The Stupidity of a BP Boycott

Boycotting BP Gas stations is about as childish and ignorant as drawing an imaginary line in a car to separate fighting siblings in the back seat. A lot of people that are understandably upset with the oil spill feel that the best way to vent their frustrations are to boycott buying gas from BP stations. Hitting them where it hurts in the pocket books..

There are two main problems with this.. First off the BP station's that pump gas are independently owned and operated and are only franchised under the BP Label.. SO instead of taking the money out of the hands of the "suits" in the UK, people are taking the money out of the hands of hard working Americans (and some Indian-Americans). All a successful boycott would do is continue to add to unemployment and an ever growing welfare state.

The second problem is that crude oil, the type that is currently being served as a dipping sauce for fried clam strips in the gulf, is a commodity. This means that the oil BP brings out of the ground is sold at market and at market prices unless it is directly shipped to a BP refinery. For a boycott to truly work one would need to boycott buying crude oil from BP... Of course the few hundred thousand facebook junkies "that recently started doing some thinking" can definitely persuade the rest of the oil industry to not buy BP oil.

So you potentially have this situation, as a Boycotter you are driving past a BP station, to go to an Citgo station to get gas. The gas you are buying at citgo could potentially be made up of: 25% Venezuelan oil (profits going to that nut job  Chavez) 25% oil from Saudi (profits going to a terrorist bomber) and 50% oil from BP!! SO... for a Boycott to work we need to boycott Gasoline all together..I know some Ethanol producers that would be happy with that!!