New England Boat Show
 

Spent the day at the New England Boat Show at the new Boston
Convention Center - very interesting.

In general, the mood among the exhibitors is - well, no other way to
put it - depressed. A lot of the sales people were just standing
around looking bored most of the day and any time you entered a
display area and showed some sort of interest in a boat, you had three
people hanging off you discussing this and that about the boat asking
questions and making discount pitches if the boat was bought at the
show. Pricing was also a surprise - a lot of boats were deeply
discounted off of list which I haven't seen in quite a while - I'm
talking anywhere from $10K to in one case, almost $20K. One dealer
had some left over inventory that, thinking about it, must have been
priced below cost.

One of the dealers I work for with on-the-water training - small boat
division - told me that the New York show was a disaster and
Providence was an unmitigated disaster in terms of sales - never mind
interest. He said it was pretty much across the board when discussing
it with his peers in the business.

One of the exhibitors that I know from Rhode Island who does a lot of
retrofitting and fabrication said his business was down almost 50% - I
can't vouch for that personally, but I've known him for a long time
and he's not known for exaggeration. He said he's hanging on with
service and repair which is holding up the rest of the business.

I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.

With respect to the show, lots of boats in the 30' and up range - the
usual suspects, Sea Ray, Chaparral, Regal, Ocean, yada, yada, yada. In
the small boat category, plenty of them around, mostly runabouts
rather than center consoles. I noticed that a lot of the runabouts
were in the 18 to 23' class and were mostly "compromise" boats -
meaning that, in theory, they were boats that could be used for water
sports (get your mind out of the gutter) and fishing. Not to many
pure fishing boats - again, the usual suspects, Grady (which I swear
is as hide bound in style as Parker), Parker, Sailfish, yada, yada,
yada. Put a 30' Sailfish next to a 30 Grady Express and except for
the color, you couldn't tell the apart.

There seems to be a "generic" styling gestalt going on in the industry
- there's nothing that really stands out in terms of style - look at
the same size and type boat side-by-each and they pretty much all look
the same. Look at a Sea Ray in any size and they all look the same.
It seems like they are intentionally trying to copy each other.
Notable exceptions to that would be Boston Whaler and Jupiter.

I did see a couple of smaller boats that really caught my somewhat
jaded eye -

Gloucester 20 and 23 were beautiful boats - sharp bow entry, a
moderate tumble home at the stern and a very clean and simple interior
design. Easy to get around in and customizable for the hard core type
who wants a good, solid basic boat with style and graceful lines that
can be modified to suit personal needs.

They had one of their 28s there in bare hull and wowzers - that is one
gorgeous boat. The web site is http://www.gboats.com/ - worth looking
at if you are interested.

As I wandered away from the Gloucester show booth, a couple of booths
down was Seaway Boats.

I have run into these before, but they have updated their designs and
are now producing a differently styled boat. They've changed their
manufacturing process and redesigned their molds to create more
interior room in particular with the 21 Seafarer. The builder was in
the booth and I spent a very enjoyable hour with him discussing his
new design and why he made the changes from the older models. One of
the more interesting points he made was he was tired of building the
same old boat, so he canvassed his owners to see what they would like
to see changed, added or eliminated. He went through the 21 with me
stressing the changes, like the new molding method, the coaming
changes, little styling changes in the cuddy and moving the control
station to midships. He also changed the seating arrangements around
which made a nice improvement over the older models. He also said
that the same hull changes have been made to the other 21' models.

He also had a bare hull prototype there for his new 29' Open which
looked really good. He wants to ramp up tooling and production in
2009, but he's ahead of schedule - it may be introduced in the Fall.
I'd like to see it when he's finished.

His other boats have pretty much stayed the same, but he's adapting
the techniques used in building the 21 over to the older models and
changing up some of the interior designs. If he follows the same
concepts he's done with the 21, they will be better boats than they
already are.

