The mark-up in bars comes from the cost of rents, human resources, some advertising and a mark-up for smashed/lost/stolen glassware.
Source: worked in a bar long enough
Edit: Also, licensing and inspection fees tend to be ridiculous. And as soon as you serve food in your bar and not just alcohol, you're thrown into yet another pool of regulations, more licenses and more inspections.
Oh yes. This happens far too often. It seems to be a common hobby among many college students to snatch anything and everything they find interesting. That very big beer mug? Gone. The decorations you hung for Valentine's day? If they're made of anything stronger than paper, they'll disappear. Hell, I've seen students stealing metal infomation boards from trams as souvenirs.
And bartenders are a walking target for criminals. I got robbed three times, a colleague got his cellphone stolen behind the bar while clearing a fight - and next day, he was working again, cops arrested someone and another guy stole his backup cellphone right under the cops' nose and vanished.
The amount of times people tried and sometimes succeeded paying me with fake money or blowjobs (okay, I accepted the blowjobs though) cannot be counted even if I had eight hands and twenty fingers.
And soccer club banners are a prime target for fans of rival clubs. Hell, I could write a book about my endeavours.
beer is just an analogy. I interpreted it as him saying there is greed in all markets.
Is there something inherently wrong with marking up cash advances for those who are otherwise seen as too risky to take on? Any market that has little to no competition has the opportunity to run the same course.
The recent drug price increase of 5000% comes to mind.
“But a business owner can buy this beer for a dollar, mark it up eight times, and sell it to idiots like us, and no one cares.”