Greed

High prices mean high profits

   Major oil companies reported massive earnings in the most recent fiscal quarter, and they blamed their high prices on the war in Ukraine.
   Food prices also soared, as the agricultural industry claimed a similar consequence.
  Considering that it takes months for crude oil to be carried from Arab nations halfway around the world to refineries in America, then many more weeks to local gasoline filling stations, it's a guess as to why the price hike was almost instantaneous.
   Likewise, farmers in America don't ship all their crops across the world, so why did market prices leap so quickly?
   Answer: Greed.
   We're off to a new era as economists try to match theory with reality. Or is it the other way around?
   Either way, observers try to dissect human behavior as they match it with scientific theory.
   Good luck with that.
   The theory started as academics used the name business economics, to differentiate it from home economics. That was back in the day when girls in high school took cooking classes and boys were limited to auto shop or carpentry.
   Times have changed. Now, students follow their skills, no matter their gender.
  One problem remains, however. That of matching human behavior with rational principles, based on the principle that people are rational.
   If they were, there wouldn't be so much rationalizing. By definition, this means they go to great lengths to explain their behavior as good, even as it has bad results.
   But I digress.
   The point is that corporate managers take advantage of changes in human behavior on any level to increase their profits.
   And that is greed.