A Gallon of Gas or a Cup of Coffee
Written by Gordon on August 1st, 2008
Hello again – and thanks for taking the time to glance at my little corner here on this great website. This is my monthly opportunity to say hello to you and give you something to think about. And the mere fact that you are visiting this site tells me you have an interest in financial matters – and there certainly is quite a bit of news out there today regarding finances. In no particular order, a scan of any news source is filled with stories and data regarding the financial issues around the world – and very little of it is good and it is certainly not an issue that has a lot of humor associated with it. In no particular order there are stories about the real estate mess, foreclosures, major companies with major financial problems, a lack of capital, slowing economies, the cost of the war effort, the cost of health care, under-funded pension plans, a lack of personal savings and it goes on and on. And of course the big one for most of us is the price of gasoline which some say will be in the $5.00 gallon range by the end of summer.
Now that is a lot of money for a gallon of gas and it is certainly higher than it was when I was a kid – and not digressing here but I can remember paying twenty-one cents a gallon in the 60’s and the entire country was outraged in the early seventies when it went to thirty-five cents a gallon (and what is up with that .9 nonsense) and people were predicting that someday it would be fifty cents a gallon and no one believed it and here we are today closing in on the five dollar a gallon mark. And if you do a little work on “google” you will see that that is a deal compared to some places in Europe (I had a friend just get back from the U.K. and it is closing in on the equivalent of nine dollars a gallon there. And I just read a piece in one paper about government subsidies in some countries causing gas to cost….twenty-one cents a gallon. Having said that, I would rather live in America.
But we are not in another country or another time and it is a very expensive commodity right now and is causing a lot of people –including me – a lot of angst. But if you think what you get for your five dollars – it really is quite a bit. It would be worth five dollars to me to travel for twenty miles (and that is the miles per gallon I get on my sixteen year old car and I can squeeze twenty-four out of it on freeway trips of longer duration) and not have to shove my car that distance by hand. Think that one through for a second. Is it worth five dollars to you to travel fifteen or twenty or (for those of you with the smaller engines) thirty miles from where you are to where you want to go? In terms of dollar value – it is still a pretty good deal.
Which brings me to the point of this writing. I am at Spokane Airport right now as I write this and I am headed home and I am always early for my flights for a whole bunch of reasons so I spend the “wait time” reading or in this case writing and the electrical outlet to power my computer is located near a Starbucks and I happened to overhear some of the prices for their products. Regularly – and I mean regularly – I am hearing the happy barista say “that will be $4.50” and I would watch people plunk down some cash (or sadly occasionally a credit card for the purchase and I just read a piece that if you don’t pay off the card monthly – that cup of coffee could end up costing you fifty dollars over the payoff period of the credit card balance but now I am digressing from my point here) and I would watch the person who was now five dollars lighter in the wallet walk off with some coffee concoction that appeared to be eight ounces by liquid measure.
I guess you know where I am going with this now. If eight ounces of coffee costs five dollars (I am doing some rounding here because it is very early in the morning) and there are one hundred twenty eight ounces to a gallon – then the Starbuck’s experience is approximately $80/gallon! That is quite a bit of money for coffee. I guess some other people have figured that out before I did and I see that Starbuck’s is closing down six hundred of their stores because of a downtrend in sales. At $80/gallon – I can see why people would be just a tad upset. And going back to the $5.00 issue – would you rather push your car twenty miles or have a cup of coffee instead? That is a “no-brainer” in my little world.
But some people get even a better deal. Several Florida papers this week had the following story this week. I made a call to the involved police department – and the story is legitimate and it is very troubling.
“An internal police investigation found that Daytona Lt. Major Garvin received free coffee for about two years from a city Starbucks coffee store.
However, when recently denied free coffee from new management, Garvin allegedly told managers that he could change the police department’s response time if they refuse to give him complimentary drinks.
Garvin is accused of saying, “If something happens, either we can respond really fast or we could respond really slow. I’ve been coming here for years and I’ve been getting whatever I want. I’m the difference between you getting a two-minute response time, if you needed a little help, or a 15 minutes response time.”
