Have you considered the price of gas versus other consumer bought liquids?

Especially in the case of bottled water, people are allowing themselves to be ripped off. All these items are luxury, pampering, indulgence, and non necessities. People will pay ridiculous for such items when compared to a 'gotta have' like gasoline.

Even before this summer, oil supplies were critically low, and they weren’t getting any better. Add to that increased demand, and natural disasters shutting down the major American refineries, and you have a perfect storm of high prices. Why has demand increased? Because the American economy has been expanding, thanks to the Bush tax cuts. So give Bush some of the blame.There is comparitively more price of gas than the other liquids. Unfortunately, oil supplies have not been able to keep up with demand. For that, you can blame decades of government regulations piling on top of each other to create what can only be called an inharmonious mess (and since Bush has done nothing to solve that problem, you can give him some of the blame there, too). Oil execs testifying to Congress pointed to “boutique” fuels as an example. Every summer, the oil industry must produce unique blends of gasoline for certain regions because of regulations. Gas that is sold in one region cannot be sold in another. This causes our already limited refining capacity to become less efficient. Even in my country crude oil is costing more than $150 per barrel.