Stupid, Greedy, Bastards

Since Paladin Press went out of business at the end of 2017, there has been no single ,central publisher or distribution company to meet the needs or demands, call it what you will, of people looking for books or videos on all aspects of the training or history of Self Defense and Martial Arts.

One of the most noticeable effects was the absolutely ludicrous increase of prices driven by the moronic belief that the old customer base for this material would be willing to pay outlandish prices for these now no longer being sold instructional materials. Now I'm sure to a degree they might have made some money off of their naked greed combined with the desperate stupidity of some buyers. However, after watching the market for these materials being sold, used or new but unread or un-viewed, I don't think things have panned out all that well for these money grubbing gougers.

The primary venues for the sale of these now ridiculously overpriced items are eBay and Amazon. Items that, brand new commanded prices anywhere from $20.00 up to maybe $100.00 or so are now being advertised at prices of hundreds of dollars. The only positive thing I've seen is that a lot of these items are still sitting on the digital shelves gathering dust and being ignored or reduced in price,

Below is probably the most egregious case I've seen.



https://www.amazon.com/Street-Tough-Hard-Core-Anything-Fundamentals/dp/1581604394/ref=pd_day0_b_14_9?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1581604394&pd_rd_r=c0e63684-142c-11e9-86d0-732530b8e550&pd_rd_w=hHvzD&pd_rd_wg=zPZKQ&pf_rd_p=b21f843a-654c-40f8-899e-282283dbe728&pf_rd_r=VTC3T7W00GFS8XWR7GFJ&psc=1&refRID=VTC3T7W00GFS8XWR7GFJ

And how much is the asking price of this "Classic" which came out in 2004?
(Note: While I have never heard of either the book or its Writer, I have nothing against Mr Giles or whatever system/methodology he taught, and it may actually be a great book on self defense)

$8,041.03!!!!!

Oh yeah, you read that right, Over Eight Grand. With the funniest part being that this jerk is not just asking four figures for the essentially unknown book, but he has the nerve to add an additional $41.03 to the EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLAR price.

What The Fuck!

For that price you could pay for private instruction someplace for several years and have money left over to go on a couple nice vacations.

Oh well, I'll bring this rant to an end now with one final thought.

The world is full of Stupid, Greedy, Bastards, and while we CAN'T do anything about that, we CAN refuse to be Stupid, Spendthrift, Bastards, and simply choose to not support their economic gluttony.