Oh NO! Miami has run out of spaces for Mega-Yachts! If that doesn't...

[Up2Late]

...sum up the Bush "booming economy," I don't know what does.

And here's the best past, Florida Voters voted several years ago to allow a new Marina for them to be build using Public Land!

I can't say I didn't expect this, here's a report from today's Morning Addition:

Miami Plans Island Home for Mega-Yachts

Listen to this story...(at link)
by Greg Allen

Morning Edition, October 24, 2006 · The last several years have been excellent for the yacht industry. There's a worldwide boom, particularly in the construction of mega-yachts -- boats 100 feet and longer. But it's not all smooth sailing for millionaire mariners. There's a shortage of docks big enough to handle these luxury liners, and nowhere is that crunch felt more than in South Florida.

In the area's marinas and canals, yachts 200 feet, 300 feet, even 400 feet long are not unusual. They can command prices over $50 million. Even at that price, there's a shortage of boats -- and a shortage of places to keep them.

"There's just so many of them being built and there's just nowhere in South Florida to put them all," says Dave Culver, manager at Fort Lauderdale's Sunrise Harbor Marina. "They have to call months ahead to even get a spot here."

A project approved by Miami voters five years ago is designed to help ease the shortage.

(more and the audio link at link) <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6355921>

[SoCalDem]

1. Finally.. someone's addressing this crisis.. I lay awake nights

worrying about all those poor yachts, with nowhere to dock :cry:

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. Disgusting!

:puke:

[Megahurtz]

4. Totally disgusting. n/t

[bdamomma]

15. they won't be too happy if a hurricane comes too bad!!!

[Ilsa]

3. Remember the luxury tax the Dems passed on these people in

1988 or 1989? The yacht builders balked because orders were cancelled. The owners were just waiting for the builders to scream and lobby to get it overturned. The owners could afford the tax, they just knew how to play the system.

These people make me ill.

[meegbear]

6. Here's a George Will column rallying the masses to oppose it ...

Tax Break for the Yachting Class

Once when Paul Hindemith, composer of very modern music, was rehearsing one of his especially dissonant compositions, he interrupted the orchestra, saying, "No, no, gentlemen. Even though it sounds wrong, it's still not right."

Contemporary politics, a kind of atonal music, produces moments like that. Consider Rep. Patrick Kennedy's (D-R.I.) proposed legislation to succor the yacht industry and assuage the pains of its most put-upon customers.

The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 was the budget agreement by which President Bush broke his "read-my-lips" vow not to agree to new taxes. The act was, as omnibus bills tend to be, an eye-of-newt-and-hair-of-toad brew of this and that and some other things, and it included--in the name of fairness, of course--a stern tax on "luxury items."

Those items included automobiles, aircraft, jewelry and furs over certain prices. And yachts costing more than $100,000.

In 1990 there were no luxury excise taxes, all of them having been repealed in 1965. But perhaps every quarter-century or so government--it cannot help itself--must go on a "fairness" bender, the memory of the hangover from similar misadventures having faded.

In 1990 the Joint Committee on Taxation projected that the 1991 revenue yield from luxury taxes would be $31 million. It was $16.6 million. Why? Because (surprise!) the taxation changed behavior: Fewer people bought the taxed products. Demand went down when prices went up. Washington was amazed. People bought yachts overseas. Who would have thought it?

<snip>

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will102899.asp

---

People going overseas to purchase their yachts! GASP! The yacht industry'll be ruined!

[Ilsa]

29. Thanks for the link. If the dollar is weak against some of the

foreign currencies now, it won't help to go overseas!

[Double T]

5. The filthy rich's lavish lifestyle brought to you by bushco..........

with tax cuts to the rich paid for by OUR children and their children and their children....forever!!!! What a fucked up country 'WE' have evolved into!!!

[SammyWinstonJack]

8. The Travel Channel has a program on these mega yachts.

It's enough to make one :puke: These people are disgusting in their greed! One segment had them shipping their mega yachts on a carrier to the Mediterranean for the season so they wouldn't have to actually sail them there, themselves. :eyes: I think it cost something like $200,000. :wow: :puke: I guess it isn't any more disgusting than MTV's "cribs". That show puts me off! These Greedy Pigs DO NOT NEED TAX CUTS!