I would consider a 21 Seafarer if I were looking for a good, solid,
all around performer for larger lakes and inshore fishing.

http://www.seawayboats.com/index.cfm...rowse&pageid=1

Probably the oddest boat that attracted me was a Fjord 40 Open.

http://www.fjordboats.com/index.php?id=740&L=gb

This was just flat out weird looking in a pleasing kind of way. Very
modern design powered by two Volvo Penta IPS 425s with that strange
pod forward dual prop design drive that everybody seems to be enamored
of. I talked to the factory rep and he allowed me to really look
around and poke my head in here and there - very nice of him to do
that. Then again, there weren't a lot of people around who seemed
interested.

Viewed from the floor, this boat looks massive. It was painted in a
flat gray "stealth" color which just increased the general feeling of
size. The interior is, well, modern - like walking into an apartment
designed by a modernist interior decorator with ambition. :)

The engine room was a surprise - there was room in it - similar to
Eisboch's Navigator - a guy my size could actually move around.

Under the boat, you could tell that somebody who knew how to build a
lifting hull designed it. Lots of sharp lifting strakes and from what
the rep told me, it corners on a dime. Moderate bow entry and zero
deadrise has got to make for a rather rough ride I would think. And
looking at those pod drives just makes me nervous. I mean they look
modern and all, but...I don't know. Probably the conservative
curmudgeon in me. :)

So, other than the usual run of the mill stuff that you see at boat
shows, it was rather - well, routine. I did get to see some old
friends from Boatwise where I used to teach and made a contact with a
builder who wants some rods made with his company logo embossed on the
blank to use on his show boats - hey, I've got nothing else to do the
rest of the month.

Sorry for the length - I'm trying to emulate Chuck. :)

New England Boat Show
 

"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...

Spent the day at the New England Boat Show at the new Boston
Convention Center - very interesting.

Probably the oddest boat that attracted me was a Fjord 40 Open.

http://www.fjordboats.com/index.php?id=740&L=gb

This was just flat out weird looking in a pleasing kind of way. Very
modern design powered by two Volvo Penta IPS 425s with that strange
pod forward dual prop design drive that everybody seems to be enamored
of. I talked to the factory rep and he allowed me to really look
around and poke my head in here and there - very nice of him to do
that. Then again, there weren't a lot of people around who seemed
interested.



I like the Fjord 40 Open. It has nice limes. :-) (you hafta view the
pictures to appreciate)
I'd opt for the cruiser version though. I need a place to sleep.

Eisboch

New England Boat Show
 

On Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:15:19 -0500, "Eisboch" wrote:

I like the Fjord 40 Open. It has nice limes. :-) (you hafta view the
pictures to appreciate)

Indeed - it has some very nice limes.

~~ snerk ~~

I'd opt for the cruiser version though. I need a place to sleep.

I swear - when I saw this beast walking down the aisle, I thought at
first it was some kind of Navy stealth boat display.

I'll admit that I was very impressed with the interior - the forward
stateroom has some room to it - I could stand up straight in it and
you know I"m not a small guy - it didn't feel cramped or close at all.

I really liked the "open" space too.

Very impressive design.

Not sure I would want to be in it in a following sea though.

New England Boat Show
 

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 00:51:43 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

Spent the day at the New England Boat Show at the new Boston
Convention Center - very interesting.

In general, the mood among the exhibitors is - well, no other way to
put it - depressed. A lot of the sales people were just standing
around looking bored most of the day and any time you entered a
display area and showed some sort of interest in a boat, you had three
people hanging off you discussing this and that about the boat asking
questions and making discount pitches if the boat was bought at the
show. Pricing was also a surprise - a lot of boats were deeply
discounted off of list which I haven't seen in quite a while - I'm
talking anywhere from $10K to in one case, almost $20K. One dealer
had some left over inventory that, thinking about it, must have been
priced below cost.

One of the dealers I work for with on-the-water training - small boat
division - told me that the New York show was a disaster and
Providence was an unmitigated disaster in terms of sales - never mind
interest. He said it was pretty much across the board when discussing
it with his peers in the business.

One of the exhibitors that I know from Rhode Island who does a lot of
retrofitting and fabrication said his business was down almost 50% - I
can't vouch for that personally, but I've known him for a long time
and he's not known for exaggeration. He said he's hanging on with
service and repair which is holding up the rest of the business.

