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I love receiving the emails or Myspace bulletins from people talking about the next Gas Out. It’s a noble attempt at understanding economics, but lacks evolved economic understanding. For those of you who haven’t see these letters, they look something like the following:

Ok people we are having the weekend gas out on _______. Gas up on Thursday for the weekend. Gas out ends on Monday so spend time with your family’s and stay home. If u have to go out, use public transportation or car pool or even walk or ride a bike. If we stand together we can hit them where it hurts; there (emphasis on the misspelling) pockets. So remember GAS OUT THIS ___ TO ___

The latest one I’ve started to receive includes the following:

P.S. WE ARE ALSO GOING TO PICKET OUR LOCAL GAS STATIONS TO GET THEM NOTICED ON T.V. SO MAKE SOME SIGNS AND WALK TO YOUR NEAREST GAS STATION AND PICKET FOR AN HOUR OR SO…

For starters, holding out on consuming gas for a weekend is not going to do anything. You are still gassing up on Friday. You are still consuming gas. A single day reduction in consumption isn’t going to hurt any oil company’s pocket. Try to hold out as long as you can… The oil companies are going to win the stand off.

The recent addition is something that concerns me though. The blatant disregard for learning the facts is astonishing. Your local gas station is independently owned and operated. They make very low margins on their gasoline. In fact, the local gas stations are not walking away from these higher gas prices with fat pockets like the oil companies. They are merely passing along the costs the oil companies are subjecting them to.

In isolated instanced such as the gasoline price gouging at the Chevron in Goleta, California, I’d welcome a picket line. Meanwhile, for anyone looking to really make a difference in gasoline prices… drive less. It’s really that simple.