Subject: Re: F/A-XX - What your bucks are buying

Same old shyte. Business as usual.

Short term profit maximization. Didn't Jeff just offer that Broadway show tix are exorbitantly priced, because it isn't about the art anymore. It's all about making more profit.

I used to hold Disney, but was always uncomfortable that management figured they could juice profits at will, by increasing the prices in the parks. Hardly a good look for a company that is supposed to be "family friendly".

Ford and VW, in particular, have openly said they intend to "go upmarket" by dropping their entry level models, and ramping up prices on the remainder, without a care for the impact on volume or market share.

This morning, I saw a piece on the wire about how the venues in Vegas, as a group, decided to go up market, pursuing people with deeper pockets, while pricing people of more modest means out of town.

When I was in b-school, fifty years ago, we talked about "demand elasticity with respect to price". Is that notion obsolete now? Is McKinsey's panacea du jour telling everyone "jack prices way, way, up, and make more money, while doing less"?

No wonder the Proles are feeling left behind and bitter.

Steve