There’s another thing at play, which I’ve seen in these greedy business types - they don’t see what they’ve got, they see what they don’t have, and they want it. Further, they see money they missed out on making, and it makes them absolutely crazy.

When I was young, I managed a record store for a rich guy, who owned two stores in the mall, a regular record store, and my classical/jazz specialty store (coolest store in town). I learned to express records by their profit value: “I have to keep that record in stock, it’s a $1000 record.” That meant it had generated $1000 in profit over its time in the store, so it’s worth keeping in the permanent inventory.

So a new Barbara Streisand record came out, and I put it on my front wall, at $2 off, and it started flying. My boss happened to walk in (he dropped in about once a week) and asked about it. I told him we’d sold about 100, so it had made $200 already, thinking he’d be pleased. He responded that it had LOST $200, since it was on sale. I explained that there were two other record stores on the mall that had it as well, and it was $2 off there as well. If I didn’t match their prices, we wouldn’t sell any, and he’d make $0 profit. All he heard was that his other store also had it at $2 off, so he marched down there to holler at him, too, and make them take it off sale as well.

Later, the manager of the other store came over to yell at ME for some reason, and I’m like hey man, you know he’s a psycho.

And so the other big chain store got all the sales after that, since they were $2 cheaper than us. All because the rich owner could only see the money he WASN’T making.