In 99% of life, when quantities go down and demand stays the same, prices go up. Software engineers? Check. Concert tickets? Check. Fruit at a supermarket?

In 99% of life, when quantities go down and demand stays the same, prices go up. Software engineers? Check. Concert tickets? Check. Fruit at a supermarket? Check. It's only in areas where government creates an artificial monopoly - and the price becomes a POLITICAL matter rather than an economic matter - that prices are broken and unable to create a smoothly functioning market. Gas lines in the 1970s? That's because the government fixed the price of gas. Water use in Sacramento? That's because the government fixed the price of water. Etc.