“Large breweries have complained..”
Why in the world didn’t the breweries increase the deposits on their property? If they had, the stores would have passed that along to the customers and then the return rate would be higher...Why was the government necessary in this situation?
NEWMAN: (peering at bottle label) What is this ‘MI, ten cents’?
KRAMER: That’s Michigan. In Michigan you get ten cents.
NEWMAN: Ten cents!?
KRAMER: Yeah.
NEWMAN: Wait a minute. You mean you get five cents here, and ten cents there. You could round up bottles here and run ‘em out to Michigan for the difference.
KRAMER: No, it doesn’t work.
NEWMAN: What d’you mean it doesn’t work? You get enough bottles together...
KRAMER: Yeah, you overload your inventory and you blow your margins on
gasoline. Trust me, it doesn’t work.
JERRY: (re-entering) Hey, you’re not talking that Michigan deposit bottle scam again, are you?
KRAMER: No, no, I’m off that.
NEWMAN: You tried it?
KRAMER: Oh yeah. Every which way. Couldn’t crunch the numbers. It drove me crazy.
My thoughts exactly. This is a market problem requiring a market solution.
State governments regulate the hell out of the beer industry. Some even dictate how much profit a retailer can make or must make off a six-pack or keg.