Rosalie B. wrote:
On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 17:26:38 -0700, Peter Bennett
I'd go further, and say that if you can't afford to pay in full when you buy
it, you can't afford the boat.


I don't agree with that. You never buy anything on credit? Do you also
pay all cash for cars and houses on land? Houses may appreciate, but
cars don't.

Cars and housing (whether you're making rent or mortgage payments is
immaterial) are necessities, Rosie...boats aren't. You don't have a
boat loan AND a mortgage...you were able to mortgage your appreciating
asset (house) to buy your boat. And I'd bet that the amount of what you
borrowed against your house to buy the boat is nowhere near what your
house is worth. And if you're living on your boat, I'd also bet that
your house is rented for at least enough to pay the mortgage, taxes and
insurance on it.

But too many people today are making payments on everything--rent or
mortgage, car AND and boat. They don't really own anything but the
clothes on their backs...and not really even those because they're
making payments on the credit cards they used to buy those too. If their
car loan is longer than two years--or 3 yrs with at least 1/3 down--and
they didn't put at least 1/3 down on the boat, they're also "upside
down" everywhere...none of it worth what they could get for it if they
had to sell it.

We've become an "immediate gratification" society, without any regard
for whether something we want is really affordable, or any willingness
to plan ahead and save for it, only whether it's do-able NOW on ANY terms.

As an aside, I saw something on TV recently...the interviewer asked the
CEO of a Fortune 500 company what he saw as the main characteristic of
his company's youngest employees. His answer (he didn't even have to
think about it first): the inability to do any long-range planning...no
ability to see beyond immediate goals. They live in today, next week,
next month...to them, a year is long-range...a five, ten or twenty year
plan is a totally foreign concept.

--
Peggie
----------
Peggie Hall
Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987
Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and
Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor"
http://69.20.93.241/store/customer/p...40&cat=&page=1