"Evicted": Marina Won't Renew Contract for Next Year to maximize Profit

[ixnax]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

People far smarter than me (not hard, eh?) have made the point that we don't need billionaire charity. We need them to pay their fair share of taxes, and stop distorting the system to benefit them and their class. As people like Warren Buffet have noted, he is taxed at a lower rate than his secretary.

I'll guess that no one posting here would argue that multi-billionaires are stretched too thin to pay more tax. I would personally suggest that it shouldn't matter two craps what good works they are doing in Somewhereyland. Let them do it with what they have left over after paying a fair amount of tax.

My thing here is that it is plain that some cruisers are narcotized by the idea that whatever minimum resources they personally can bring to the deal should be sufficient and that market forces should not be allowed to rain on their parade. Obviously, I find that to be an absurd held view.

[lestersails]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

People far smarter than me (not hard, eh?) have made the point that we don't need billionaire charity. We need them to pay their fair share of taxes, and stop distorting the system to benefit them and their class. As people like Warren Buffet have noted, he is taxed at a lower rate than his secretary.

Hey Mike - here's one for you.
T Denny Sanford ran a bank that specialized in sub-prime lending. They issued credit cards to low-income people. He was fined at one point for issuing a credit card with a $300 limit that charged 79.9% interest.
He goes on to make billions of dollars with this business model. Then, he gives a small portion of his fortune to children's hospitals.
A friggin' Saint of Capitalism!

[lestersails]

Originally Posted by David Ess

I've been hearing the underwater story for at least a decade, jet coastal properties keep letting more expensive. If theyll be underwater soon, buyers are not convinced.

Haven't been following the property insurance market, have 'ya? The big insurers think it's coming and the rates are headed north.

[lestersails]

[QUOTE=Pelagic;3490407]

Originally Posted by lestersails

.... "Well, since I stole, finagled and manipulated 90% of this money from people, I am going to spend 10% of my fortune, based on what I have decided they need.".

Astounding Bias which I guess implies that this is how you make your money....

You kinda totally missed the point. The quote from Balzac that you missed a few posts back might have interested you. I left it in the original French to see how many would be curious enough to see what he said.
Guess you weren't.

[OutOfControl]

[QUOTE=lestersails;3490424]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

You kinda totally missed the point. The quote from Balzac that you missed a few posts back might have interested you. I left it in the original French to see how many would be curious enough to see what he said.
Guess you weren't.

I was curious. My French is sorely lacking but I did recognize some of the quote.

"The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a forgotten crime, because it was properly done."
Honoré de Balzac, 1834

[jimbunyard]

Originally Posted by David Ess

You dont even say what the pariahs have done to you, so how can we guess the word?

Having problems with comprehension of the English language?

"...one['s] who promot[e] the 'virtues' of ...of 'capitalism' ... it's unregulated pursuit, especially over the last 40 years,....ha[ve] resulted in not only the destruction or diminution of almost every facet of life in human society, but exponentially greater ones in virtually every corner of the 'natural world' --- meaning that part of the Earth which is not 'human centric'..."

Hard to take 'crimes against the biosphere', of which humanity is an integral, but certainly not necessary part, seriously --- which is, of course, one of the reasons the fat cats get away with committing them, and why we let them.

[lestersails]

Originally Posted by OutOfControl

I was curious. My French is sorely lacking but I did recognize some of the quote.

"The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a forgotten crime, because it was properly done."
Honoré de Balzac, 1834

Thanks - glad you appreciated it. It isn't completely true, I suspect, but mostly I fear it is. For all I can tell, Warren Buffett made his dough honestly. But, most of these über rich people mostly get away with crimes. Monopoly market domination the most common among them. Usury in my T Denny Sanford citation, above. Buying politicians, as was the case for most railroad tycoons and the classic Teapot Dome Scandal.

Fundamentally, I have absolutely nothing against anyone being wealthy. But you can't be naive about this stuff - a great deal of what a great deal of these people do is just not good for the rest of us. And as I have already said in this thread, it will not turn out well if it keeps going this way.

[ixnax]

Originally Posted by jimbunyard

Having problems with comprehension of the English language?





Hard to take 'crimes against the biosphere', of which humanity is an integral, but certainly not necessary part, seriously --- which is, of course, one of the reasons the fat cats get away with committing them, and why we let them.

