another idea from the net

daniel49

Diamond Member
Jan 8, 2005
4,814
0
71
Personally I don't think it would work because right now China and India are buying every egg they can lay thier hands on...whether the farmer is reputable or not.
For that statement to make sense you will have to read the idea below:)

Plz throw in your 2 cents.


The Idea:
This makes a lot of sense~ read to the end!!
A man eats two eggs each morning for breakfast. When he goes to the grocery store he pays .60 cents a dozen. Since a dozen eggs won't last a week he normally buys two dozens at ! a time
One day while buying eggs he notices that the price has risen to 72 cents. The next time he buys groceries, eggs are .76 cents a dozen. When asked to explain the price of eggs the store owner says, "the price has gone up and I have to raise my price accordingly".
This store buys 100 dozen eggs a day. I checked around for a better price and all the distributors have raised their prices. The distributors have begun to buy from the huge egg farms. The small egg farms have been driven out of business.
The huge egg farms sells 100,000 dozen eggs a day to distributors. Wit! h no competition, they can set the price as they see fit. The distributors then have to raise their prices to the grocery stores. And on and on and on. As the man kept buying eggs the price kept going up. He saw the big egg trucks delivering 100 dozen eggs each day. Nothing changed there.
He checked out the huge egg farms and found they were selling 100,000 dozen eggs to the distributors daily. Nothing had changed but the price of eggs.
The week before Thanksgiving the price of eggs shot up to $1.00 a d ozen. Again he asked the grocery owner why and was told, "cakes and baking for the holiday". The huge egg farmers know there will be a lot of baking going on and m ore eggs will be used. Hence, the price of eggs goes up. Expect the same thing at Christmas and other times when family cooking, baking, etc. happen.
This pattern continues until the price of eggs is 2.00 a dozen. The man says,"there must be something we can do about the price of eggs".
He starts talking to all the people in his town and they decide to stop buying eggs. This didn't work because everyone needed eggs. Finally, the man suggested only buying what you need.
He ate 2 eggs a day. On the way home from work he would stop at the grocery and buy two eggs. Everyone in town started buying 2 or 3 eggs a day.
The grocery store owner began complaining that he had too many eggs in his cooler. He told the distributor that he didn't need any eggs. Maybe would n't need any all week.
The distributor had eggs piling up at his warehouse. He told the huge egg farms that he didn't have any room for eggs would not need any for at least two weeks.
At the egg farm, the chickens just kept on laying eggs.
To relieve the pressure, the huge egg farm told the distributor that they could buy the eggs at a lower price. The distributor said, " I don't have the room for the %$&^*&% eggs even if they were free" .
The distributor told the grocery store owner that he would lower the price of the eggs if the store would start buying again. The grocery store owner said, "I don't have room for more eggs. The customers are only buy 2 or 3 eggs at a time". "Now if you were to drop the price of eggs back down to the original price, the customers would start buying by the dozen again".
The distributors sent that proposal to the huge egg farmers. They liked the price they were getting for their eggs but, them chickens just kept on
Finally, the egg farmers lowered the price of their eggs. But only a few cents. The customers still bought 2 or 3 eggs at a time. They said, "when the price of eggs gets down to where it was before, we will start buying by the dozen. "
Slowly the price of eggs started dro pping. The distributors had to slash their prices to make room for the eggs coming from the egg farmers. The egg farmers cut their prices because the distributors wouldn't buy at a higher price than they were selling eggs for.
Anyway, they had full warehouses and wouldn't need eggs for quite a while.
And them chickens kept on laying.
Eventually, the egg farmers cut their prices b! ecause they were throwing away eggs they couldn't sell. The distributors started buying again because the eggs were priced to where the stores could afford to sell them at the lower price.
And the customers starting buying by the dozen again.
Now, transpose this analogy to the gasoline industry.
What if everyone only bought $10.00 worth of gas each time they pulled to the pump. The dealers tanks would stay semi full all the time. The dealers wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the huge tank farms. The tank farms wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the refining plants. And the refining plants wouldn't have room for the oil being off loaded from the huge tankers coming from the Middle East.
Just $10.00 each time you buy gas. Don't fill it up. You may have to stop for gas twice a week but, the price should come down.
Think about it.
As an added note..! .When I buy $10.00 worth of gas,that leaves my tank a little under half full. The way prices are jumping around, you can buy gas for $2.65 a gallon and then the next morning it can be $2.15. If you have your tank full of $2.65 gas you don't have room for the $2.15 gas. You might not understand the economics of only buying two eggs at a time but, you can't buy cheaper gas if your tank is full of the high priced stuff.
Also, don't buy anything else at the gas station, don't give them any more of your hard earned money than what you spend on gas, until the prices come down..
 
