I'll be the first to admit that I'm not always a wellspring of human empathy, but even the article is pretty frank about the fact that flagging yacht sales were

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not always a wellspring of human empathy, but even the article is pretty frank about the fact that flagging yacht sales were part of a long-term trend: First, understand that because of the 1987 stock market crash and the 1990 recession, many of the toymakers were in deep trouble even before the luxury tax took effect. The evidence that a luxury tax was the harbinger of doom for these people is not so great. The bigger thing which struck me about this story at the time, and I think it's pretty crucial, is that the evils of luxury taxes are probably exaggerated if you have to refer back to the same example all the time.