Why is saffron ridiculously expensive?

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The saffron threads used to color and flavor many dishes, particularly in Indian cooking, are the golden orange stigmata of the autumn crocus, a plant of the iris family. Autumn crocuses are far from rare. So why is saffron so dear? There are two reasons. The crocus flowers must be picked by hand to extract the saffron threads. As many as 500,000 (1.5 million stigmata) are needed to collect just 500g of saffron. The flowers are picked immediately after they blossom, and the stigmata are cut with fingernails and then dried by the sun or by the fire. During this drying process the saffron loses approximately 80 percent of its weight. Saffron could be cultivated in the West and still is grown in parts of Mediterranean, but where could affluent countries find labor inexpensive enough to produce saffron as cheaply as the ridiculously expensive price we pay today?