[Double T]

13. The filthy rich are NEVER satisfied; THEY are TOTALLY consumed......

with OBSCENE GREED and WEALTH at EVERYONE ELSE'S expense!!!

[SammyWinstonJack]

16. True that and bu$hco has enabled them in their GREED! He is one of them.

Doesn't he have the richest Cabinet in the history of this Country? Made even richer since his stole his way into office.

[Double T]

20. ALL MAIN PLAYERS in his cabinet are former psychopath CEO's.....

THEY are ALL extremely rich and will continue to become even richer. Interesting that TOTAL INCOMPETENCE AND FAILURE is rewarded with multi-millions of dollars in additional wealth. Chalk-it-up to corruption does pay, BIG!!

[SammyWinstonJack]

22. No need to "work hard" when one is INCOMPETENT so long as

one is aligned with the GOPpiggies. So much for pulling one up by one's bootstraps! I just want to know when working class republicans will finally get a clue that their leaders only dangle the proverbial carrot in front of their noses, knowing they won't actually ever get a bite of it? Morans!

[KansDem]

7. "Oh, please...PLEASE find me a home!"

...said the orphan mega-yacht.

[SammyWinstonJack]

12. !

:puke:

[Up2Late]

21. Is that a REAL Mega-Yacht?

It looks like a PhotoShop picture because it's so ugly.

Check this out, this is what they hope to make room for, click link below:

http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2924188490044707473ZucVsD>

[SammyWinstonJack]

24. Check out the Travel Channel's "Mega Yachts" sometime.

That pic above is exactly what these mega yachts look like.

[Up2Late]

27. Yuck! They can keep that one...

...it reminds me of the old joke about building a new addition onto a double-wide trailer.

[bloom]

9. How many planets would it take

if everyone lived like that?

"Reuters: Humans living far beyond planet's means: World Wildlife Fund"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2578123&mesg_id=2578123



But, but, but, people have the "right" to use more than their share or the earth's resources. These people worked for the freedom to contribute more to the global warming/earth poisoning problem than 10,000 (+) other people combined. :sarcasm: :grr:

[Union Thug]

10. Thurston Howell III is very upset about this. As for me, I say SINK THEM!

So a few rich clowns can't play buccaneers of the Atlantic. That's news? Poor babies.

[riona]

11. That problem will cease to exist

with global warming

[bdamomma]

14. that's all Jeb's friends, what corrupt assholes.

[originalpckelly]

17. Not all rich people are evil...

and some of these people have worked their whole lives to get their dream of a super cool yacht built. Personally, I want them to spend their money, because it helps it get out of their hands and into the hands of people in the working class who work at the ship yards building these things.

[SammyWinstonJack]

18. !

:wow:

[theHandpuppet]

23. Ditto that

And here I thought they might have settled for a measly million dollar yacht and provided 49 million in free college scholarships to the children of shipyard workers. Silly me. I know that when I worked at the shipyard, coming home so filthy and tired after working 12/7 sometimes for months at a time, all I could think about was how grateful I was to the billionaires who provided me with my 350/week job so I could afford a secondhand car and a cheap fishing rod for my own luxury seafaring excursions to the crabbing dock in Norfolk.

:eyes:

[SammyWinstonJack]

25. Crazy isn't it, that we should be grateful to the greed of the ultra rich f...

jobs to supply their luxury excesses? :puke:

[gatorboy]

19. Considering how many hurricanes hit Florida, shouldn't they move?

Isn't that what conservatives keep saying about NOLA? That it's not worth the time to rebuild?

Yet every year, sometimes twice a year, my tax dollars go to rebuilding the coastlines of Florida for the wealthy to enjoy.

[kestrel91316]

26. I'm all in favor of anything that causes the obscenely wealthy

to spend more money, faster. The quicker they fritter it away, the better. Get those dollars back into general circulation where they can move around a lot and stimulate the economy.

If they spend their money on American-made yachts rather than foreign-made, more's the better.

[Up2Late]

28. kick n/t

:kick: