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[Jeremy Portzer <jeremyp AT pobox.com>]

On Fri, 2003-08-29 at 10:11, K. Jo Garner wrote:
> On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, zman wrote:
> ->
> ->Yes, but tea is very cheap.
> ->on another note. Printer ink sells for more by volume than vintage 
> ->champagne. 
> 
> There was a great feature on ABC News a month or so ago and animated by
> the great Odd Todd (www.oddtodd.com). I can't find the piece archived on
> his site, but essentially it was one of the beat reporters talking to "the
> manon the street" about the high price of gas. Then it compared other
> liquids that people couldn't live without (say, Starbucks latte) in gallon
> sizes. I believe one of the super mega latte thingies was something like
> $20/gallon. They compared milk and orange juice and some other liquids. It 
> was fun. 

But people don't buy milk, orange juice, and Starbucks lattee in the
same quantities as gasoline.  So the economies of scale aren't there,
the distribution network isn't as big, etc.  Gasoline is one of the few
commodities that everyone buys in bulk, versus in packages (or in bulk
in small amounts, like grocery store produce).  There's a big cost in
generating the packaging for orange juice, for example.

--Jeremy

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