Sailing in recession ?

[Sailor 99]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Please work on your reading comprehension because you apparently missed the entire last paragraph of my post, seeing as you left it out when you quoted it.

People in America have the opportunity to work their way up economically via education and/or hard work, unlike some other countries like maybe yours..... wherever that is.

Your wrong. Someone working at McDonalds or Walmart will be very hard pressed indeed to ever move up. Every day is spent just surviving.



As George Carlin said..." They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."


So no, those people will not be buying my boat when I am done with it.



I consider myself very blessed to be able to own a boat and sail. Not everyone can.



I also don't consider the cost other than I try to keep fixed costs such as mooring and dockage as low as I can. But if the boat needs something it gets it and I expect no money back at the end of the ride.

[Andreadsuchyshi]

Am I reading this correctly? Are you attempting to time a recession to purchase a boat in a down economy in hopes of getting a better deal? If so I agree with the other contributors, we can't time a recession and boats aren't money makers. Hind site is 20/20- don't we all wish we knew 2008/2009 was going to be as severe? I know I would've made different choices.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Dark Horse

Your wrong. Someone working at McDonalds or Walmart will be very hard pressed indeed to ever move up. Every day is spent just surviving.



As George Carlin said..." They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."


So no, those people will not be buying my boat when I am done with it.



I consider myself very blessed to be able to own a boat and sail. Not everyone can.



I also don't consider the cost other than I try to keep fixed costs such as mooring and dockage as low as I can. But if the boat needs something it gets it and I expect no money back at the end of the ride.

I personally know and work daily with many people who have worked their way up from minimum wage poverty to prosperity via hard work. Most of them are either from Africa, Central America, Eastern Europe or the Caribbean Islands as fairly recent immigrants.

I’d place the number of people who I know who’ve come up this route at more than 200. Maybe you need to get out and meet and mix with more lower income people? You’ll find their goals to be the same as everyone elses. Some of them own boats.

[picklesandjesse]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Sorry if this isn't PC, but maybe lots of folks on this globe just need a swift reality kick in the buttocks to get going instead of a trophy for trying.

Yes, my son who is now 28 is one of them. At last he's come good. Lives back in Canada and apparently even turns off the light when he leaves a room now. He's the one paying the bills in a relationship.

[chris mac]

Originally Posted by Dark Horse

Your wrong. Someone working at McDonalds or Walmart will be very hard pressed indeed to ever move up. Every day is spent just surviving.



As George Carlin said..." They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."


So no, those people will not be buying my boat when I am done with it.



I consider myself very blessed to be able to own a boat and sail. Not everyone can.



I also don't consider the cost other than I try to keep fixed costs such as mooring and dockage as low as I can. But if the boat needs something it gets it and I expect no money back at the end of the ride.

I worked on a Macdonald's renovation a few years ago. I spent some time talking to the owner while I was there. (pretty nice guy) He has never worked anywhere else. Started as a teenager as a fry cook. Worked his way up, now owns 3 franchises.
Yes, that is a rare example, but it seems that there are people in this world that work hard and excell at whatever they focus on.
There are also others who only put in a token effort and go through life "just surviving"

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Dark Horse

Your wrong. Someone working at McDonalds or Walmart will be very hard pressed indeed to ever move up. Every day is spent just surviving.



As George Carlin said..." They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."


So no, those people will not be buying my boat when I am done with it.



I consider myself very blessed to be able to own a boat and sail. Not everyone can.



I also don't consider the cost other than I try to keep fixed costs such as mooring and dockage as low as I can. But if the boat needs something it gets it and I expect no money back at the end of the ride.

My first job at 16.... orderly at local hospital wage $1.85/hr
Job #2 at 17.... newspaper delivery while attending University, wage $1.65/hr
Job #3 at 17.... busboy at Portugese restaurant, wage $1.35/hr
Job #4 at 17.... donut cook, wage. $1.65/hr.

Should I continue?

Job #5 at 18... Rock musician Los Angeles area band $400/week while attending university.

The system works.

[Singularity]

A tale of two personal effort success-stories:

Person A invents a new thing or process that s/he introduces to society's market place. Because the novel thing is deemed to provide utility that doesn't exist elsewhere, people in the market place will offer Person A money in excess of Person A's total effort to bring the novel thing to market.

Person B utilizes special-interest group derived government-backed loans (with all manner of tax incentives) to buy property that itself invariably has frequently been bailed out by the public purse multiple times previously (with all manner of tax incentives) then rents that property to someone who isn't as savvy in the ways of using government programs (or is too virtuous, etc, to play such games) until such time that the economy falters and the public is again left holding the bag--until the government cannot pay the bill and megacorp steps in to buy up the property.

The "B people" are the unwitting foot soldiers for the property redistribution (from person/public held to corporation held). While the non-B People work straight jobs the B-types are setting the US up for Greece (et al) style sale of previous public property to whichever megacorp steps in.

This is simple economics, not politics.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/201...airports-sold/

[Mattm]

A Boat is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. If I believe a boat is worth 100k and 100k is worth a years labour then the boat is in reality worth a years labour. Currency is nothing more than a carrier of value. It on the long term will always carry its value regardless of the current market value of the currency. Plus the currency will always to return to its correct value. So if you buy a boat for 300 euro and 5 years later the euro tanks. Well then you just sell it in the currency that it tanked against.
Easy.

[Sailor 99]

Originally Posted by chris mac

I worked on a Macdonald's renovation a few years ago. I spent some time talking to the owner while I was there. (pretty nice guy) He has never worked anywhere else. Started as a teenager as a fry cook. Worked his way up, now owns 3 franchises.
Yes, that is a rare example, but it seems that there are people in this world that work hard and excell at whatever they focus on.
There are also others who only put in a token effort and go through life "just surviving"

So he worked his minimum wage job and saved up enough to buy a McDonalds franchise...

