I was told there would be cake.

I recently had to drop my cable and Netflix (well I still get the streaming). My family can no longer afford those luxuries. We were thinking about dropping the DVD part of Netflix before the announced that they were raising their prices.
This has me wondering just how many CEOs don't understand what is going on out there. You can't get blood out of a stone, and you can't keep getting more and more money from people who don't have it. Credit has artificially delayed the reality of this fact. But reality is catching up but markets are setting themselves up for failure by not preparing for it.
This isn't a rant about how evil corporations are. It is a notice of concern. It bothers me that I am seeing a lack of companies attempting to widen their costumer base by lowering their rates. A profit can be made on a thinner margin if there is a bigger pool of customers so it isn't greed- it's inertia.
I believe that they truly don't get it. I think when they drive around and see five bedroom houses in lower income neighborhoods they think that we're living beyond our means. Which might be true but what is also true is more than likely everyone of those bedrooms is full. If that family doesn't have children filling those rooms they have friends/family down on their luck staying in those rooms- and they're probably not paying rent.
This is where The Beverly Hillbillies got it wrong. If the Clampetts had moved into a giant 100 room mansion they would have an overflow of extended house guests before the end of the 274 episodes were through. That's what happened to MC Hammer. He made it big and made himself broke because he brought half of Oakland with him.
Wall Street doesn't get it. And when the lower and middle class take to the streets or use elected officials as mediators they call it class warfare. But what do you call it when all the energy is being put into punishing poor people who honestly can't pay their bad mortgage deal while millionaires who simply choose not to pay their mortgage don't lose anything? What do you call it when you bail out all the banks that knew better than to offer sub-prime and not even discuss bailing out the homeowners who didn't (even if maybe they should have)?
And it doesn't have to be this way. Most of us like getting goods and services in exchange for money. 99% movement isn't a bunch of people that are pissed because their broke. It's about people trying not to be pulverized by the faceless bureaucratic of Wall Street and government.