It seems that America is undergoing a fundamental change in how we think about money, capitalism, and our economy. While conservatives are often accused of revisionist history and remembering the good ol' days to be better than they actually were, I refuse to believe that things have always been this way. I believe that in the past, when economic woes were at hand, America looked to hard work and ingenuity to get out of the hole, not reckless borrowing, increased spending in social programs, and an abandoning of our capitalist and democratic values.
We cannot afford these magic social programs, yet The Magician says that we have no choice. A majority of the American people are against undertaking these social reforms right now, yet The Magician says, shut up and support it anyway. These decisions go against the democratic and capitalistic ideals that a good deal of Americans hold dear. I believe the liberals and The Magician will ultimately pay politically for this, but I just worry that it might be too late.
As many of you may know, in my continual efforts to stay on top of what is going on throughout multiple industries, I read a lot of trade magazines. Too many, really, but I'll keep it up as long as I can. One of the magazines I get always puts a smile on my face because while the boats that are in it are way out of my price range (for now at least), I always like to dream and look to the future (as opposed to just sitting back, accepting my station in life and looking to the government to sustain me like The Magcian wants me to).
Whenever my free copy of ShowBoats International arrives, I chuckle a bit to myself because I can just hear the socialists and communists in this country decrying the very existence of this magazine, the boats in it, and the people who read it. It makes me hope that one day, I will see an America that once again rewards hard work and entrepreneurship, and encourages people to work hard, not sit back and wait for their check to show up in the mail.
Having said all that, I want to share a story with all of you that puts a great perspective on what we should be doing - working hard, not rewarding laziness with free checks in the mail, and looking to capitalism to solve our problems, not embracing socialism and its misguided principles, and most of all, allowing our entrepreneurs to flourish and create jobs instead of calling them evil and taxing them and their enterprising spirit into oblivion.
From Showboats Magazine:
There's been a lot of talk from Washington recently about getting the economy moving again. Much of the chatter has been focused on stimulus plans, but there have also been quieter murmurs about redistribution of wealth. It may come as a surprise, but we believe that both are excellent approaches. It's just that the government is going about it all wrong.
Our plan is simple, and rather than put a few hundred dollars into the pockets of thousands of average workers on a continuing basis over a span of years, even decades, it builds real jobs and provides real wages. It doesn't require one red cent of taxpayer money and doesn't add a single dime to the federal debt. Better yet, our plan will work not just in the United States, but around the world to get the economy moving again on a global basis.
What's the secret? Encourage those with adequate assets to start building yachts again, and when they do, don't scorn them. Rather, commend them for their contribution to the common good. Instead of damning these yachtsmen - often epitomies of classic entrepreneurialism - as profligate examples of conspicuous consumption, we should be lauding them as economic heroes, and the reasoning is simple.
The tens of millions of dollars spent building a single superyacht turn into billions and billions when multiplied by the hundreds of yachts built in a typical year. Additional billions are spent annually on the existing world fleet of yachts, which runs into the thousands. Those dollars don't simply trickle down, they rush in raging torrents to workers and suppliers worldwide, and those workers and suppliers pass the money along to local stores, car dealers, movie theaters and restaurants that, in turn, pass them along to their own workers, who buy houses and send their kids to college so their grandchildren might enjoy a better life. What a magnificent system!
Politicians in the present hour of economic trial are fond of pointing back to the Great Depression for comparisons, so let's play along for the moment. Sea Cloud, at 316 feet in length, was the largest private American-owned sailing yacht ever built. She was completed in 1931 for Marjoire Merriweather Post, heiress to the Postum Cereal fortune and herself the founder of General Foods, and [married] to E.F. Hutton. She didn't need the yacht, but she considered it her civic duty to provide work for the unemployed, including desperate shipwrights, at the depths of the Great Depression. It was a private stimulus package of the best sort, and it didn't take an act of Congress and a plundering of the U.S. Treasury to accomplish it.
Amazingly, Sea Cloud continues in service to this day, nearly 80 years later, and for every day of all those years her succession of owners has funneled money into economies around the world for her maintenance, staffing, provisioning and operation. The next time someone mentions 'Tarp funds', think not of tax dollars, but of the money spent just to replace that fabulous clipper's vast spread of canvas every two years. She is no longer a private yacht, but is now a part of a cruise fleet, so who is it that's enjoying sunny days aboard? Perhaps it is that family of an auto machanic who repaired the car of the restaurant worker who was paid by the patronage of a welder from a nearby yacht yard.
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