You snarked me in post #418 with your simplest question in the world silliness referring to taxes. Whatever. Now you're harshing a smart poster about their reading comprehension when your own is so obviously lacking. Seriously, if it was 30 years ago I'd ask you and a few others here what you were smoking.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

People far smarter than me (not hard, eh?) have made the point that we don't need billionaire charity. We need them to pay their fair share of taxes, and stop distorting the system to benefit them and their class. As people like Warren Buffet have noted, he is taxed at a lower rate than his secretary.

Pretty selective comments which if we were to parse.

We don't need charity
Pay fair share of taxes
Distort the system

Now if you were to plug in organized Religion, where you put Billionaires, then you can understand that Pride and the Tall poppy syndrome would condemn even the grand Lotto Canada winner.

[R Hutcheson]

It’s not about “hard work” and never was, regardless of what we may have been told as children. It’s about creating value for others. You can work extremely hard at subsistence farming, building a large pile of rocks in your yard, or many other things. But if it only provides value to you, no one is likely to compensate you for your efforts. In your case the marina is trying to provide value by being full service for people who value it. You don’t value the services they are trying to provide, therefore, you don’t use them, and don’t wish to pay for them. There is nothing wrong with that, but it should surprise no one they would prefer a customer who values and is willing to pay for those services.

Additionally, allowing do it yourself work opens up potential liability for the marina, which can well exceed the value they get from your slip rental.

Fortunately for you, dollars are not the only value people hold. There are still people who simply love being around boats, boaters, and the company of do it yourself types, who are happy to own a marina even if not well compensated financially for doing so. Admittedly, these marinas may not be as convenient to popular towns, and are likely less well maintained, but they certainly exist.

We are on the Chesapeake currently and could have paid big money for a marina near Annapolis, but chose a much cheaper one on the Eastern shore instead.

Not as many restaurants and it takes longer to get parts, but it suits our needs.

Bottom line is the marina owns or rents the property, and has made the investment in facilities. They don’t owe anyone a place to tie their boat, or to control fees to a comfortable level for all.

You simply need to find a marina who’s values align with your own. Perhaps something at the yard you go to when you want to work on your boat?

[jimbunyard]

Originally Posted by ixnax

#390 In your view at what level of accumulated wealth would an individuals lifestyle and behaviors become a detriment to the rest of society?

Originally Posted by jimbunyard

#418 Well that's the simplest question in the world.

When it can start buying governments.

In the US, whose economy is about as far from 'capitalistic' as is possible, the most visible miscreants are Lonely Mark, Egomaniac Musk, Bozo Bezos and Goofy Gates, but there are several others working 'under the counter' to manipulate the lives of the unsuspecting, powerless (read 80% of the global North's population, as a world total, read >95%) and gullible.

In case no one who's promoting the 'virtues' of what they mistake for 'capitalism' has noticed, it's unregulated pursuit, especially over the last 40 years, has resulted in not only the destruction or dimunition of almost every facet of life in human society, but exponentially greater ones in virtually every corner of the 'natural world' --- meaning that part of the Earth which is not 'human centric'...

As y'all watch your world deteriorate over the next 10 years, think about the 'benefits' just those 4 pariahs have introduced, even only since the turn of the century, and ask yourselves, 'what should have been done differently?"

Here's a hint; it can be answered in one word.

Originally Posted by David Ess

#425 You dont even say what the pariahs have done to you, so how can we guess the word?

Originally Posted by jimbunyard

#441 Having problems with comprehension of the English language?

Hard to take 'crimes against the biosphere', of which humanity is an integral, but certainly not necessary part, seriously --- which is, of course, one of the reasons the fat cats get away with committing them, and why we let them.

Originally Posted by ixnax

You snarked me in post #418 with your simplest question in the world silliness referring to taxes. Whatever. Now you're harshing a smart poster about their reading comprehension when your own is so obviously lacking. Seriously, if it was 30 years ago I'd ask you and a few others here what you were smoking.

Snarked you? Please.

Always amusing when people making questionable statements start devising personal definitions for words to ostensibly CTAes.

As seen above, in your post 390, my answer (418) was a direct, pragmatic, succinct answer to your indubitably silly (because it can't be answered in the simple terms you require) question about accumulated wealth, followed by a description of some who have 'bought' the US government using that accumulated wealth, and then reasons for why this isn't a good thing, either for them or for the rest of humanity, not to mention the world.

If you had wished to talk about taxes, you should have asked specifically about them in your question.