I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.

With respect to the show, lots of boats in the 30' and up range - the
usual suspects, Sea Ray, Chaparral, Regal, Ocean, yada, yada, yada. In
the small boat category, plenty of them around, mostly runabouts
rather than center consoles. I noticed that a lot of the runabouts
were in the 18 to 23' class and were mostly "compromise" boats -
meaning that, in theory, they were boats that could be used for water
sports (get your mind out of the gutter) and fishing. Not to many
pure fishing boats - again, the usual suspects, Grady (which I swear
is as hide bound in style as Parker), Parker, Sailfish, yada, yada,
yada. Put a 30' Sailfish next to a 30 Grady Express and except for
the color, you couldn't tell the apart.

There seems to be a "generic" styling gestalt going on in the industry
- there's nothing that really stands out in terms of style - look at
the same size and type boat side-by-each and they pretty much all look
the same. Look at a Sea Ray in any size and they all look the same.
It seems like they are intentionally trying to copy each other.
Notable exceptions to that would be Boston Whaler and Jupiter.

I did see a couple of smaller boats that really caught my somewhat
jaded eye -

Gloucester 20 and 23 were beautiful boats - sharp bow entry, a
moderate tumble home at the stern and a very clean and simple interior
design. Easy to get around in and customizable for the hard core type
who wants a good, solid basic boat with style and graceful lines that
can be modified to suit personal needs.

They had one of their 28s there in bare hull and wowzers - that is one
gorgeous boat. The web site is http://www.gboats.com/ - worth looking
at if you are interested.

As I wandered away from the Gloucester show booth, a couple of booths
down was Seaway Boats.

I have run into these before, but they have updated their designs and
are now producing a differently styled boat. They've changed their
manufacturing process and redesigned their molds to create more
interior room in particular with the 21 Seafarer. The builder was in
the booth and I spent a very enjoyable hour with him discussing his
new design and why he made the changes from the older models. One of
the more interesting points he made was he was tired of building the
same old boat, so he canvassed his owners to see what they would like
to see changed, added or eliminated. He went through the 21 with me
stressing the changes, like the new molding method, the coaming
changes, little styling changes in the cuddy and moving the control
station to midships. He also changed the seating arrangements around
which made a nice improvement over the older models. He also said
that the same hull changes have been made to the other 21' models.

He also had a bare hull prototype there for his new 29' Open which
looked really good. He wants to ramp up tooling and production in
2009, but he's ahead of schedule - it may be introduced in the Fall.
I'd like to see it when he's finished.

His other boats have pretty much stayed the same, but he's adapting
the techniques used in building the 21 over to the older models and
changing up some of the interior designs. If he follows the same
concepts he's done with the 21, they will be better boats than they
already are.

I would consider a 21 Seafarer if I were looking for a good, solid,
all around performer for larger lakes and inshore fishing.

http://www.seawayboats.com/index.cIf...rowse&pageid=1

Probably the oddest boat that attracted me was a Fjord 40 Open.

http://www.fjordboats.com/index.php?id=740&L=gb

This was just flat out weird looking in a pleasing kind of way. Very
modern design powered by two Volvo Penta IPS 425s with that strange
pod forward dual prop design drive that everybody seems to be enamored
of. I talked to the factory rep and he allowed me to really look
around and poke my head in here and there - very nice of him to do
that. Then again, there weren't a lot of people around who seemed
interested.

Viewed from the floor, this boat looks massive. It was painted in a
flat gray "stealth" color which just increased the general feeling of
size. The interior is, well, modern - like walking into an apartment
designed by a modernist interior decorator with ambition. :)

The engine room was a surprise - there was room in it - similar to
Eisboch's Navigator - a guy my size could actually move around.

Under the boat, you could tell that somebody who knew how to build a
lifting hull designed it. Lots of sharp lifting strakes and from what
the rep told me, it corners on a dime. Moderate bow entry and zero
deadrise has got to make for a rather rough ride I would think. And
looking at those pod drives just makes me nervous. I mean they look
modern and all, but...I don't know. Probably the conservative
curmudgeon in me. :)

So, other than the usual run of the mill stuff that you see at boat
shows, it was rather - well, routine. I did get to see some old
friends from Boatwise where I used to teach and made a contact with a
builder who wants some rods made with his company logo embossed on the
blank to use on his show boats - hey, I've got nothing else to do the
rest of the month.

Sorry for the length - I'm trying to emulate Chuck. :)

Nice report. Only the 20'er can be viewed on the site. You'd think they'd
update the site as soon as they could take a picture of the new boat.

If I'd seen that Seaway 18 before I bought the Key West, I might have given
it a serious look. Nice looking boat.

The Fjord is...well...ugly. But, it's probably the style needed in Norway.
The boat looks as though it was designed to go under some of the low
bridges on the canals in Europe.

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l2...hagenCanal.jpg

or

http://tinyurl.com/3bf7bk
--
John H

New England Boat Show
 

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
Spent the day at the New England Boat Show at the new Boston
Convention Center - very interesting.

In general, the mood among the exhibitors is - well, no other way to
put it - depressed. A lot of the sales people were just standing
around looking bored most of the day and any time you entered a
display area and showed some sort of interest in a boat, you had three
people hanging off you discussing this and that about the boat asking
questions and making discount pitches if the boat was bought at the
show. Pricing was also a surprise - a lot of boats were deeply
discounted off of list which I haven't seen in quite a while - I'm
talking anywhere from $10K to in one case, almost $20K. One dealer
had some left over inventory that, thinking about it, must have been
priced below cost.

One of the dealers I work for with on-the-water training - small boat
division - told me that the New York show was a disaster and
Providence was an unmitigated disaster in terms of sales - never mind
interest. He said it was pretty much across the board when discussing
it with his peers in the business.

One of the exhibitors that I know from Rhode Island who does a lot of
retrofitting and fabrication said his business was down almost 50% - I
can't vouch for that personally, but I've known him for a long time
and he's not known for exaggeration. He said he's hanging on with
service and repair which is holding up the rest of the business.

I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.


Gee, what do you suppose is behind the lack of consumer confidence?
Could it be the impending recession? Could it be the price of fuel?





--
George W. Bush - the 43rd Best President Ever!

New England Boat Show
 

On Jan 13, 9:46*am, HK wrote:


I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.

Gee, what do you suppose is behind the lack of consumer confidence?
Could it be the impending recession? Could it be the price of fuel?


The price of fuel.

New England Boat Show
 

wrote:
On Jan 13, 9:46 am, HK wrote:

I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.
Gee, what do you suppose is behind the lack of consumer confidence?
Could it be the impending recession? Could it be the price of fuel?


The price of fuel.


Could be this:

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinio...46_erbe13.html

Bush tanked the U.S. economy

Last updated January 11, 2008 5:01 p.m. PT

By BONNIE ERBE
GUEST COLUMNIST

Recession, like menopause, is a retrospective diagnosis. You don't know
you're in one until you've been in it for at least two quarters
(referring to a recession) or a year (for menopause). The question for
me is not: Are we hitting a recession in 2008? It is: What has made the
economy so buoyant that we didn't submerge into a recession several
years ago?

Wall Street giant and billion-dollar bank Merrill Lynch announced last
week that the United States had entered a recession for the first time
in 16 years. It was a controversial call denied by a chorus of
economists who do not think we're there yet. But the announcement comes
from the bank's chief American economist, David Rosenberg -- widely
respected on Wall Street.

The largest factor driving this country's economy into recession has
been the Bush administration's profligate spending. Please read the
following quote from the conservative/libertarian think tank Cato
Institute's Web site:

"George Bush is mired in a fiscal policy crisis worse than anyone could
have envisioned when he entered the Oval Office ... This crisis is the
resurgence of record federal deficits ... The deterioration of America's
fiscal health cannot be blamed on ... pro-spending coalitions in the
Democrat-controlled Congress -- although certainly some of the blame
lies there. It is almost exclusively the creation of the Bush
administration itself."

