When was the last time a business cut its cost and passed on the savings to the consumer?
Business needs to take care of itself and return the shareholders appropriately, so that comment is justified.
It's not the job of business to just "serve the consumer" - it must serve itself, and generally maximise profits.
As Mike said, there are also costs to recoup investing in progress.
But business also need to be mindful of risks of backlash when consumers become aware of behaviours that amount to profiteering.
Given the effectively boutique market Stern sells to and the lack of real competition - they will probably get away with some level of profiteering, and perhaps want to to maximise returns in the expectation of loss of market share to competitors - like Mike.
But here's the thing - if Stern keep pushing prices up to maximise profits, and the margins become so attractive, the normal economic effect is to bring new players into the field attracted by the returns. So like so many things, it is a balance. Some might even argue that they should maintain a good margin but drop the price as low as possible in order to discourage new players being able to compete well.
(Caveat - my worst subjects by a long shot at uni were economics and that probably shows!! :) )