T'would seem a 'smart' person wouldn't ask a question about an observation that was so simple and direct that it anticipated the question and provided an answer (that apparently went 'right over' the smart head of the observation's questioner) before it was even asked.

But hey, I suppose that's what happens when words carry no standardized meaning; welcome to the post-capitalist (hopefully) world. If all goes according to 'plan', we'll soon revert to the 'economic' normalcy that has held sway for the vast majority of human history: survival of the luckiest...instead of the most devious.

Though a more equitable future even than that can certainly be easily envisioned, though perhaps not so easily achieved, especially for (and because of) those with vested interests in preserving the status quo.

([almost] leaving aside this amusing bit of 'true' snarkiness "...you're harshing a smart poster about their reading comprehension when your own is so obviously lacking...", so, pray tell, where is my lack of reading comprehension so remarkably evident?)

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by R Hutcheson

It’s not about “hard work” and never was, regardless of what we may have been told as children. It’s about creating value for others. You can work extremely hard at subsistence farming, building a large pile of rocks in your yard, or many other things. But if it only provides value to you, no one is likely to compensate you for your efforts.

Nice post!
A corollary of that is that we all play a part in creating something of value.

I remember attending the launch party of a Feadship built for one of the founders of the Amway Corp, Rick deVos.

I'll never forget Rick's speech when he remarked about hearing one of the Dutch workers son ask his Dad,......" Why can't we have a boat like this?"

He went on to describe by name, some of the craftsmen who had built specific components of the yacht. Knew them by name and acknowledged them to the crowd and the dignitaries.

He said, those creations would always belong to the builder as this was something he could never make

Then he asked... "What did I do?"

His Simple answer...
"All I could do was to write the Checks"

Why there is such vitriol against someone achieving wealth thru hard work and inspiring others, honestly confuses me.

https://www.amwayglobal.com/our-story/founders/

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by ixnax

...My thing here is that it is plain that some cruisers are narcotized by the idea that whatever minimum resources they personally can bring to the deal should be sufficient and that market forces should not be allowed to rain on their parade..

Care to tell us which posts or comments said those words?

Because nobody said them, you made it up in your mind that, whatever they said, that is what they meant, mostly because of your negative view of people with the opposite views of your own. I see this all the time: A person, generally a right winger, hears something he does not agree with and decides that the speaker is one of those evil socialists, or communists, or "woke" and then attributes to them every possible bad thing he can imagine (because they are all like that). Often applies labels which can inflame the haters of his group. It's a habit used by the right to gin up anger and contempt so he and his buddies can all agree to hate the lib based on whatever lies they imagined.

This thread has evolved, as they do, into one where some people have said that public waterways should be kept available to the public, and marinas built on them should not become enclaves solely for the rich while others say that free market, and only free market should determine how goods, including marina berths built on public shorelines, are priced and who gets them should be based only on who can afford whatever price the operator decides he can put on them.

I personally believe that marinas should be required to keep some percentage of their berths sized for modest boats and the prices should be based on actual costs to operate, not just whatever the traffic will bear, and that the economic systems we have in place which allow the rich to get richer while the remainder get poorer, justified as a 'self inflicted problem" (they should have gotten rich themselves) have been distorted to the benefit of the wealthy.

Marina berths are a symptom, a very small and insignificant symptom, of that problem, but one which is important to many of the members of this forum.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by R Hutcheson

It’s not about “hard work” and never was, regardless of what we may have been told as children. It’s about creating value for others. You can work extremely hard at subsistence farming, building a large pile of rocks in your yard, or many other things. But if it only provides value to you, no one is likely to compensate you for your efforts.

Shhhh. Most well-off people want you to believe they all worked extraordinarily hard for what they've got. It's why they DESERVE their wealth. They are simply better, more important people. Please don't bring up their parents' money or influence, the right schools, some early breaks or opportunities; these are not germane.

Because otherwise, if they're not obviously superior, harder-working people, we can't justify the plutocracies we currently live under, or why the average employee is losing ground.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Pretty selective comments which if we were to parse.

We don't need charity
Pay fair share of taxes
Distort the system

Now if you were to plug in organized Religion, where you put Billionaires, then you can understand that Pride and the Tall poppy syndrome would condemn even the grand Lotto Canada winner.

Sorry, guess I'm not as smart as you. I don't follow this at all ... unless you're suggesting religious organizations should also be taxed like other organizations, then I agree. But my comment wasn't selective. It was based analysis from economists and financial people, including, as I said, Warren Buffet himself.