whatever happened to affordable fast boats?

[donmac]

come to think of it if I had all the money I spent on boats in my lifetime ,still couldn't purchase a new truck! I had my fun fixing and driving other peoples money!

[rock]

Only new boat I ever owned was a 14' jon. I don't think we realized how great of an era we had. I turn 70 this year and consider myself fortunate to have seen the prime of outboard performance boating. New motors are way too expensive and as mentioned above there are fewer and fewer guys that will deal with the older motors so very soon what used older stuff there is will be useless. Was a great time for sure.

Rock

[sharpeye Mike]

Most people with all the nice expensive toys live on credit and will probably never be debt free. Not all but most
A friend of mine just purchased a fishing boat with a 90 on it, included the trailer. He paid $59,000 cd The whole outfit was put on credit. I've been always prudent on borrowing.

[KIRCHNER]

Most people with all the nice expensive toys live on credit and will probably never be debt free. Not all but most
A friend of mine just purchased a fishing boat with a 90 on it, included the trailer. He paid $59,000 cd The whole outfit was put on credit. I've been always prudent on borrowing.

My dad always told me, son, if you have to borrow the money, you probably cant afford it.

[David - WI]

There ought to be a lot of nice boats (and cars and homes and RV's) for sale at bargain prices by summer... if the economists are right. Auto repo's are double what they were a year ago... starting to see some foreclosure homes and repo'd RV's for sale again.

Silicon Valley Bank collapse marks worst bank failure since Great Recession

Silicon Valley Bank's fall echos Washington Mutual's closure in 2008

[JPEROG]

I borrowed on boats when I was young and don't regret it for one minute. 1. It made me work "payments are the least expensive part of a boat" 2. I wouldn't give up the memories that I had boating and poker running in my 20s and 30s for anything.
This is a true story--"20 years old" I had a new STV and a friend of mine found a 2 year old 35' Fountain that I needed to have. I was driving an S 10 ex-cab 4 x 4 at the time so another truck was a must. I go the bank and apply for the boat loan (approved for 95K and had 10K down). As I was pulling out of the bank parking lot, I called my credit union and applied for the truck (knowing the boat loan wouldn't show on my bureau yet)-approved. Talk about forcing yourself to make money, if the kids of today had that kind of drive we would be in another world. Not saying it was right to have two boats financed but I had a riot and it set my sights on work to the point that I have been fortunate enough to have a few more later in life.

The biggest hurdle young guys face today is insurance. No insurance, no loan.

Joe

[RiverRat71]

I borrowed on boats when I was young and don't regret it for one minute. 1. It made me work "payments are the least expensive part of a boat" 2. I wouldn't give up the memories that I had boating and poker running in my 20s and 30s for anything.
This is a true story--"20 years old" I had a new STV and a friend of mine found a 2 year old 35' Fountain that I needed to have. I was driving an S 10 ex-cab 4 x 4 at the time so another truck was a must. I go the bank and apply for the boat loan (approved for 95K and had 10K down). As I was pulling out of the bank parking lot, I called my credit union and applied for the truck (knowing the boat loan wouldn't show on my bureau yet)-approved. Talk about forcing yourself to make money, if the kids of today had that kind of drive we would be in another world. Not saying it was right to have two boats financed but I had a riot and it set my sights on work to the point that I have been fortunate enough to have a few more later in life.

The biggest hurdle young guys face today is insurance. No insurance, no loan.

Joe

Joe I love you brother but being 20 & having a new STV & borrowing almost a hundred grand on a boat ain't exactly what most of us experienced at that age. Hell, I'm 52 & the most expensive boat I have bought was my GS in 2016 for 22k. Were talking real world for the real middle class man. RR

[JPEROG]

Joe I love you brother but being 20 & having a new STV & borrowing almost a hundred grand on a boat ain't exactly what most of us experienced at that age. Hell, I'm 52 & the most expensive boat I have bought was my GS in 2016 for 22k. Were talking real world for the real middle class man. RR

I was pretty fortunate to start making some decent money my junior year in high school as a service writer. From there I was an economics major and got into the finance dept. at the dealership before going on my own into the mortgage and real estate business. My point was that having the debt drove me to push hard and create success. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone but again, I have no regrets for the experiences I had.

Joe

[Instigator]

IMO, what many are missing is the responsibility to stay ahead of the note.

They want instant gratification but dont have the drive to keep their ship afloat.

We were in Fla for the economic blood bath of ‘08 and it was ugly.

I remember we were shopping for a new/used car for the Mrs.
We we’re paying down/off some debt of our own so we were in the $3 - $4k range which I’ve probably bought/owned a 100 of.

