speaker cable prices

I read plenty of articles on the demise of high end audio and have been an enthusiast for 40 years and worked at a high end retail chain for ten years back in the 90's. I still own several systems and buy and sell gear to keep tweaking my systems. Nonetheless I'm pretty shocked at the prices of cables in particular- I look for a decent pair of speaker cables to run from a Pass amp to a good pair of speakers and can hardly find a pair of 8 ft cables for less than $1000- most are commonly 2-3k for a pair of cables. 

Is it me or is this ludicrous? 

What are people buying for an average pair of cables ? Can a pair be had for $300?