Clear Liquid Gold
How did we get ourselves into this? I mean really, what lemming-like disregard for logic and sense can bring us to understand our willing participation in this absurd scam?
Imagine if someone said to you: I'll sell you a product that you already get for price A, at 1000 times price A. You have it in your house now in unlimited quantity, but when you come to the supermarket, I'll sell it to you there for 1000 times the price you're already paying and you'll buy it and carry it home. You'd say - that's nuts, but the truth is we're all doing it, aren't we? You know what I'm talking about, right?
People are up in arms about the price of gasoline. Bitching and moaning. Blaming Bush, blaming the arabs, blaming Katrina and having an all around conniption when gas goes from $2.25 to $2.50 per gallon.
But think about the logistics for a minute. To get all these gallons of gasoline, we need to arrange with local and foreign governments for drilling rights, spend millions in capital for drilling rigs and tankers, ship the stuff across thousands of miles, pump it into refineries and process it chemically, distribute it over land via rail and truck tankers, paying attention to myriads of safety regulations, drop it off at your local gas station then add 40% on top of the selling price for federal, state and local taxes. After all of this is said and done, we end up paying $2.50 (or less) for a GALLON of the stuff.
Goddamn oil barons.
But then we'll stride into the local deli or movie theater and cheerfully lay out $2.50 for 12 OUNCES of water. Do you understand, people? Even at it's highest inflation-adjusted price in 20 years, gasoline is 5 TIMES CHEAPER than bottled WATER.
What are the logistics associated with providing bottled water? Let's see...first we need to...um...get some water. Do we have to get it from a "mountain spring"? Nah. Not unless we call it Mountain Spring water on the label, but they don't even do that anymore. Now it's just "Dasani Water" or something equally meaningless. Could be tap water for all we know and probably is. Do we have to filter it or refine it or clean it or something? Newp. And even if they did, could you tell the difference? Be honest with me friend. If some disturbed individual snuck into your home and replaced the so-called "spring water" or "filtered water" or whatever the hell water you might think is in that bottle with water out of the tap, would you come downstairs the next morning, crack open that bottle and spit it out all over the kitchen floor in surprise and confusion? Would you say, in righteous indignation - "THIS IS NOT THE WATER I PAID FOR!" I suspect not.
Now we take this tap water and put it in a cheap plastic bottle, truck it over to the store in an ordinary truck and sell it to wankers like you and me for - once again - roughly 1000 times the price of what we pay for tap water. Remember also that there are no state and local taxes on the stuff. No international contracts. No oil tankers christened "SS Condoleeza Rice". No special trucks. No more regulation than there is on local tapwater (in fact, usually less). No refineries. No station attendants or special computerized dispensing devices. No wars with arab extremists.
I'm figuring about $2.21 cents of that $2.50 is pure margin. Or profit, as we say in the trade. Clear liquid gold. And they're laughing all the way to the bank.
Is this marketing genius or just profound stupidity on our part? Do you remember that 10 years ago there was no such thing as bottled water? Is this stuff filling some kind of deep-rooted need or are we just marching in tune to some mad pied piper and buying it because it's there?
I'm not saying its not convenient and even healthy. No doubt it's better to grab a bottle of water from the deli fridge than a coke. But we're being gouged. This is price gouging of the most egregious kind. You don't see a particular brand of water coming in at 35 cents a bottle and knocking the others out of business, so there has to be collusion going on. Why are we consenting to being ripped off like this?? A bottle of water from the deli should cost a quarter. Period. They'll still make money.
The Coca Cola bottling company can go to hell. I'm not paying for bottled water anymore. I'll fill up a few bottles with tap water at $0.80 per 500 gallons (which is roughly what the utility charges) and I'll carry them with me. I've got better things to do with my money.
And I'll tell you something else. Every time I sit down in a restaurant and I'm asked by the waiter if I'd like a bottle of water for the table (at 5 bucks a pop), I'll tell him: You fill our water glasses with tap water out of that pitcher over there and if I have to pay a single cent for it, you'll never see me in here again.
And put a slice of lemon in it too, while you're at it.