One of my favorite targets are buy here/pay here lots.
Typically they’re fairly careful w/inventory or it comes back.
I write em a ck and buy them outright.

Were waiting on a car to test drive when the “lot boy” comes over and strikes up a conversation.
This guy appears to be a left over hippy from the ‘70’s/80’s.

I make a comment on all the nice cars in a separate lot from what we have access to.
He tells me they’re all repo’s due the terrible economy.

I comment that probably a lot of them were people over their head from day one.

The guy pauses, sizes me up, and says, “let me guess, you voted for George W?”
Bla, ha, ha!

My wife is squeezing my arm and telling me to leave him alone!!!
Which of course, I did not!

I said, so the government forces our banks to give mortgages to baggers at Publix who know they can’t afford them and it’s W’s fault when they get in trouble?

Guarantee you the guy still remembers me!

Goes back to my earlier comment on people that don’t understand what a budget is.

BTW, Joes comment on applying for the truck loan before the Fountain showed up on his credit….., hilarious!

I remember a boss one time, telling me he hated the knowledge that other than my mortgage I was debt free and had a shop behind my house that I could make a living in.
Made him nervous.

Told me he preferred an employee w/2.1 kids in school, 2 car payments etc.
They had no choice but to put up w/the bosses crap and work!

I remember when the “Checks into Cash” places first hit Columbus 20/25 yrs ago.
I was at a red light on the corner of a high traffic, retail area (meaning expensive real estate) when I notice a new brick/mortar store being built w/one of their signs on it.

I was shocked to think their was enough money in that type of loan sharking to afford a new build???
And it was one of 3 or 4 in Cols.

I remember rationalizing that it’s clientele would probably be small construction guys working off of draws and using them to pay crews until the next draw.

As in, a month later I expected to see 10 yr old work trucks w/ladder racks in their parking lot.

Ironically, I got caught at that light several months later.

Not a single work truck in their lot.

It was full of one/two yr old Harleys and BMW’s!

And to David’s observation, I saw that and is a scary thing.
W/the Obidens continued ways of redefining success, inflation, unemployment, Good, increase etc, I think their house of cards is about to come tumbling down.

And now w/China partnering w/Saudi Arabia and Iran, and them seeing our lead military men wearing dresses, and knowing we’re easy pickin’s for the next 2 yrs…., I’d say get ready.

I pray I’m wrong.

I was pretty fortunate to start making some decent money my junior year in high school as a service writer. From there I was an economics major and got into the finance dept. at the dealership before going on my own into the mortgage and real estate business. My point was that having the debt drove me to push hard and create success. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone but again, I have no regrets for the experiences I had.

Joe

[Stoker boy]

Instigator, I don’t think you’re wrong unfortunately.

[powerabout]

Its all about the interest rate and debt
The link between the 2 is complex as there is the consumer end and a gov end, throw inflation into the mix and the tools can backfire on the gov if they have too much debt.

[CUDA]

Oh great another deviant changing the thread to political...

[sharpeye Mike]

A young lad at work still owed on his car but wanted a truck real bad. One day he found the truck that he's been looking for.
A three year old Colorado 4X4 with a diesel engine. Nice truck but when I did the math on how much he really paid for, he was in disbelieve. He financed the whole truck plus still had 5 more payments left on his car. His now $35,000 used truck will cost him $62,000 by the time he's done paying for it and will be a 10 year old truck by then.

[powerabout]

Oh great another deviant changing the thread to political...

Have you not learnt that the cost of things is related to your gov/economy especially when you finance something.
Every post in this thread is about cost.

[CUDA]

OK... https://www.propublica.org/article/national-debt-trump

You want the big picture...


<header class="article-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px calc(-50vw + 50%); padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(216, 214, 211); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 21px; line-height: inherit; font-family: &quot;tiempos text&quot;, Georgia, Times, &quot;times new roman&quot;, serif; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: flex; position: relative; width: auto; flex-direction: column; justify-content: flex-end; min-height: 100vh; color: rgb(48, 48, 48);">A CLOSER LOOK

Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That It’ll Weigh Down the Economy for Years
“King of Debt” promised to reduce the national debt — then his tax cuts made it surge. Add in the pandemic, and he oversaw the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.
by President Donald Trump promised to reduce the national debt but instead increased it. It is now at its highest level relative to the U.S. economy since the end of World War II. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)</header><nav class="story-tools semi-fixed" data-element-ceiling="body" data-element-floor=".article-wrap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 21px; line-height: inherit; font-family: &quot;tiempos text&quot;, Georgia, Times, &quot;times new roman&quot;, serif; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(48, 65, 84); transition: opacity 0.2s ease 0s; position: absolute; top: auto; left: auto; width: auto;">

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</nav>ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.


One of President Donald Trump’s lesser known but profoundly damaging legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch. The financial burden that he’s inflicted on our government will wreak havoc for decades, saddling our kids and grandkids with debt.
The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. That’s nearly twice as much as what Americans owe on student loans, car loans, credit cards and every other type of debt other than mortgages, combined, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It amounts to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.
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Subscribe to the Big Story newsletter.
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<input id="newsletter-signup-body-957436" class="g-recaptcha" value="Sign Up" type="submit" style="font-family: Graphik, system-ui, &quot;segoe ui&quot;, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 1.125em; line-height: 1; margin: 0.5rem 0px 0px; max-width: 100%; overflow: visible; border-width: initial; border-style: none; border-color: initial; border-radius: 0.1875em; appearance: none; padding: 0.75em 0.5em; background: rgb(48, 65, 84); color: rgb(255, 255, 255); cursor: pointer; width: 334.516px;"> <small class="legal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 0.625rem; line-height: 1.7; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block; color: rgba(48, 48, 48, 0.67);">This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.</small></form></aside>The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by a leading Washington budget maven, Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. And unlike George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln, who oversaw the larger relative increases in deficits, Trump did not launch two foreign conflicts or have to pay for a civil war.
<figure data-pp-id="5" data-pp-blocktype="image" class="image large left" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen-452638_192="5516" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time-452638_192="100" data-gtm-vis-has-fired-452638_192="1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.625rem auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 0.8125rem; line-height: inherit; font-family: Graphik, system-ui, &quot;segoe ui&quot;, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; float: none; clear: left; max-width: 600px;">The National Debt Increased Under Trump Despite His Promise to Reduce It

Daily total national debt from 2009 to present.
<figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0.5rem 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(216, 214, 211); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(145, 145, 145);">Source: U.S. Treasury (Lena V. Groeger/ProPublica)</figcaption></figure>Economists agree that we needed massive deficit spending during the COVID-19 crisis to ward off an economic cataclysm, but federal finances under Trump had become dire even before the pandemic. That happened even though the economy was booming and unemployment was at historically low levels. By the Trump administration’s own description, the pre-pandemic national debt level was already a “crisis” and a “grave threat.”
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</aside>The combination of Trump’s 2017 tax cut and the lack of any serious spending restraint helped both the deficit and the debt soar. So when the once-in-a-lifetime viral disaster slammed our country and we threw more than $3 trillion into COVID-19-related stimulus, there was no longer any margin for error.
Our national debt has reached immense levels relative to our economy, nearly as high as it was at the end of World War II. But unlike 75 years ago, the massive financial overhang from Medicare and Social Security will make it dramatically more difficult to dig ourselves out of the debt ditch.
<figure data-pp-id="10" data-pp-blocktype="image" class="image large left" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen-452638_192="6099" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time-452638_192="100" data-gtm-vis-has-fired-452638_192="1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.625rem auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 0.8125rem; line-height: inherit; font-family: Graphik, system-ui, &quot;segoe ui&quot;, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; float: none; clear: left; max-width: 600px;">The Debt to GDP Ratio Is the Highest It's Been Since World War II

