Michael,
Petrol was about 2.40 when I was there in Dec so you are probably right about prices.
Compared to the UK and definately Italy this is much cheaper than europe. I haven't been to Spain for a while so I am not sure. I am mainly comparing to the Uk here.
Not sure how much mobiles are but there were sure a lot of brazilians with them so they can't be that expensive! Phones here aren't free you still have to subscribe to an 18 month contract at like £30pm (£540) to get the phone. When we were looking at DVD players they were around the same price as curry's over here and a couple of other prices I saw for other goods looked around the same.
I know Midway, And it was mainly own branded clothes which were cheaper than your average store price here? Yes it was very busy but mainly for the non-branded stuff. I didn't see much branded stuff there.
If you say that about coke I'll accept it. Maybe it was just a co-indcidence with the people I have met. But when I bought it there it certainly wasn't expensive. In your average non-touristy restaurant it was the same price as most stores here and hence much cheaper than restaurants/bars here