Compared to milk and Coke, gas is not really so bad
Just last weekend I was making a trip to Wal-Mart. On my way there I ran across a couple gas stations selling gas for $2.64 per gallon. Immediately, my mind raced back to just a few years ago when I started driving. Back then you could expect to be paying about $1.50 to $1.80 for gas. I cringed the very first time I saw it at $2.00. But I continued on to Wal-Mart to buy the necessities of life.
While I was there I bought one of my favorite items, a gallon of skim milk. The price for the cheap Wal-Mart brand was $2.86. I was pretty happy about that as oftentimes you’ll see milk higher priced. But then I thought about how odd it is that a gallon of milk is more expensive than a gallon of gas. As long as there are cows then milk is a renewable resource, while oil is very limited. Most of the oil used in the United States comes from foreign countries, while most of the milk that we consume in America is homegrown. In other words, it is cheaper to buy a gallon of oil that is drilled in Saudi Arabia, shipped over to the U.S. processed from its crude form into its usable form, and then dispersed throughout the country, than it is to squeeze a gallon of milk from a cow, pasteurize it, and send it up the road to a grocery store.
Gas prices are even lower than you see. There is an 18 cent per gallon national gas tax that is built into the price of gas, along with a 4 cent per gallon Georgia gas tax. So that $2.64 gallon of gas is really only $2.42. Right now some of you are probably thinking that there is a sales tax on a gallon of milk; however, unlike a gallon of gas, the sales tax is not built into the price of a gallon of milk.
Milk isn’t the only product that costs far more than a gallon of gas. The common vending machine price of a 20-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola is $1. That means the price for a gallon of Coke bottles is over $6. In all my life I have never seen a person complain about spending $2.80 for a gallon of milk, or $1 for a 20 ounce soda. Yet, you can’t get through a day without hearing someone complain about the “absurdity” of gas prices.
Send responses to
colonnadeletters@gcsu.edu
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Sep 1 2006. Filed under Opinion.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
