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Showing posts with the label market morality

Did you offer to cut your salary?

I frequently hear complaints about, say, the airlines, along the lines of, "Oil prices have dropped, and yet the airlines haven't cut their fares!" I am curious: Does the person making this complaint commute to work by car? If so, have they gone in to their boss and said, "You know, my commuting costs have dropped, so would you cut my salary a bit?" Of course, there are other factors at play: perhaps the airlines are making huge profits, and the worker is just barely scraping by. But the general point holds: market participants enter a market looking to get the best deal they can. In general, there is nothing immoral about asking for any price one thinks one might be able to get.