Apr 28, 2006
56
0
0
Well, over here in the great land of Aus, we have this little thing called the discount cycle, which means that prices are most expensive on Wednesday then drop over the week until they're cheapest on Tuesday. Every week I use about half a tank (20L), and fill that up every Tuesday.

You can't just drive till you're empty, then fill up $10, then drive till you're empty again, not only is this bad for your car's engine, thus reducing fuel economy, but it's also risky to run out of petrol.

The biggest flaw, however, is that the egg analogy assumes people buy more eggs than they need bcause it's cheaper, and throw some out. You use every drop of petrol you buy, so you can't buy petrol in bulk for cheaper, and throw out petrol that goes off. Essentially, no matter our buying pattern, we'll still trave the same distance, still use petrol at the same rate, we'll just be filling up more often, but the bowsers will still empty at the same rate, and no one will notice except the motorist who suddenly has to stop to put in petrol every day instead of once a week.

In essence, we'd screw ourselves while the oil companies laugh at us.
 

HombrePequeno

Diamond Member
Mar 7, 2001
4,657
0
0
Doesn't that just mean you would have to drive to the gas station more often which would increase your need for fuel? In the analogy it doesn't cost more eggs to get two eggs every day where as it would for gas.

Also, them buying only two or three eggs a day is decreasing their consumption of eggs (assuming previous consumption was 2 dozen/wk). You can easily do that with eggs, as there are more substitutes but there aren't that many quick substitutes for gasoline. I guess you could make the argument that you could easily switch to public transportation but that also costs money and much more time.
 

Rainsford

Lifer
Apr 25, 2001
17,515
0
0
Originally posted by: jrenz
I'm pretty sure that's the most idiotic idea I have ever heard.

Yes. It's a complex economic situation, and if the only way to explain it is with a dubiously related analogy, you're in trouble.
 

Meuge

Banned
Nov 27, 2005
2,963
0
0
Oil markets do not operate on a per-day basis, and average demand would stay the same, so no, this idea wouldn't work. However, let me ask everyone something. The prices keep going up, and every time they jump another 20-30c we're told that the price is going up because of shortages in terms of refining and/or production. Now, maybe I am just unfamiliar with either supply-and-demand economics, or simple English language... because I have yet to see a gas station declare that they are out of gas. A shortage means that someone doesn't have as much as they'd like to consume. Yet I just don't see that happening with gasoline right now. What I do see are excuses such as "the price is going up because of FEARS of shortages"... really? fears of shortages? well, how did those fears start? - "well, we said that there are rumors of fears of shortages... and that's how the rumors started"
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,806
6,362
126
Originally posted by: Meuge
Oil markets do not operate on a per-day basis, and average demand would stay the same, so no, this idea wouldn't work. However, let me ask everyone something. The prices keep going up, and every time they jump another 20-30c we're told that the price is going up because of shortages in terms of refining and/or production. Now, maybe I am just unfamiliar with either supply-and-demand economics, or simple English language... because I have yet to see a gas station declare that they are out of gas. A shortage means that someone doesn't have as much as they'd like to consume. Yet I just don't see that happening with gasoline right now. What I do see are excuses such as "the price is going up because of FEARS of shortages"... really? fears of shortages? well, how did those fears start? - "well, we said that there are rumors of fears of shortages... and that's how the rumors started"

hehe, wouldn't be surprised.
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,806
6,362
126
Most people don't need the price of gas to be lowered in order to save $$. They need to drive less.