Just to let you know, there’s a lot of email chain letter activity about this event by a lot of well meaning people who misunderstand some basic economic principles. The idea is to not buy gas on Wednesday, May 15th causing a great financial blow to the oil industry.
The key thing to realize is that, the email does not suggest driving less on the 15th. It only asks us to refrain from buying gas on the 15th. Since you will eventually fill your tank, all it means is we will pay the oil industry the same amount we were going to pay anyway. We’ll just pay it on a different day.
It’s easy to do – which is why the email is so widely circulated – so if you want to participate it will cause you very little hardship. Just realize that it will cause the oil industry even less hardship. In fact, even if everyone did this, it would cause the oil industry $0.
So, don’t buy gas on 15th if you want. But if your goal is to hurt the oil industry, the only way to do that is to not drive on the 15th.