Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 (Tek) 9/28/84 based on 9/17/84; site orca.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!orca!andrew From: andrew@orca.UUCP (Andrew Klossner) Newsgroups: net.consumers Subject: Re: Price of soda Message-ID: <1612@orca.UUCP> Date: Sat, 13-Jul-85 14:10:40 EDT Article-I.D.: orca.1612 Posted: Sat Jul 13 14:10:40 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 15-Jul-85 01:31:02 EDT References: <11495@brl-tgr.ARPA> Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR Lines: 28 [] "We all know that name-brand sodas are vastly ovrpriced; after all, it is nothing but flavored & treated water, with the cost of the canning or bottling being rather low per-item ... Just "refusing to pay" the higher prices will NOT work; enough other people will just go ahead and buy the stuff anyway. Maybe holding the children of all bottlers as hostages...?" And software is nothing but bits on magnetic media. Hogwash. The fixed overhead component of the soda industry (as opposed to the cost-per-unit) is extremely high, as you can tell just by watching the commercials aired during TV network prime time. But this is beside the point. Refusing to pay the higher prices will work perfectly: do so and you will no longer have to pay high prices. Soda pop is not a staple, you have no right to ask that soda makers charge anything less than what the market will bear. They're in business to turn a profit, not to provide you with cheap flavored water, and, if industry management turned their attentions away from profit, the stockholders would assuredly replace them. And, speaking as the uncle of two children, ages 3 and 5, whose father is a bottler, I find the kidnapping suggestion to be abhorrent, even in jest. -=- Andrew Klossner (decvax!tektronix!orca!andrew) [UUCP] (orca!andrew.tektronix@csnet-relay) [ARPA]