Federal debt held by the public as a percentage of gross domestic product since 1900.
<figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0.5rem 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(216, 214, 211); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(145, 145, 145);">Source: Congressional Budget Office (Lena V. Groeger/ProPublica)</figcaption></figure>Falling deeper into the red is the opposite of what Trump, the self-styled “King of Debt,” said would happen if he became president. In a March 31, 2016, interview with Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of The Washington Post, Trump said he could pay down the national debt, then about $19 trillion, “over a period of eight years” by renegotiating trade deals and spurring economic growth.
After he took office, Trump predicted that economic growth created by the 2017 tax cut, combined with the proceeds from the tariffs he imposed on a wide range of goods from numerous countries, would help eliminate the budget deficit and let the U.S. begin to pay down its debt. On July 27, 2018, he told Sean Hannity of Fox News: “We have $21 trillion in debt. When this [the 2017 tax cut] really kicks in, we’ll start paying off that debt like it’s water.”
Nine days later, he tweeted, “Because of Tariffs we will be able to start paying down large amounts of the $21 trillion in debt that has been accumulated, much by the Obama Administration.”
That’s not how it played out. When Trump took office in January 2017, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was projecting that federal budget deficits would be 2% to 3% of our gross domestic product during Trump’s term. Instead, the deficit reached nearly 4% of gross domestic product in 2018 and 4.6% in 2019.
There were multiple culprits. Trump’s tax cuts, especially the sharp reduction in the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%, took a big bite out of federal revenue. The CBO estimated in 2018 that the tax cut would increase deficits by about $1.9 trillion over 11 years.
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</aside>Meanwhile, Trump’s claim that increased revenue from the tariffs would help eliminate (or at least reduce) our national debt hasn’t panned out. In 2018, Trump’s administration began hiking tariffs on aluminum, steel and many other products, launching what became a global trade war with China, the European Union and other countries.
The tariffs did bring in additional revenue. In fiscal 2019, they netted about $71 billion, up about $36 billion from President Barack Obama’s last year in office. But although $36 billion is a lot of money, it’s less than 1/750th of the national debt. That $36 billion could have covered a bit more than three weeks of interest on the national debt — that is, had Trump not unilaterally decided to send a chunk of the tariff revenue to farmers affected by his trade wars. Businesses that struggled as a result of the tariffs also paid fewer taxes, offsetting some of the increased tariff revenue.
By early 2019, the national debt had climbed to $22 trillion. Trump’s budget proposal for 2020 called it a “grave threat to our economic and societal prosperity” and asserted that the U.S. was experiencing a “national debt crisis.” However, that same budget proposal included substantial growth in the national debt.
By the end of 2019, the debt had risen to $23.2 trillion and more federal officials were sounding the alarm. “Not since World War II has the country seen deficits during times of low unemployment that are as large as those that we project — nor, in the past century, has it experienced large deficits for as long as we project,” Phillip Swagel, director of the CBO, said in January 2020.
Weeks later, COVID-19 erupted and made the financial situation far worse. As of Dec. 31, 2020, the national debt had jumped to $27.75 trillion, up 39% from $19.95 trillion when Trump was sworn in. The government ended its 2020 fiscal year with the portion of the national debt owed to investors, the metric favored by the CBO, at around 100% of GDP. The CBO had predicted less than a year earlier that it would take until 2030 to reach that approximate level of debt. Including the trillions owed to various governmental trust funds, the total debt is now about 130% of GDP.
Normally, this is where we’d give you Trump’s version of events. But we couldn’t get anyone to give us Trump’s side. Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, referred us to the Office of Management and Budget, which is a branch of the White House.
OMB didn’t respond to our requests. The Treasury directed us to comments made by OMB director Russell Vought in October, in which he predicted that as the pandemic eases and economic growth rebounds, the “fiscal picture” will improve. The OMB blamed legislators for deficits when Trump submitted his proposed 2021 budget: “Unfortunately, the Congress continues to reject any efforts to restrain spending. Instead, they have greatly contributed to the continued ballooning of Federal debt and deficits, putting the Nation’s fiscal future at risk.”
Still, the deficit growth under Trump has been historic. Steuerle, of the Tax Policy Center, has done a comparison of every American president using a metric called the “primary deficit.” It’s defined as the deficit minus interest costs, because interest is the only budget expense that presidents and Congress can’t control unless they want to do the unthinkable and default on the debt. Steuerle examined the records of 45 presidents to see how the primary deficit had shrunk or grown relative to the size of the economy between the first and final years of each president’s administration.
Trump had the third-biggest primary deficit growth, 5.2% of GDP, behind only George W. Bush (11.7%) and Abraham Lincoln (9.4%). Bush, of course, not only passed a big tax cut, as Trump has, but also launched two wars, which greatly inflated the defense budget. Lincoln had to pay for the Civil War. By contrast, Trump’s wars have been almost entirely of the political variety.
Our national debt is now at its highest level relative to our economy since the end of World War II. After the war ended, the extraordinary military expenses disappeared, a postwar recovery began and the debt began to fall rapidly relative to the size of the economy.
But that’s not going to happen this time. When World War II ended 75 years ago, Social Security was in its infancy and Medicare didn’t exist. Today, many of our biggest and most rapidly growing expenses, especially Social Security and Medicare, are baked into the budget because of our nation’s aging population. These outlays are slated to rise sharply. Steuerle recently calculated that Social Security, health care and interest costs are projected to absorb 122% of the total growth in federal revenues from 2019 to 2030.
What’s more, our investment in the future — things like research and development, education, infrastructure, workforce training and such — is declining as a proportion of the budget. OMB data shows that in 1970, mandatory spending (such as Social Security and Medicare, but not including interest on the debt) and investment each made up around 30% of total federal spending. But as of 2019, the most recent available year, mandatory spending had doubled to around 61% of total federal spending while investment fell by more than half, to around 12.5%.
<figure data-pp-id="29" data-pp-blocktype="image" class="image large left" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.625rem auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 0.8125rem; line-height: inherit; font-family: Graphik, system-ui, &quot;segoe ui&quot;, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; float: none; clear: left; max-width: 600px;">Mandatory Spendin

</figure>