Newmark's Door

Even people who can afford to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a piano can make stupid financial mistakes.

I recommend a "Hell, no!" vote. Two readings in support:

"Why Have Other Countries Been Dropping Their Wealth Taxes"?

"Elizabeth Warren's Wealth Tax Is a Stunt Policy That Other Countries Have Tried and Discarded".

It's not often you see a "trifecta of folly," but, hey, it's how government rolls in Illinois.

UPDATE: Link fixed now. Sorry.

Thomas Sowell with his usual evisceration of minimum wage laws.

Seventy-one years ago this month — in January 1948 — a black, 17-year-old high school dropout left home. The last grade he had completed was the 9th grade. He had no skills, little experience, and not a lot of maturity. Yet he was able to find jobs to support himself, to a far greater extent than someone similar can find jobs today.

I know because I was that black 17-year-old. And, decades later, I did research on economic conditions back then.

If I still taught a Princples of Economics course and if the class was weak--it would be too easy for a strong class--this would make the basis for a good test question:

The demand for - the demand for Model 3 is insanely high. The inhibitor is affordability. It's just like people literally don't have the money to buy the car. It's got nothing to do with desire. They just don't have enough money in their bank account. If the car can be made more affordable, the demand is extraordinary.

Pretty brutal honest from a member of Chicago Tribune's Editorial Board:

Left-leaning politicians bash people like Ricketts and want to tax them more to solve budget problems. But remember: Ricketts didn’t vote on those unbalanced budgets, year after year. He didn’t accumulate mountains of debt. He didn’t vote to underfund worker pensions. He didn’t vote to borrow more money instead of cut spending.

"Concern" is right.

See also "New York has a giant tax problem its leaders don’t want to face".

John Crudele uses the Stones, David Bowie, and Rod Stewart to illustrate the results.

And see also "As history shows, 70 percent tax rates won't raise enough revenue to fund socialism" and "America Needs to Relearn Economics".

No more a surprise than that the sun rises in the east.

Mark Perry looks at "Price Changes (January 1998 to December 2018)--Selected US Consumer Goods, Wages".