Sound familiar? The article, which I edited heavily (taking out
references that would have dated it immediately, such as the use of the
term "Reaganomics"), is about George H.W. Bush, not George W. But it
might as well have been about the son.

Forget about the $127 billion surplus that President Clinton left the
nation after he moved out of the White House or the fact that Clinton
paid down hundreds of billions of dollars in federal debt. President
George W. Bush has produced nothing but deficits since he's been in
office. Last year's, at $163 billion, was the lowest in five years. But
it probably would not have been if his trillion-dollar war in Iraq
hadn't been paid for "off budget." That little budgetary trick by the
administration means that cost isn't tallied in the deficit and debt
figures.

Then, of course, there's Bush's multitrillion-dollar tax cut.

Here's a lesson Bush never learned and one that probably could have kept
this country out of recession: You can't fight an expensive war AND cut
taxes simultaneously without sending the U.S. economy into the tank.

That is just what Bush has done.

There are other contributing factors, of course. The housing bust has
hurt this consumer-driven economy mightily. Americans felt richer and
borrowed heavily against home equity at the height of the boom. These
factors kept corporate profits and the economy growing.

But the bust that has now followed was highly predictable. Real estate
always runs in cycles. The last real-estate boom lasted an incredibly
long five years. The president should not have been piling up
irresponsible debt, knowing the crash would come at some point.

Then there is oil. Prices have been high since Hurricane Katrina, more
than two years ago. When you consider that early in Bush's first term
oil was selling for about $25 per barrel, and we're now paying about
four times that much, it's incredible that fact alone didn't drive us
into recession territory much sooner.

What has kept our economy growing these past few years? My theory is:
immigration. When millions of people flood into this country with few
possessions, buy homes and fill them with consumer goods, of course our
consumer economy is pumped. But that artificial pump-up won't last
forever. Unfortunately, the overdevelopment they prompt and the
environmental degradation they create will.

What's the solution? It won't be resolved with this guy in the White
House. Cut defense spending. Use a pay-go system for all future domestic
spending programs and tax cuts. Get the deficit down and bring the
surplus back. And while we're at it, pay down the national debt.

New England Boat Show
 

On Jan 13, 9:58*am, HK wrote:
wrote:
On Jan 13, 9:46 am, HK wrote:

I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.
Gee, what do you suppose is behind the lack of consumer confidence?
Could it be the impending recession? Could it be the price of fuel?

The price of fuel.

Could be this:

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCERhttp://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/347046_erbe13.html

Bush tanked the U.S. economy

Last updated January 11, 2008 5:01 p.m. PT

By BONNIE ERBE
GUEST COLUMNIST

Recession, like menopause, is a retrospective diagnosis.


What??? Pffffftttt. The Intelligencer?? Bonnie Erbe??
MENOPAUSE?.. you got to be kidding me. If I have to read such dribble
to become informed, I will just stay simple and happy...;)

New England Boat Show
 

"HK" wrote in message
. ..

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:

I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.


Gee, what do you suppose is behind the lack of consumer confidence? Could
it be the impending recession? Could it be the price of fuel?


Probably more the 14 inches of global warming predicted for this weekend and
Monday. :-)

Eisboch

New England Boat Show
 

New England Boat Show
 

Eisboch wrote:
"HK" wrote in message
. ..

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.

Gee, what do you suppose is behind the lack of consumer confidence? Could
it be the impending recession? Could it be the price of fuel?


Probably more the 14 inches of global warming predicted for this weekend and
Monday. :-)

Eisboch




Not unless Yankees have gotten soft since I lived there.

New England Boat Show
 

"HK" wrote in message
...
Eisboch wrote:
"HK" wrote in message
. ..

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.

Gee, what do you suppose is behind the lack of consumer confidence?
Could it be the impending recession? Could it be the price of fuel?


Probably more the 14 inches of global warming predicted for this weekend
and Monday. :-)

Eisboch


Not unless Yankees have gotten soft since I lived there.

Not soft. Just getting older.

