Description 
Marge has a monopoly on selling 
ostrich burgers, but she learns that a 
monopolist cannot arbitrarily raise or 
lower prices and expect higher profits 
to result. Marge tries to figure out what 
the ideal price is for selling ostrich 
burgers to maximize profit. 
 

Audio Transcript 

Marge: Folks around here envy my success. They’ve seen me grow from a little push-cart into this big-time corner restaurant. They say, “Marge, you’ve got the only ostrich burger joint in town.” You can charge whatever you want and make a killing. 

Marge: I wish it were that easy having a monopoly. I’ve learned some hard lessons about raising prices. 

Customer #1: That’s too much for a burger. 

Customer #2: That’s too expensive for me. 

Customer #3: These burgers are way too expensive. I can’t pay these prices. 

Marge: Customers avoided me like the plague when I raised them to high. So, I tried the opposite strategy, you know, dropping my prices to sell more burgers. 

Marge: I won back my customers and made my best profits ever! 

Customer #1: I’m hungry, I could eat a lot of burgers. 

Customer #2: It’s been a long time since I had an ostrich burger. 

Customer #3:  I really like these ostrich burgers, I haven’t had one in a long time. 

Marge: I thought, life is good, why not drop prices even further? So I did, and I sold more burgers than ever, but my profits actually went down. 

Marge: It’s been a guessing game ever since. Higher prices, fewer sales, lower prices, more sales. Where do I set my prices to get the highest profit? 

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