Wealth & Money Quote by Lee Iacocca

A perfect little boomerang of corporate logic: consumers demand thrift, then get upsold into paying for the feeling of thrift. Iacocca, the swaggering face of Detroit’s comeback years, isn’t admiring the customer so much as diagnosing them. “Economy” here doesn’t mean low cost; it means the promise of smartness. People don’t just want to spend less, they want to believe they’ve beaten the system. That belief is a commodity, and it’s often more profitable than the product itself.

The line works because it flips moral language into market language. “Economy” sounds virtuous, almost civic-minded, but Iacocca treats it as a craving. The punch is in “any price”: the contradiction is the point. Shoppers will shell out for “fuel-efficient” trims, “value” bundles, extended warranties, status-signaling frugality - anything that lets them narrate their purchase as responsible. It’s not irrationality so much as identity management.

Context matters: Iacocca built Chrysler’s late-70s/80s revival on exactly this paradox, selling practicality with theater. The minivan was a masterclass in “economy” as lifestyle - a family-first machine framed as sensible, then loaded with features people happily financed. The subtext is blunt: stop taking “value” claims at face value. In a consumer economy, “economy” is less a number than a story, and the best marketers charge admission to it.