"Ed Huntress" wrote in
:

Probably won't happen anytime soon. When is the last time someone
pumped your gas for you? Some genius MBA at Walmart was no doubt
filling his BMW up one day and a light went off in his head.

I filled my tank for $1.79/gallon today. Somebody pumped it for me.
Somebody always pumps for me in New Jersey. Self-service is illegal.
That's why we have such cheap prices for gas.

The rest of the country (except for Oregon, is it?) has been had by
Big Oil. Instead of paying cheap rates for people to pump gas, you're
paying the amortization on some mighty fancy automation.

I have got to believe that taxes figure into the price of gas in Jersey as
well. But I've often wondered about the cost of automation at gas stations
and grocery stores. Think about inventory control at a store these days.
Scanners, bar codes, computers, programmers, data entry, etc.. I often
wonder how all of that can be cheaper than a half dozen people staying late
twice a month to count up the stuff.

Dan