even get in the station or
>>onto the platform, let alone the trains.
>
> The trains coming out of Bimingham at rush hour are busy
> but no one's standing and the trains are the normal size
> and the schedules aren't altered to take more people at
> that time.
And although trains in and out of London are rammed, they
carry a high percentage of the commuters. Very few people
drive to/from central London daily, so if they all took the
train it wouldn't make much difference (to the trains). Just
a few %! It SHOULD be possible to cope with this with an
extra coach or two per train.
London car traffic is mostly journeys within the city,
especially suburb to suburb. Outside the centre there is
spare rail capacity, but not much of it is orbital.
I'll believe fuel prices are high enough when they have a
significant impact on people's car-buying, relocation, and
mode of transport decisions.
Colin McKenzie
--
Why believe statistics? Ignore them and you can believe the
damned lies instead!
Colin McKenzie wrote:
>
> And although trains in and out of London are rammed, they
> carry a high percentage of the commuters.
They're not rammed or crammed. The Japanese would get 50%
more passengers onto them for commuting. A train ain't
crammed till you've been pushed on by station staff and the
pressure of other bodies round you means you can lift both
feet of the ground without sliding down (and the average
Japanese commute is two hours each way like that!)
Tony
In news:2hrt7qFgl3g8U1@uni-berlin.de,
Tony Raven <junk@raven-family.com> typed:
> Colin McKenzie wrote:
>>
>> And although trains in and out of London are rammed, they
>> carry a high percentage of the commuters.
>
> They're not rammed or crammed. The Japanese would get 50%
> more passengers onto them for commuting. A train ain't
> crammed till you've been pushed on by station staff and
> the pressure of other bodies round you means you can lift
> both feet of the ground without sliding down (and the
> average Japanese commute is two hours each way like that!)
UKian social norms may beg to differ on that front.
But of course Colin's point about commuter trains already
taking most of the traffic along their routes was pertinent.
I wonder how much of the UK's commutes are easily served by
public transport. Numbers, anyone?
Ambrose
vBulletin, Copyright ©2000-2009, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Search Engine Friendly URLs by
vBSEO 3.3.0