Eisboch

New England Boat Show
 

On Jan 13, 10:09*am, HK wrote:
wrote:
On Jan 13, 9:58 am, HK wrote:
wrote:
On Jan 13, 9:46 am, HK wrote:
I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.
Gee, what do you suppose is behind the lack of consumer confidence?
Could it be the impending recession? Could it be the price of fuel?
The price of fuel.
Could be this:

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCERhttp://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/347046_erbe13.html

Bush tanked the U.S. economy

Last updated January 11, 2008 5:01 p.m. PT

By BONNIE ERBE
GUEST COLUMNIST

Recession, like menopause, is a retrospective diagnosis.

What??? * *Pffffftttt. * The Intelligencer?? * Bonnie Erbe??
MENOPAUSE?.. you got to be kidding me. If I have to read such dribble
to become informed, *I will just stay simple and happy...;)

Right over your head. No surprise.

No, I don't read cut and paste, block form insult, op ed's by snot
nosed political hacks.

New England Boat Show
 

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 09:46:45 -0500, HK wrote:



Gee, what do you suppose is behind the lack of consumer confidence?
Could it be the impending recession? Could it be the price of fuel?

The thought of Hillary.
--
John H

New England Boat Show
 

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 09:58:58 -0500, HK cut and
pasted another bogus article.

It's the thought of Hillary.
--
John H

New England Boat Show
 

Eisboch wrote:
"HK" wrote in message
...
Eisboch wrote:
"HK" wrote in message
. ..

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.
Gee, what do you suppose is behind the lack of consumer confidence?
Could it be the impending recession? Could it be the price of fuel?

Probably more the 14 inches of global warming predicted for this weekend
and Monday. :-)

Eisboch

Not unless Yankees have gotten soft since I lived there.

Not soft. Just getting older.

Eisboch




Yeah, I don't like "real cold" much anymore myself. An old friend bought
a few houses at woodmont last year, and offered me a "deal" on one. Much
as the nostalgia of having a house on the Sound again appealed to me, I
turned it down. I love New England but I am only a short-time visitor
there now.

New England Boat Show
 

Eisboch wrote:
"HK" wrote in message
. ..

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.

Gee, what do you suppose is behind the lack of consumer confidence? Could
it be the impending recession? Could it be the price of fuel?


Probably more the 14 inches of global warming predicted for this weekend and
Monday. :-)

Eisboch

Lucky for me that my trip north has been cancelled. Tom, you can turn
the heater off.

New England Boat Show
 

John H. wrote:
On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 09:46:45 -0500, HK wrote:


Gee, what do you suppose is behind the lack of consumer confidence?
Could it be the impending recession? Could it be the price of fuel?

The thought of Hillary.

Save as much cash as you can so that you can live through the tax increases.

New England Boat Show
 

"HK" wrote in message
...
wrote:
On Jan 13, 9:46 am, HK wrote:

I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.
Gee, what do you suppose is behind the lack of consumer confidence?
Could it be the impending recession? Could it be the price of fuel?


The price of fuel.


Could be this:

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinio...46_erbe13.html

Bush tanked the U.S. economy

Last updated January 11, 2008 5:01 p.m. PT

By BONNIE ERBE
GUEST COLUMNIST

Recession, like menopause, is a retrospective diagnosis. You don't know
you're in one until you've been in it for at least two quarters (referring
to a recession) or a year (for menopause). The question for me is not: Are
we hitting a recession in 2008? It is: What has made the economy so
buoyant that we didn't submerge into a recession several years ago?

Wall Street giant and billion-dollar bank Merrill Lynch announced last
week that the United States had entered a recession for the first time in
16 years. It was a controversial call denied by a chorus of economists who
do not think we're there yet. But the announcement comes from the bank's
chief American economist, David Rosenberg -- widely respected on Wall
Street.

The largest factor driving this country's economy into recession has been
the Bush administration's profligate spending. Please read the following
quote from the conservative/libertarian think tank Cato Institute's Web
site:

"George Bush is mired in a fiscal policy crisis worse than anyone could
have envisioned when he entered the Oval Office ... This crisis is the
resurgence of record federal deficits ... The deterioration of America's
fiscal health cannot be blamed on ... pro-spending coalitions in the
Democrat-controlled Congress -- although certainly some of the blame lies
there. It is almost exclusively the creation of the Bush administration
itself."

