In Chicago they were 5 bucks a pack from the machine. Didn’t they outlaw ciggy machines? Well, anyway that was 4 years ago. I would image they are over 5 bucks a pack now, over the counter. Cigarettes in Chicago have a sin tax, city tax, county tax, state tax AND federal tax.
I’m an audio engineer. For just the reasons you mention, I use lamp cord. I’ve read the specs and heard the demos and in the end… I use lamp cord.
I believe that I made allowance for this (however since it is your opinion about San Fernando Valley tap water, I’d have to taste it to agree). The reason this isn’t to overall favorite answer is that most people are in denial. It is so politically correct to drink bottled water, despite proof that in lots of cases it is no better.
1,000 times the cost! I believe the only thing that beats this is the baseball card mentioned in one of the above posts. A baseball card may derive its cost from being rare, but bottled water doesn’t.
Cell phones are again worth their weight in gold when used during an emergency, but during regular usuage a fairly big waste of money. Someone using a cell phone in an airport while sipping a bottle of water is trying to impress people, period.
[sub]This condemnation of bottled water does not apply to those smart enough to fill their bottles with tap water or from a drinking fountain.[/sub] 
OTOH, the state and federal governments incur enormous unreimbursed medical expenses for indigent patients who have contracted lung, esophageal, and throat (and miscellaneous other) cancers, as well as emphysema and other respiratory diseases, and the various types of circulatory (heart, etc.) diseases that the other smokers get. Not to mention unpaid hospital bills from those who are unable to pay, but who do not “qualify” for Medicaid (or whatever).
And that doesn’t take into account the federal crop support paid to tobacco farmers, either. 
On those two bases, I’d say that cigarettes are a bargain. A bad one, of course, given what the smoker can eventually expect, but tobacco is a legal form of self-abuse.
Phone service in hotel rooms. I’ve seen $10/minute.
$600/hr?!?
Gotta disagree with you here, especially if you order off the “value menu.” You can get a fairly substantial sandwich for a buck or three, and that covers the cost of the food itself and the people who cook and serve it to you. Compare what it would cost you in time, effort, and money to assemble something comparable for yourself, from scratch if you didn’t already have the ingredients.
Now the soft drinks that you get there, on the other hand…
It’s not fair to consider just the cost of making the physical discs, unless you’re buying blanks. You also have to figure in all that’s involved in producing the content of the CD or DVD. Otherwise, you’d have to say concert or movie tickets are even more inflated in value: it must cost a fraction of a cent to produce each of those printed little pieces of cardboard!
I’ll second the bottled water, the breakfast cereal, and the printer ink cartridges.
And luxury/designer just-about-anything: you’re paying a lot more for something that’s a little better, if that.
The one that irks me constantly (besides the toner, of course) is refill razor blade cartridges. $8.00 for a pack of 4 little plastic things that cost a couple cents to make is shameless.
But wait! It goes into R&D…hmmm, maybe if we add another blade…genius!
I wonder if this thread shouldn’t be divided into two categories. Things with an inflated value, and things that are inflated because of all that damn advertising.
For instance those razor blades. They’d probably cost $1 if it weren’t for all the glitzy ads.
Breakfast cereal? Same thing. You ever think about what all those commercials cost?
Then there’s stuff like printer ink & white out. I don’t recall ever seeing national TV ads for that stuff, yet they’re ridiculously over inflated.
What about men’s underwear? I don’t know when it happened, but suddenly Hanes & Fruit of the Loom are locked in this advertising death struggle, and we end up spending way more on our grundies than I think we should.
Anything the US government buys.
I would like to suggest houses.
Why are they practically the only product in the world more expensive used than new? How is it used buildings sell at such a profit to owner after owner?
Chalk up another vote for diamonds.
I work closely with the mining industry. Diamonds are not at all difficult to extract, and there are lots of them in the ground. In fact, based on how rare their presence is, diamonds should be worth next to nothing; however the cartels (DeBeers) control their availability, and in combination with an agressive marketing/advertising scheme, have managed to create a valuable commodity out of nothing.
Womens dry cleaning. I could understand an upcharge for something that’s made of silk and velvet with lace all around and sequins on it, but just because it’s a woman’s shirt/blouse, identical to one of my dress shirts just smaller is criminal. I always try to sneak my girlfriends stuff in with mine.
While they probably don’t have the most inflated value, name-brand athletic shoes should definitely be on the list of items that do. It doesn’t keep me from purchasing them, though.
Outback Steakhouse’s Bloomin’ Onions.
An onion costs maybe 10 cents. To get it cut up and fried, with tax and tip, it costs about $10. WTF. Thats a 1000% mark up, if I’m not mistaken. Biggest rip-off ever. Plus they taste like crap.
Drugs, no ones mentioned drugs, prescription drugs that is. Why should a name brand be 2x or 3x the cost of a generic?
Seems to me that any product related to pets or children gets an extra 40% markup.
By a clear mile.
They build motorcycles with an engine straight out of a 1940 tractor, and absolute shit-grade components everywhere else. And I do mean everywhere. There is not one single part on the whole motorcycle that is remotely comparable to a Big Four bike in any way, shape, or form. They are the only street motorcycles that cannot keep up with a reasonably fast car in a straight line. A 250cc Kawasaki Ninja runs comparable numbers to Harleys of five times their capacity at the drag strip - and a new Ninja 250 costs less than five grand. It is by pure simplicity of the design and the low-stress nature of the application that the reliability of these beasts is acceptable.
Yet they carry a significant price premium over the Japanese, British, and even German competition.
Go figure.
It doesn’t work that way though. That’s like saying you should only reimburse your doctor the cost of that little slip of paper he or she wrote the prescription on.
And really, if you asked me to make you a Bloomin’ Onion, I’d charge ya $100.
You stole my reply, but I’ll have to disagree with you on this point…
The non-FI models have Keihen carbs, the forks are made by Showa and some of the brakes are made by Nissin (all Japanese companies). They are coming around, slowly. The water-cooled V-Rod is pretty darn quick in a straight line and will dust off a Ninja 250 I’m pretty sure, but the transmission still sounds like a toolbox falling down a flight of metal stairs.
But, yeah, they are overpriced and the typical* dealer “gouge” on top of the MSRP makes it worse.
*but not universal
Regarding cigarettes: a huge part of the Federal tax on cigarettes goes to law firms (who sued the industry on “behalf” of the sick/dead smokers). A Boston law firm has recently filed another suit (against the State of Massachusetts)-they claim they should get ANOTHER $1.25 billion!
Tution at Ivy-League colleges: It’s your own choice, but how does Harvard get away with charging 35,000/year tuition? Their endowment is now >22 billion!
The most overpriced items? I would have to say designer clothes…a Versace shirt at $225 dollars is usually inferior to a $45.00 department store brand shirt.Oh, and luxury restaurants: there is no way any steak is worth $75.00 for 12 oz. of beef.