Pretty simple story but lets dig a little. A McDonalds is not cheap.

From the web...

McDonald's Franchise Cost / Initial Investment / Income. Most McDonald's owner/operators have entered the corporation by purchasing an existing restaurant. To open a McDonald's franchise, however, requires a total investment of $1-$2.2 million, with liquid capital available of $750,000. The franchise fee is $45,000.

So some how this guy went from fry guy to manager to owner with the 750K he saved from his job as a manager at McDonalds.

Its such are rare story because it never happened. He had rich parents or something.

On face value these I made it on my own stories always sound good which is what keeps the American Dream going. But when you dig even a little you find out that a lot of them made their money the old fashioned way...... They inherited it.

Anyway we are way off track here.

I suspect this thread will be shut down real soon. Probably should be.

[Sailor 99]

Originally Posted by Mattm

A Boat is worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

I would say truer words were never spoken.



I have sold 2 boats. They both went in less than 30 days. They were nice and clean and not over priced. I see way to many owners trying to get big bucks and the boats on the market forever. All it does is cost you money sitting at the dock getting older and moldier.


If you boat has been for sale for a year its over priced. That said I expect to get nothing for my current boat. I will sail it till I can't anymore and that will be ( hopefully ) many years from now and by then it will be 50 yrs old. Not much market for a 50 yr old boat.

[chris mac]

Originally Posted by Dark Horse

So he worked his minimum wage job and saved up enough to buy a McDonalds franchise...

Pretty simple story but lets dig a little. A McDonalds is not cheap.

From the web...

McDonald's Franchise Cost / Initial Investment / Income. Most McDonald's owner/operators have entered the corporation by purchasing an existing restaurant. To open a McDonald's franchise, however, requires a total investment of $1-$2.2 million, with liquid capital available of $750,000. The franchise fee is $45,000.

So some how this guy went from fry guy to manager to owner with the 750K he saved from his job as a manager at McDonalds.

Its such are rare story because it never happened. He had rich parents or something.

On face value these I made it on my own stories always sound good which is what keeps the American Dream going. But when you dig even a little you find out that a lot of them made their money the old fashioned way...... They inherited it.

Anyway we are way off track here.

I suspect this thread will be shut down real soon. Probably should be.

Wow, are you ever cynical.
I didn't ask for his financial records. I was willing to take him at his word. I met his wife as well, and neither of them had the personality of someone raised rich.
If you don't want to believe it, that's your choice.
Fair winds

[AndyEss]

Your map of gross land area vs capital distribution is ridiculous. A basic rule in prperty valuation is location, location, location.
Is your “red dot” acreage rich in oil and gas? Then it’s provably worth a lot more than acreage in the Mohave Desert.
Sure it an absurd comparision - but human talent, brains, discipline, health and physical capacity are also unevenly distributed. Or should everyone be paid like Lebron James for instance - or Jeff Bezos?
I don’t think fans would cough up good money to watch me play basketball or order goods from a website I launched.
On the other hand, I was a pretty good engineer before I retired and ran away from home to live on my boat. I was paid pretty good money to save builders lots of money - and ensure safety in national infrastructure construction projects.
Somehow I think I was worth more and deserved being paid more after my education and multi-decade engineering experience on three different continents relative to what I earned cleaning dog **** from kennels and cages at a conveniently located veternary hospital when I was in college. My school and job were on the same subway line.
I don’t expect to earn money if and when I (or my surviving kin) sell my boat - but it will still be worth something. It also will have paid for itself in experiences, pleasures, joys - and some terrors overcome- compared to other exoenditures many people make in their lives.
Buying what you can afford and living responsibly (relative to your financial resources or your earning potential) are fundamental to a happy, balanced life.
Handouts do less than nothing in teaching what it takes to live well.

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Dark Horse

As George Carlin said..." They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

A more poignant take:

"[He] had the American dream, which may be summed up, I think, in the statement that the undisciplined man is the salt of the earth. So when the trusts appeared, when the free land was gone, and American had been congested into a nation, the only philosophy with any weight of tradition behind it was a belief in the virtues of the spontaneous, enterprising, untrained and unsocialized man. Trust promoters cried: Let us alone. The little business men cried: We're the natural men, so let us alone. And the public cried: We're the most natural of all, so please do stop interfering with us. Muckraking gave an utterance to the small businessmen and to the larger public, who dominated reform politics. What did they do? They tried by all the machinery and power they could muster to restore a business world in which each man could again be left to his own will--a world that needed no cooperative intelligence...No group of people, except the socialists, wished to take up the enormous task of disciplining businesses to popular need. For the real American was dreaming of the Golden Age in which he could drift with impunity."

From "Drift and Mastery" by Walter Lippmann, published 1914 (pg 178+).

So, SSDD, except those supporting the trusts don't know who they are.
---
Cynical (2019) = believing that people are principally motivated by self-intrest
Cynical (300BC) = living a life of virtue generally free of possessions
Skeptical = not easily convinced; often needs extra information

I reckon every sailor who survives at sea more than a few days is a natural skeptic while most are otherwise classical cynics.
----
There is no shame in straight money earned; I would not include government (i.e. taxpayer...future taxpayer in particular) subsidized income in this metric. There is something to be said about regulatory capture though that is a political matter.

[picklesandjesse]

I reckon every sailor who survives at sea more than a few days is a natural skeptic while most are otherwise classical cynics.
----
.[/QUOTE]

I think you nailed ( screwed with bronze ) it with that statement.

[GTom]

Haven't read all comments, just an other aspect of recession: are the mooring/marina costs ever going to decline?