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Date: 3 May 93 12:02:06 GMT
From: cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europ
a.eng.gtefsd.com!fs7.ece.cmu.edu!news.sei.cmu.edu!firth@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (R
obert Firth)
Subject: Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses
Message-ID: <1993May3.080206.12439@sei.cmu.edu>
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <dewar.736239358@schonberg> dewar@schonberg.NYU.EDU (Robert Dewar) w
rites:

>but it seems silly to accuse someone of
>price gouging when they are losing money!

Bad economics, I'm afraid.  Profit is the difference between income and
expenditure, ie price and cost.  Price gouging, in the customer's
perception, is a large difference between price and value.

It is certainly possible for a company to gouge its customers and make
a loss.  In fact, it's pretty typical for a company in a monopoly
situation: without the discipline of the market, there is no incentive
to control costs, and sooner or later the internal parasites devour the
organisation.  Almost any socialised industry will serve as an example.

Finding examples within US federal organisations is left as an exercise
for the reader.