Why don't you ask the doctor? He should know precisely how much it should cost. Just like you say, enough to cover expenses and fix the break and a little extra so he can make a living. Very simple, no book needed, been done for centuries.
You do realize the irony when you suggest to ask those who can set prices at any arbitrary levels? There are products that are OK to let the market find an equilibrium price and then there are other products of importance that you should never let a corporation or individuals to set prices. Utilities and health care are such products.
Quite the contrary, if the government wants to fix the price of a microwave oven, go ahead, I don't use them and it would be amusing to watch. I would never let the government fix the price of anything important, and I trade some pretty important things.
Which is why you generally overpay. People like you are the ones that produce the 1%. You seem to worship them and kiss their feet for whatever reason. A lot has to do with upbringing. Maybe your parents talked the conservative talk all your life or maybe you have been exposed to TV how great life can be to be in the upper echelons, regardless of how many in the middle get squeezed as a result of that. Certainly would I never dare to fault you for your convictions. It must be very hard to swim against the stream when a society and its media outlets preach unfettered consumption, unrestrained profit maximization at any cost and regardless of who gets hurt, the wonderful and prestigious life of the rich. When you are told day in day out that a person without much money is worth nothing but the rich to be the righteous then after a while I have not the slightest doubt that you believe it. It's called brainwash. Why do you think there are hardly any companies left in the US that have been operating for more than 100 years but there are tons in Japan and Europe? It's because with a mindset of unrestrained profit maximization companies usually take off, fly high for a while, and then spectacularly implode like fireworks. It's simply a different mindset in the US and most Anglo-Saxon countries compared to the rest of the world. The US chose its own model but it also has to accept that the consequences it cannot escape are a class society of a few rich and most others who are poor. And that is exactly what you have today. Ironically the early US presidents and those who wrote the constitution and pretended the country was one of equal opportunity were among the richest and most privileged with very little to zero experience about what it meant to be in the middle class. You can hate me for saying that and you can ignore it or can point out to change agents that temporarily blur this picture (such as certain technology innovations), however the inevitable will at some point kick in, a few rich who have to built walls around them, fly their own private airplanes, eat at their own private restaurants, because they are afraid of the mob who at some point gets that they were sold out and used. That mob will be very angry. You already have that in the US except that the mob is not precisely the brightest and voted exactly for the one single guy whose entire interest is to further the goals of the 1%. The majority of Trump voters completely sold themselves and their families out. Big time. They were lured with bait called "no abortions", "no gay rights" but they did not realize that they in effect lost everything else. That imho is the best depiction of the NOTHING BURGER. At some point every last Trump voter will realize that the burger they thought they got is in effect 2 buns with hot air in between.
No actually, I never paid any attention to that crap my dad was always preaching. Until I got out on my own and discovered he was right about needing a source of income. But you are right about maximizing profit at any cost. It's simple old fashioned economics, at some point maximizing the profit isn't worth the cost anymore. Bad publicity if nothing else. Plus it's no fun when all your neighbors are out of work. Sometimes the market forces compassionate behavior. It's good for business.
I agree full heartedly that each one should first attempt everything humanly possible to earn his or her own income. Leechers and freeloaders should not be acceptable. Hence my stressing the golden middle. A society that does not favor nor appreciate its middle class is one that has sold out for good.
That's why we elected Trump. He cares about the middle class. Plus we thought it would be good for the world to see that in America, even a man with a jewish son in law can be president. We are very advanced that way.
He cares as much about the middle class as your love for socialists. And its been an absolute miracle that you had no Jewish president yet given your entire elite, establishment, and Media as well as judiciary is Jewish. Not sure what is advanced about a society who sells out its middle class to an elite hailing from the Middle East which only cares to advance itself.
Why Bigot. Is the anti-Semite police force on a brawl tonight? Am I arrested, handcuffed and nailed on the cross because I used the term "Jew"?