A recent 60
Minutes piece by Lesley Stahl cut into an extremely urgent problem of our
day: expensive sunglasses. The report identified a possible monopoly in the
market for glasses, a firm called Luxottica, which owns almost all the leading
brands of eyewear, four large retailers of glasses, and even a popular vision
insurance provider.
Stahl interviewed
the CEO of Luxottica, Andrea Guerra, and questioned his business practices, the
prices of his products, and Luxottica’s growth over the years. At times, she
almost seemed to scold the successful CEO for, well, being so successful.
In her interview,
Stahl complained about the prices of Guerra’s products, saying, “they're very
expensive. They can be very expensive.” Guerra, with a heavy Italian accent,
responded with “They can. This is one of the very few objects that are
100-percent functional, 100-percent aesthetical, and they need to fit your face
for 15 hours a day. Not easy, and there is a lot of work behind them.”
Other
hard-hitting remarks like “How does the consumer benefit from all of this?” and
“Your prices are still high,” were met with nonchalant (yet true) answers like,
“Everything is worth what people are ready to pay.”
Do Guerra’s
profits indicate that he is a consumer-harming monopolist? What light does
Austrian economics shed on this question?....To Read More….
My Take - I posted this because I think
it is reflective of just how worthless 60 Minutes really is, and how silly
their 'personalities' are. First of all; I wonder why this man ever submitted
himself to such silliness. He owns the business and he can charge whatever he
darn well pleases, and whether the consumer benefits or not is up t0 the
consumer to decide. Price, quality,
availability will all factor in the consumer’s decision. His
only concern about consumer benefit should be that he makes a reliable product
that sells....period! If he chooses to go the "Bic" pen route and
make a buck by selling a billion glasses to as many people in the world as he
can; then that's his decision. If he chooses to make a buck by selling them to
a chosen few because of the price....well .....that's his business also. So who cares what Lesley Stahl thinks anyway? The importance of this post is showing how
worthless the main stream media is to "their" consumers.
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