Rich People

ThingsThingsThings

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A symptom of the selfish nature of the modern American is illustrated when the elevator stops and everyone waiting on that floor tries to get in before others in the arriving elevator can get out. And people do not even say “Excuse me”.

Cars fly by on the four-lane highway to my fitness center at The Turning Stone Casino. We end up at the next red light, together. I don’t flip them off. The car may be packing.

America is the land of the free, home of the brave, and (rumored) home of The Cowboy, The Rugged, Self-Reliant Individual, or RSI. So say the beer and car ads. The favorite movie image of the RSI is someone who exists on their own, doesn’t act immorally, helps others, and is often cranky as shite. John Wayne and Jeff Bridges–playing Rooster Cogburn in two different True Grit movies–are examples. Most RSIs want to be left alone to live their lives away from the morons and mores of modern society, but when forced to choose between their need to be left alone and the needs of someone lesser than them, the Rooster Cogburns of the movie world do the Right Thing. Dirty Harry comes to mind, too. And when they bend the rules or break a law it’s for a good reason. It is significant these characters are keepers of the peace, lawmen, in their fictional worlds. They are unique characters who use the rules to support the law, to keep the peace, and defend the defenseless. They did things their way, usually, and their world is a better place.*

Somehow, the RSI image has been transformed by modern society into a “laws don’t apply to me” attitude in citizens who pat themselves on the back for being free, independent, righteous souls. The cars doing 80 and passing me are breaking the law and those drivers know it. They simply don’t believe the laws apply to them, or they wouldn’t be breaking the laws.** The elevator thing is not a law but an unwritten rule more about common sense and societal consideration, but still the same idea: we all don’t want to wait for others, we are specially privileged to do things our way at our speed, and feck the rest of you.

This attitude used to be the norm for the rich, famous, or otherwise powerful. The Vanderbilts and Rockefellers, people whose money fixed and managed everything. But now it is in the minds of people who think themselves better than others. You see it in Facebook posts, Twitter (X) messages, on-line comments, and modern entertainment offerings.  And politics. Think of a friend who believes their political party is the only intelligent, caring one. What about you?

Our divided American is a diverse and inclusive mix of races, creeds, colors, and intelligence levels. If we want to save America and save society, RSIs are the answer, but where are they? The false bravado of wannabe RSIs is tearing apart society as modern American posers focus and posture on issues better left to the races, creeds, colors, and individuals involved. I, for one, marvel at the courage and strength it takes to tell the world you are not the way you were born, and you want to follow another path. The disabled, the transgender, the sexually confused, the politically inane, the poor, all need support, not criticism. We should not be concerned with tax breaks and regulation reform to enable rich to get richer. We should ask rich people to pay more, to use some of the money they legally took from us to help others less well-off. If the rich were RSIs and not selfish, greedy Americans, they’d do it on their own. And–I’ve heard–some do.

Note: It’s ironically unsafe and illogical to use “whataboutisms” in any argument. It is a backword, lazy, and half-assed way to view the world that has become part of our discussions. In its extreme, it says you can kill me because I killed Bill because he killed Mary who killed John who killed…and no one got arrested.

It’s a nonsensical Goose-Gander Argument*** sucking the intelligence and compromise out of American Society.

Let’s stop it. Now.

*Can’t help but remember the iconic movie scene where Dirty Harry is sent to negotiate with bank robbers. He returns from talking, gets in a police car and drives it into the bank. When his captain asks him why, Harry says “They wanted a car.”

**Of course, I’ve broken laws without consequence before: I am An American.

***Geese poop is what? Geese’s feces?

One Miscellaneous Note and a Rant about The Rich

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Last post, the font WordPress uses in published posts was unknown. It appears my beautifully clear Calibri ruminations were published by WordPress in Times New Roman with serif feet and flourishes, everywhere. It can’t be said for sure, because there are several other fonts available that use feet and flourishes, but if it looks like a flourish and smells like feet…

A new report was online this week about Dynamic Price Modeling (DPM). I’ve talked about it before under its old name: Price Modeling. Adding “Dynamic” makes it sound less stodgy, more, well, dynamic. First, a reminisce about pricing from the days of old. In pre-DPM times, a business looked at the costs involved in making a product. First are “Fixed costs (FC)” that don’t change no matter the quantity of product the business produces. These are rent, insurance, things you need for one product or one million. “Variable Costs”( VC) are the things consumed during production like raw materials, energy, shipping, labor, etc. Businesses total these costs for a certain period, then divide the sum by the number of products produced and find a “total cost per item”. Businesses use the total cost per item to decide the selling price of the item, its Retail Price. It is an important step because too high a Retail Price will limit total sales, but too low a Retail Price causes lower profit, and lower profit means business failure. We used to call it “Cost Plus Pricing” and it was a complicated and ongoing struggle to reach the perfect price for sales success and maximum profit. Most often Cost Plus Pricing did not yield a Retail Price of $100 for an item with a total cost of $1. Supply and demand market forces kept Retail Prices in line with total cost and businesses survived with modest profit.

Imagine a New Pizza Shop (NPS) making the best pizza in your area.  They sell pies for $15, make a nice profit and are happy. Then, a new pizza place realizes they can make a similar pizza and sell it for $12. Or a different new, newer pizza shop opens and sells their similar pizza for $16. Eventually local pizza eaters (The Market) will figure out the best pizza for the best price and that company will survive. Using Cost Plus Pricing, most pizza shops often “find” the perfect price through trial and error.

Now imagine NPS is using DPM. It offers pizza for $15 and immediately learns * The Market is buying $12 pizzas. NPS now has to make a decision about lowering its price. But what if through DPM, NPS learns almost the entire “Market” is buying pizza from NPS. DPM suggests NPS keep raising prices until they learn The Market will no longer buy NPS pizzas. All this happens instantly in this day and age.

Lowering prices, in my opinion, will almost never happen because of The Rich People. In our pizza shop world we assume The Market will work efficiently and reward the best pizza shop the most business. The Market will end up with the best pizza at the best price.

But with DPM, NPS eventually “corners” The Market with their best pizza at a decent price. Under DPM, NPS will eventually realize more control over the pricing than The Market has, and prices will rise and soon be out of proportion to a “total cost plus” formula: profits will soar.

Now add The Rich People to The Market, with unlimited disposable income and no correlated sense of affordability: DPM driven prices and profits will soar for NPS and non-rich people will no longer afford a pizza without taking out a loan. DPM can lead to the old school, black-hole monopoly, where only the very rich can afford anything as retail prices break free of “total cost” and rise to whatever The Market—and The Rich–will pay. It’s happening already in real estate and retail commerce. There are many markets where the same item from the same factory with the same total cost is sold for a different price. Eh, still okay, right? But what happens when a company realizes selling their product at a 15% profit in Market A is not worth selling it there because they can make 50% in Market B?

I’ve run out of space, but the point of the post is Dynamic Pricing Models are already eliminating non-rich people from some markets**. Where and when will it happen next?

*The local pizza market is not a good example, mainly because there isn’t enough profit in local pizza sales to justify the cost of Ai and the energy needed to maximize DPM. But car sales, real estate, Walmart, all are using DPM in the pursuit of maximum profit.

**The DPM market effects are not new. The speed at which they now happen, is. In the past, gaining control of The Market took time and often was constrained by slow communication systems. See the “Robber Barons” of the past, DPM pioneers.