Indeed! Also, putting up a tariff wall instead of negotiating indicates a lack of ability to consider secondary results of ones actions. As we know, secondary results are usually very important to consider prior to taking action. In this case, the general public suffers while that top 1% seems to benefit, at least for the short term.

I would assert that the author has cause and symptom reversed. A decrease in production causes a drop in energy consumption. Machines are switched off because of reduced production requirements. It does not work the other way.

It has always been that one of the major duties of CEOs has been to make glowing predictions about future growth and profits. Predicting anything else will tend to end a career rapidly. Thus, often, cruel reality demands an adjustment of those predictions. And on occasion, reducing the excitement level is needed to avoid giving the impression of not having an adequate grasp of the facts.

Actually, all of those huge homes are being built with the hope that they can sell. None of them are being built for somebody who has contracted to have a home built. Money for speculators is too cheap presently, and they can't buy oil futures and drive up the prices so they build huge houses now.

In my city starts for the large and very expensive homes are still booming. But all of those homes are twice the size of mine. So there are NO MEDIUM HOME STARTS happening. Elsewhere, no home starts at all, since those communities are not the hot-spots-in-demand areas. So the market for homes costing twice as much as most houses is shrinking? GOOD!! Those houses are quite out of place in this community.

So the question remains :WHY has the price risen that much? I doubt that it is the pay that the teachers are getting, but it may be due to the much larger administrative staff, now that computers can do most of that work. Where I attended there is now a huge student activities building that contributes nothing at all to the education, but it certainly enhances "the college experience", for whatever possible value that may have. I attended to learn a profession to use for a career, if I wanted "an experience" I would go to a concert. Vastly overpriced but cheaper than current college prices.

There are very few products that raising the price "some" will not reduce the sales "some", and housing is not one of those fortunate products. The builders chose to build the very expensive houses and the market was not there. Perhaps less greed would have lead to greater sales and adequate profits??

This article points out the very disturbing reality of the huge student debt. I was pay-as-you-go through college and owed nothing when I graduated in 1973. But when I checked on the cost at that school 15 years ago the tuition was 72 times what I paid, and when I graduated the tuition was over twice what it was when I started there 4 years earlier. So the whole thing sounds a whole lot like profiteering in excess. Like Dogbert says: "Because we can."

Believing that something is true does not make that something true, just as wishing that it were true very seldom makes it true. Wishes are not always granted, I have observed.

It certainly appears that president #Trump is primarily serving the interests of that top 1%, WHICH DOES NOT INCLUDE ME. I knew that this was what he would do, so I did not vote for him. But he is supposed to be working to serve the rest of us 99% folks.