However, when confronted about the comments, police said Garvin agreed to take a polygraph test.
When asked whether or not he threatened managers with adverse response times, Garvin responded, “no.”
But polygraph test results suggested that the officer was lying, Local 6′s Tarik Minor reported. Garvin was then fired.
Starbucks employees said Garvin visited the Starbucks store six times a day during his shifts and intimidated some workers during visits.
“I want somebody protecting my streets who is honest and trustworthy,” Starbucks customer Adam Cuddy said. “So, if he is going to fail a polygraph, whether it is about coffee or anything, I don’t know how comfortable I feel as a citizen being protected.”
The investigation also revealed that Garvin requested the complimentary coffee even when he was not on duty.
Garvin was hired by the department in 1993.”
And if you do just a bit of work on “google” you can read some of the comments of members of our public (many of whom have given up their Starbuck’s fix so they can put gas in their car) – and many of these comments are very nasty and of course some of them are laced with vitriol regarding public safety wages, benefits and pensions. But no matter how you look at this – it is an embarrassment for the involved department – and for my profession.
I know that other writers on this site have made comments regarding “ethics” and related topics so I will not beat this to death. Everything that we (as public safety professionals in uniform) do is being observed by members of our public – taxpayers and voters – and we must be acutely aware of that all the time. And I am confident that Mr. Garvin is an anomaly – nonetheless it paints all of us in a nasty light. We all need to make sure that our behavior is always above reproach and that includes turning down the offers we sometimes get from food vendors “here, take it for free.”. If you do accept that gratuity – you may be setting yourself, your department and your profession up for future problems. And please do not tell me that similar nonsense has never happened in your profession.
And as long as I am on the topic of coffee – here is another piece you may have some interest in – again out of a Florida newspaper.
“Starbucks may be closing 600 stores nationwide, but one local cafe owner says his business isn’t just popular, it’s growing. On Thursday, Adam Dudley, owner of the Sol River Coffee House & Lounge off Hiawasee Road, brewed and served his first batch of Kopi Luwak — one of the rarest coffees available.
At $180 per pound, or $30 for an 8-ounce cup, it’s also one of the most expensive. Kopi Luwak gets its distinct flavor and expensive price tag from its unusual production process: The beans pass through the digestive system of the Asian Palm Civet, a cat-like mammal found in parts of southeast Asia. The beans are then collected from its droppings.
But neither the price nor the process were enough to stop some Orlando residents from trying it. “You have to be open to new things,” said 42-year-old Natalia Jimenez, a 12-cup-a-day drinker, who was among the first to sample the coffee at a complimentary tasting Thursday afternoon. “Maybe not for all 12 cups a day, but I would buy it.” Jennifer Phillips, 51, said there’s no way she would fork over $30 for a cup of coffee, “unless you’re sharing it with 10 people.”
So I am doing the math here in my head, and if eight ounces of this coffee (and I use the term loosely) costs $30 – then it would appear to me that a gallon would be in the $480 range. And mind you, that is for a drink prepared from beans (and there is another loose term in this case) that some “cat” ate, digested and then “passed” (and I just had a visual on this which I will not describe to you) and then they made coffee out of it.
Who was it that said “There is a sucker born every minute?” Coffee made from beans taken from cat poop. Give me a break. And while I don’t know this for a fact – the people who spend thirty bucks for a cup of this “stuff” are the loudest complainers about the price of gasoline. Anyhow, my time is up and my flight is ready. I will enjoy a free beverage on my flight. And I am confident that Southwest does not get their coffee from the by-product of the droppings of Asian Palm Civets.
I will leave you with that thought. And once again, thanks for all your continued work on the fires across California. I am wrapping this piece up at home prior to sending it to the editor a bit early as I am going on vacation next week. As I flew south from Washington earlier this morning I saw the smoke from the still hundreds of fires burning in northern California and I was thinking that there are firefighters down there right now taking care of business. And if we ever meet on the road – please allow me to buy you a cup of coffee. A sincere thank you again for all your great work.
Gordon Graham
Co-President, Lexipol