Sound familiar? The article, which I edited heavily (taking out references
that would have dated it immediately, such as the use of the term
"Reaganomics"), is about George H.W. Bush, not George W. But it might as
well have been about the son.

Forget about the $127 billion surplus that President Clinton left the
nation after he moved out of the White House or the fact that Clinton paid
down hundreds of billions of dollars in federal debt. President George W.
Bush has produced nothing but deficits since he's been in office. Last
year's, at $163 billion, was the lowest in five years. But it probably
would not have been if his trillion-dollar war in Iraq hadn't been paid
for "off budget." That little budgetary trick by the administration means
that cost isn't tallied in the deficit and debt figures.

Then, of course, there's Bush's multitrillion-dollar tax cut.

Here's a lesson Bush never learned and one that probably could have kept
this country out of recession: You can't fight an expensive war AND cut
taxes simultaneously without sending the U.S. economy into the tank.

That is just what Bush has done.

There are other contributing factors, of course. The housing bust has hurt
this consumer-driven economy mightily. Americans felt richer and borrowed
heavily against home equity at the height of the boom. These factors kept
corporate profits and the economy growing.

But the bust that has now followed was highly predictable. Real estate
always runs in cycles. The last real-estate boom lasted an incredibly long
five years. The president should not have been piling up irresponsible
debt, knowing the crash would come at some point.

Then there is oil. Prices have been high since Hurricane Katrina, more
than two years ago. When you consider that early in Bush's first term oil
was selling for about $25 per barrel, and we're now paying about four
times that much, it's incredible that fact alone didn't drive us into
recession territory much sooner.

What has kept our economy growing these past few years? My theory is:
immigration. When millions of people flood into this country with few
possessions, buy homes and fill them with consumer goods, of course our
consumer economy is pumped. But that artificial pump-up won't last
forever. Unfortunately, the overdevelopment they prompt and the
environmental degradation they create will.

What's the solution? It won't be resolved with this guy in the White
House. Cut defense spending. Use a pay-go system for all future domestic
spending programs and tax cuts. Get the deficit down and bring the surplus
back. And while we're at it, pay down the national debt.

And what has a Democrat controlled Congress done in the last year to cure
the problem? Throw them all out!

New England Boat Show
 

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 00:51:43 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

snippity-snip

As I wandered away from the Gloucester show booth, a couple of booths
down was Seaway Boats.

I have run into these before, but they have updated their designs and
are now producing a differently styled boat. They've changed their
manufacturing process and redesigned their molds to create more
interior room in particular with the 21 Seafarer. The builder was in
the booth and I spent a very enjoyable hour with him discussing his
new design and why he made the changes from the older models. One of
the more interesting points he made was he was tired of building the
same old boat, so he canvassed his owners to see what they would like
to see changed, added or eliminated. He went through the 21 with me
stressing the changes, like the new molding method, the coaming
changes, little styling changes in the cuddy and moving the control
station to midships. He also changed the seating arrangements around
which made a nice improvement over the older models. He also said
that the same hull changes have been made to the other 21' models.

He also had a bare hull prototype there for his new 29' Open which
looked really good. He wants to ramp up tooling and production in
2009, but he's ahead of schedule - it may be introduced in the Fall.
I'd like to see it when he's finished.

His other boats have pretty much stayed the same, but he's adapting
the techniques used in building the 21 over to the older models and
changing up some of the interior designs. If he follows the same
concepts he's done with the 21, they will be better boats than they
already are.

I would consider a 21 Seafarer if I were looking for a good, solid,
all around performer for larger lakes and inshore fishing.

http://www.seawayboats.com/index.cfm...rowse&pageid=1

snippity-snip

Thanks for the url. I really liked the Seaway 25' Coastal Cruiser.
Optional diesel or outboard. Nice compact cruiser.
Thanks for the link.
Mark E. Williams