Supply and demand principles extend to all aspects of Penn life. Drug prices will increase exponentially during peak seasons: Adderall for Reading Days, hallucinogens for Fling. Penn students never miss an opportunity to make a quick buck; take the example of the clever kid who will bursar items at the bookstore and sell them back to you at 50% cost in cash. After all, bankrupting your parents can be justified by your own gains. Price-gouging also comes in handy in enterprises like the Facebook marketplace, where the confident Penn capitalist will try to mark up and sell the most ridiculous surplus possessions (a used mattress, a blank DVD) if it might lead to a marginal profit. And these aren't the only opportunities for Quaker ingenuity.
Academia: If your classmate wants to exchange notes for an upcoming test, don't immediately accept; hold out for a better offer, preferably from the earnest Penngineer with perfect attendance. With some market research, you can almost always find a copy of last year's exam, an important liquid asset for trading purposes. During finals, secure your highly coveted Lippincott desk early, or else resort to more extreme tactics ("gently" remove whoever's stuff has been sitting there all day). Fraudulent appropriation may seem radical, but the Penn student does not settle for subprime real estate. The same goes at Pottruck, where a competitive ability to snag the best machines comes in handy. After all, who wants to risk gaining the Freshman Fifteen and losing market value? It truly is an economy of scale.
Dating (Men): Buying dinner and drinks for your date and allocating a substantial amount of time to flirting at Smoke's on Tuesday should yield appropriate returns (i.e., making a merger). Depending on how hot she is, your stock might go up (or vice versa, if you're blacked out and can't make a proper cost-benefit analysis). But be wary undercutting your entrepreneurial capacity by developing any real emotional attachment: a chick's net worth drops proportionally with age.
Dating (Women): When you, the savvy Penn businesswoman, have exploited all of your resources in one fraternity, it's time to get creative and focus on emerging markets: the international crowd, the graduate students, etc. When all else fails, you can always make that business trip to New York to rekindle the private partnership with your alum of choice. Romance is a cutthroat operation here, and as monogamy has become about as obsolete as the fax machine, a lady's got to resort to oft-extreme measures to secure her monopoly over that special someone.
Friendship: Ask yourself: Does my association with this person raise my social stock? If not, time to cash out. Networking is a must. Remember, things change quickly, so you stand to accrue the most interest in short-term associations. The BlackBerry PIN, much like the business card for the yuppies of the '80s, should be given out strategically.