Imagine if someone said to you: I'll sell you a product that you already get for price A, at 1000 times price A. You have it in your house now in unlimited quantity, but when you come to the supermarket, I'll sell it to you there for 1000 times the price you're already paying and you'll buy it and carry it home. You'd say - that's nuts, but the truth is we're all doing it, aren't we? You know what I'm talking about, right?
People are up in arms about the price of gasoline. Bitching and moaning. Blaming Bush, blaming the arabs, blaming Katrina and having an all around conniption when gas goes from $2.25 to $2.50 per gallon.
But think about the logistics for a minute. To get all these gallons of gasoline, we need to arrange with local and foreign governments for drilling rights, spend millions in capital for drilling rigs and tankers, ship the stuff across thousands of miles, pump it into refineries and process it chemically, distribute it over land via rail and truck tankers, paying attention to myriads of safety regulations, drop it off at your local gas station then add 40% on top of the selling price for federal, state and local taxes. After all of this is said and done, we end up paying $2.50 (or less) for a GALLON of the stuff.
Goddamn oil barons.
But then we'll stride into the local deli or movie theater and cheerfully lay out $2.50 for 12 OUNCES of water. Do you understand, people? Even at it's highest inflation-adjusted price in 20 years, gasoline is 5 TIMES CHEAPER than bottled WATER.
What are the logistics associated with providing bottled water? Let's see...first we need to...um...get some water. Do we have to get it from a "mountain spring"? Nah. Not unless we call it Mountain Spring water on the label, but they don't even do that anymore. Now it's just "Dasani Water" or something equally meaningless. Could be tap water for all we know and probably is. Do we have to filter it or refine it or clean it or something? Newp. And even if they did, could you tell the difference? Be honest with me friend. If some disturbed individual snuck into your home and replaced the so-called "spring water" or "filtered water" or whatever the hell water you might think is in that bottle with water out of the tap, would you come downstairs the next morning, crack open that bottle and spit it out all over the kitchen floor in surprise and confusion? Would you say, in righteous indignation - "THIS IS NOT THE WATER I PAID FOR!" I suspect not.
Now we take this tap water and put it in a cheap plastic bottle, truck it over to the store in an ordinary truck and sell it to wankers like you and me for - once again - roughly 1000 times the price of what we pay for tap water. Remember also that there are no state and local taxes on the stuff. No international contracts. No oil tankers christened "SS Condoleeza Rice". No special trucks. No more regulation than there is on local tapwater (in fact, usually less). No refineries. No station attendants or special computerized dispensing devices. No wars with arab extremists.
I'm figuring about $2.21 cents of that $2.50 is pure margin. Or profit, as we say in the trade. Clear liquid gold. And they're laughing all the way to the bank.
Is this marketing genius or just profound stupidity on our part? Do you remember that 10 years ago there was no such thing as bottled water? Is this stuff filling some kind of deep-rooted need or are we just marching in tune to some mad pied piper and buying it because it's there?
I'm not saying its not convenient and even healthy. No doubt it's better to grab a bottle of water from the deli fridge than a coke. But we're being gouged. This is price gouging of the most egregious kind. You don't see a particular brand of water coming in at 35 cents a bottle and knocking the others out of business, so there has to be collusion going on. Why are we consenting to being ripped off like this?? A bottle of water from the deli should cost a quarter. Period. They'll still make money.
The Coca Cola bottling company can go to hell. I'm not paying for bottled water anymore. I'll fill up a few bottles with tap water at $0.80 per 500 gallons (which is roughly what the utility charges) and I'll carry them with me. I've got better things to do with my money.
And I'll tell you something else. Every time I sit down in a restaurant and I'm asked by the waiter if I'd like a bottle of water for the table (at 5 bucks a pop), I'll tell him: You fill our water glasses with tap water out of that pitcher over there and if I have to pay a single cent for it, you'll never see me in here again.
And put a slice of lemon in it too, while you're at it.
posted by Soundsurfr at 1:34 PM
3 Comments:
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Bottled Twaddle
FDA Says:
Yerp. They're actually adressing a very salient need: the need for fucking idiots to find something to do with their endless wealth.
I'm thinking of bottling my piss.
It's sterile!
Great idea. You can call it "Ghandi-ade".
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