Coupons!

Recent Post

Brace for a fuel shortage in Luzon and thereafter, an economic crisis

---

A failure to communicate

---

Screwing the entrepreneur

---

Remedies for cartelization

---

Pandacan revisited

---

American retail chains routinely include glossy, colored ad supplements in newspapers with coupons offering discounts anywhere from basic commodities such as milk, to personal items such as clothing and apparel.

Taking a page from this playbook, the Palace by the Pasig late last month declared it would offer discount coupons to the less privileged.

“Palace eyes ‘diesel coupons’ for poor beneficiaries”, screamed the headline on page 2 of the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s March 28 issue. Not to be outdone, the Manila Standard said “Coco levy to fund pro-poor subsidy”!

This is the newest “charm offensive” by the Palace in trying to mollify the public in the face of almost daily unprecedented highs of crude oil prices in the global market. The government, according to these news items, will use the royalties from the Malampaya gas project and the coconut levy to subsidize these coupons.

Instead of encouraging the people to conserve energy, the government is even encouraging them to consume more – after all, there is the discount coupon anyway.

Aside from encouraging consumption and the concomitant impact on global warming, this newest charm initiative is fraught with a great number of pitfalls that may eventually do more harm than good:

Counterfeiting – Diplomas, money, passports, and transcripts of records are known to have been “copied”. How much more these coupons?

Distribution – How does the government choose who gets these coupons? If these coupons are to be distributed through “regular” channels (i.e., through the local government units), then expect these local officials’ relatives and cronies to get the bulk (if not all of the coupons).

Payments system – How will the government pay these off? What is the timeline for payment?
 
At the end of the day, the biggest disincentive to consumption is the high price of a commodity. The government would do well to remember this economic principle.

Email Brigade. More than 10 people have sent us the email below:

Worth A Chance....Let’s see how it goes... (Gas Prices!!)

THIS IS NOT THE ‘DON’T BUY’ GAS FOR ONE DAY, BUT IT WILL SHOW YOU HOW WE CAN GET GAS BACK DOWN TO P30.00 PER LITER.

This was sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. If you are tired of the gas prices going up AND they will continue to rise this summer, take time to read this please.

Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea. This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the “don’t buy gas on a certain day” campaign that was going around last April or May! It’s worth your consideration. Join the resistance!!

 I hear we are going to hit close to P60.00 a LITER by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down?

We need to take some intelligent, united action. The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn’t continue to “hurt” ourselves by refusing to buy gas.

It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can Really work. Please read on and join with us!

By now you’re probably thinking gasoline priced at about P30.00 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently P45.00/liter for regular unleaded in my town.

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at P30 - P35/liter, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace... not sellers.

With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action.

The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves.

How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can’t just stop buying gas.

But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here’s the idea: For the rest of this year, DON’T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies SHELL and CALTEX.

If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of SHELL and CALTEX gas buyers. It’s really simple to do! Now, don’t wimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I’ll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)…and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers.

If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!

If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That’s all!

If you don’t understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people....Well, let’s face it, you just aren’t a mathematician. But I am. So trust me on this one.

How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next eight days!!!

I’ll bet you didn’t think you and I had that much potential, did you! Acting together we can make a difference.

If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from SHELL/CALTEX UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE P30.00 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

The email is premised on the mistaken notion that oil companies are sellers. Note that the oil companies are also buyers.

They buy the crude oil from producing countries. In testimony offered before the US House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips, quoting Credit Suisse First Boston; and Oil & Gas Journal (among others), respectively, found that the world’s biggest oil reserves are controlled by the national oil companies (or oil companies controlled by governments, with the Top 5 reserves controlled by the National Oil Company of Iran; Saudi Aramco; Gazprom (Russia); Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (UAE); and the Iraq National Oil Company.

On the other hand, the largest American oil company, ExxonMobil, is a distant fourteenth.

Indeed, a 2007 study by the prestigious James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University entitled, “The Role of National Oil Companies in International Energy Markets” and found that:

“Of world proven oil reserves of 1,148 billion barrels, approximately 77 percent of these resources are under the control of national oil companies (NOCs) with no equity participation by foreign, international oil companies (IOCs). The Western IOCs now control less than 10 percent of the world’s oil and gas resource base. In terms of current world oil production, NOCs also dominate. Of the top 20 oil producing companies in the world, 14 are NOCs or newly privatized NOCs. However, many of the Western major oil companies continue to achieve a dramatically higher return on capital than NOCs of similar size and operations.”

Moral of the story: The email should read: “For the rest of this year, DON’T purchase ANY gasoline from PETRON!”

Disclaimer: The views and opinions advanced in this article is the author’s own, and may not necessarily represent the views and opinions of THE LOBBYiST, its editors, or its publishers.

Factual Errors? Email us at editorial@thelobbyist.biz.

Copyright 2007 The LOBBYiST. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without the expressed permission of The LOBBYiST.