This morning I am getting ready to attend my last baseball game at the Metrodome, that domed stadium in downtown Minneapolis that has served so well for three decades. The Metrodome replaced horribly inadequate Metropolitan Stadium in April, 1982. The Dome, as it came to be called, provided weather protection that is essential in Minneapolis. The Twins and University of Minnesota football teams now play in their own stadiums without such protection and that is starting to tell on fans. I am now hearing real concerns from friends who just don’t intend to go to Twins games until it warms up. This bothers me as that team need early attendance to have a successful season. This is because the stadium holds 39,000 seats, or an inventory of 3,159,000 seats for the season. Major league average attendance was 30, 895 in 2012, or 2,502,495 total. If early season attendance isn’t at capacity, it can’t be made up later as the 39,114 cap is there. So if attendance is off in April and May, it can’t be made up later. If the team languishes under the Major League average attendance, its competitiveness will be hindered as it is in the 15tth largest market and media revenues are proportionately average.

The Metrodome provided protection from the weather and early season attendance was always good. Fans in Minnesota got used to attending games in April and are only now catching on to the fact of climate reality after being sheltered for thirty years.

My last Metrodome baseball game will be between Dartmouth, my alma mater, and Utah as part of the Dairy Queen Baseball Classic, a tournament produced by the University of Minnesota baseball team, that go thrashed by Dartmouth in the first game Friday night 10-3. It had to be hard for the Big Ten Gophers to get beaten by a group of guys from the smallest of the Ivies, but Dartmouth is a baseball powerhouse, it seems.

Another rambling for this morning is prompted by The Star Tribune headline that most tax payers want taxes raised on the wealthy and not on them.  This is not shocking. We also hear Obama saying he wants to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Therein is the problem. Both here in Minnesota and nationally, Democrats want to raise taxes on the wealthiest but only want to tax income and not wealth.. (I had a Democratic friend once tell me that government had a lien on all income because it created the environment in which it was created or earned. This was an early “you didn’t build that” moment.)

Income is what is produced from labor or capital paid to individuals as compensation. Wealth is created from the appreciation of assets, (Microsoft stock, for example) Income that is retained (i.e. after tax) is often used to acquire assets or build businesses. Taxing income limits the ability of individuals to accumulate wealth. The proper tax system would tax wealth and not income. For example, if a billionaire was taxed at 1% on net worth, she would pay $10,000,000 in taxes. An average person, determining net worth for tax purposed, could deduct mortgage, and credit card debt and income would be taxed only as to the amount that is retained. I think Buffett, (Wealth at $45 billion?) would pay $450,000,000. He could afford that.

When a politician says he want to tax the wealthiest, ask her why she is not doing so with a wealth tax. At least ask why is it not considered. 

Finally, (I have to get to the game) I am pleased to note several posts indicating the end of the global warming hysteria. it was a scam from day one, but Al Gore and others have made billions of dollars scaring a generation of children. The so called “hockey stick graph” that was the iconic symbol of global warming, was so badly flawed as to be ludicrous, however, the media embraced it as true. Nevertheless, that fact Global Warming ended, if it ever existed, sixteen years ago is now recognized as true. In fact, we maybe heading for an Ice Age, but that’s where we were in 1972. Maybe Cooling will now have its day. The cure for Global Cooling? You guessed it, more co2!! But we know that doesn’t cause warming, so we need to wait on the sun. Cheers, Clark