[IHRO] Need a Gandhi to fix the oil crisis

A similar strategy of not filling up fuel tank to defeat the speculators has been propounded in an article in Hardnews magazine titled " Need a Gandhi to fix the oil crisis" (www.hardnewsmedia. com/2008/ 2273)







By Sanjay Kapoor

This is a question that has crossed our minds often: How would Mahatma Gandhi have reacted if he was around when oil prices were nudging $150 barrel? Quite clearly, his response would have been markedly different from the likes of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or the extremely conservative Congress president, Sonia Gandhi. He would not have reacted like US President George W Bush and suggested drilling in high seas. He would not have shown his rage like the OPEC leaders, who have claimed that future traders are trying to take control of the pricing of oil away from them. He would have done things very differently. Mahatma Gandhi's biographer Loius Fischer provided ample indication about how he would have gone about it. His greatness, she says, "lay in doing what every one could do but doesn't". And the great man would have done what we all know: Show the world that Indians can do what the consumerist West would blanche even thinking about - cut down consumption. He would have used this as an opportunity to politically mobilise millions of people reeling under high fuel and food prices and hit at all those entities that are deepening their misery. Gandhi would have identified the causes behind the spiraling oil prices and its consequent impact on food and other commodities. He would have campaigned relentlessly against the militaristic policies of the US and how it is contributing to creating such a gargantuan fuel crisis.
Going by the material that is available on the internet and elsewhere, he would have come to the conclusion that the price hike was not due to fall in production or a sudden increase in demand for oil, but due to the aggressive trading in commodity futures in world market as well as the manner in which both the US government and traders were hoarding oil to get a better deal in the future. Gandhi would have sensed how the oil companies are major beneficiaries of this increase in fuel and devised a simple strategy that punctured their best-laid plans. It would have been a simple solution: If the future traders, oil producers and refiners are making money from ordinary people then through civil action cut down on oil consumption. He would also have known how modern governments have become slaves to the interests of large corporations and do not have the courage to rein them in. Armed with this realisation, he would have gone about empowering the oppressed and sensed it as a historical opportunity to reshape and reorder world economy, society and human relationship. Gandhi would not have hesitated in opting for the most creative way to galvanise his troops quite like what he did when he organised the Dandi Yatra against the salt tax imposed by the British colonial government. Many had laughed at the "naked fakir" for devising a way to take on the might of the British government by resorting to an agitation that may be high on symbolism but did not really constitute a threat to the British rulers. As events proved subsequently, Gandhi's instincts were correct and the "yatra" became an important event in India's march to independence. He would have known oil had similar impact on the lives of people like salt.
A great communicator, who used to write copiously for his own publication , Gandhi in 2008 would have had his own website or blog to network with thousands of activists in India and abroad to tell them exactly what needs to be done to take control over their lives and fight the rapacious market. Gandhi would have loved the internet and how it empowers an individual to access information. Wonder what he would have called his website? Maybe www.livewithdignity .com or www.telyatra. com

Using it as a force multiplier he would have spread his message far and wide. Parsimonious in his ways, he would skype other Gandhians to ready themselves for coming out in the streets and forcing large corporations, governments and speculators to see reason. Sending thousands of e-mails he would have mobilised demonstrators. They would have been asked to organise sit-ins at Wall Street, London Commodity exchanges and in other major capitals of the world. He would also have asked his followers to not use their cars for one day of the week and not fill up their tank to capacity. A careful journalist, he would have been armed with the information that governments or speculators would not have enough capacities to hoard oil if people stop buying so much oil. He would have asked his supporters to abandon cars and take public transport. Take trains rather than fly. Gandhi would have got all the support of the Greens, film and other celebrities like George Clooney, Richard Gere, Aamir Khan, Arundhati Roy and many more. Before accepting them in his fold he would have asked them to follow the Gandhi way of leading a Spartan existence. He would have built a worldwide movement that would have brought the oil majors and speculators on their knees and forced the world to conduct their lives differently. Gandhi would have brought a paradigm shift in the way the people live their lives. Is there anyone who can make Gandhi happen again?

----- Original Message ----- From: preet To: dilsedesigroup@ yahoogroups. com Sent: Friday, July 04, 2008 11:11 AMSubject: [IHRO] worth reading..... .......please spare a minute. how we can control fuel prices.

Worth reading Friends

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. He 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 sell 100,000 dozen eggs a day to distributors. With no competition, they can set the price as they see fit. The distributors then have to raise their prices to t he 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.

Then week before Thanksgiving the price of eggs shot up to $1.00 a dozen. 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 more 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
wouldn't need any all week.

The distributor had eggs f iling 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". T he 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 buying 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 but the egg farmers liked the price they were getting for their eggs but, those
chickens just kept on laying. Fin ally, 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 dropping. 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 those chickens kept on laying.

Eventually, the egg farmers cut their prices because 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 dealer's 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 oil fiends.

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 quarter 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..."

just think of this concept for a while.

............ ......please pass this concept around....reaching out to the mass ..the world .....the universe.

preet00-44-7725894415