Making America Great Again -- The Market, Energy, Political, And Sunday Comics Page, T+3 -- June 3, 2018

Costco. Set to raise wages for 130,000 employees. And this fall those 130,000 employees can vote to put politicians back in office who want to raise tax rates. It's an open-book test.

• the starting wage for Costco employees would go up $1 to $14 or $14.50 per hour, while other warehouse employees would see hourly raises of $.25 to $.50
• the raises are expected to cost the wholesale retail company $110 to $120 million before taxes. 
• Costoc credited the raises to last year’s tax bill, which lowered the corporate tax rate and provided a windfall for large corporations
• comment: isn't Bernie Sanders pushing for $15/hour minimum; the Costco $14.50 is for starting wages; within six months those new hires will see their hourly rate going up again; and, they can buy lunch for $1.59 at Costco -- what a great country

Wal-Mart: the linked article continues --

• Costco is not the only company to give out raises or bonuses that they attributed to the tax bill
• two of Costco’s competitors have as well. In January 
• Walmart raised its starting hourly wage to $11
• Target said it would raise its wages to $12 per hour by the spring and $15 hourly by 2020 (isn't this what Bernie wanted?)
• (Yet other reports show that fewer than 45 of Standard & Poor’s 500 companies gave out bonuses in the four months after the bill went into effect -- from the report.)
• comment: the "race" is not over -- maybe only 45 of the 500 companies so far, but the number will keep increasing -- the journalist writing this story -- no doubt -- sour grapes -- didn't get a raise

Scheaffer, Bic, journals, et al: incredibly good news. EPA chief is re-writing so many of Obama's rules and regulations that he is running out of pens and legal pads. But he's making American pens great again. What a great story. EPA head Scott Pruitt apparently re-wrote so many regulations, making American great again, he needed to spend $3,230 on pens and journals. I can't make this stuff up. As a huge fan of both journals and pens, I applaud Scott Pruitt. Keep it up. Except for one journalist, I don't think anyone's complaining. Tag: jumping the shark.

Lunch: meanwhile, the price of a private lunch with Warren Buffett is $3.3 million. Tag: jumping the shark.