One of the things that's definitely fishy to me is the notion that 10 years ago I could buy an iPhone for $600 that perhaps had $150 worth of technology and labor in it, and now I have to spend $1000 on the iPhone you just mentioned... but (thanks to technological progress) now it has maybe $50 of technology and labor in it. In essence, we are buying "air," in the form of ever-increasing EPS rates for shareholders. Which, I suppose, is cool if you're a shareholder, but not so cool if you're trying to buy an iPhone.

To be honest, I don't know what the future holds. One of the things I did notice, in the course of having a brick and mortar store in a town with a lot of visitors from all over the globe is that "luxury" (or the good life, or whatever) is gradually shifting from being "item based" to being more "experience based." Lambos are going out, luxury vacations in BoraBora are coming in. Limited samples, of course...

There's a lot of game playing in the consumer market. Further to your pricing example... chicken leg quarters are typically $1.69/lb these days, but last week the "regular price" suddenly became $2.49/lb so the $1.29/lb sale price looked better than it really was. Of course, some things (eggs come to mind) are ridiculously out of control.