How are you dealing with inflation?

[jp1]

Remember when the luxury yacht tax didn’t change rich peoples’ behaviour much at all, but destroyed the US boatbuilding industry?

I wonder how Dutch yacht taxes compare to the US?

https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff...mantled-2022-7

[Rogar]

A friend told me a story that could be fact checked. Bezos and Steve Jobs were talking and Steve was lamenting having so much money he didn't know what to do with all of it. Bezos said, you need a Yacht. Everyone has one. Sort of delineates a difference between being rich vs. wealthy.

[JaneV2.0]

A friend told me a story that could be fact checked. Bezos and Steve Jobs were talking and Steve was lamenting having so much money he didn't know what to do with all of it. Bezos said, you need a Yacht. Everyone has one. Sort of delineates a difference between being rich vs. wealthy.

That's why striving for piles of money seems so foolish to me. Either you have to administer dozens of charities, or what? buy endless stuff you don't need? I would think that would get old fast.

[bae]

I don't remember that. Although if it didn't change people's behaviour I don't understand why it affect the boat industry, but I'll go with it. I suppose it depends on the elasticity of demand for a particular good.

The law applied to boats costing > $100k.

The rich people buying yachts simply bought them from non-US builders, and took delivery offshore.

The middle-class people buying regular boring boats found that the boatbuilding business here in the USA dried up and blew away as a result. ~7600 jobs were lost in the boatbuilding/service industry in the USA. When the cost of unemployment benefits is included in the calculation, the government *lost* money by collecting this tax. And I still take my boat across the border to Canada for service, even though I live just a short distance from what used to be a major boatbuilding/repair center here in the USA.

Similar things happened to the light aircraft manufacturing industry in the USA from the tax. I think they lost ~1500 jobs or so.

For those of us who live in remote places, boats and light aircraft are often essential.

[LDAHL]

The law applied to boats costing > $100k.

The rich people buying yachts simply bought them from non-US builders, and took delivery offshore.

The middle-class people buying regular boring boats found that the boatbuilding business here in the USA dried up and blew away as a result. ~7600 jobs were lost in the boatbuilding/service industry in the USA. When the cost of unemployment benefits is included in the calculation, the government *lost* money by collecting this tax. And I still take my boat across the border to Canada for service, even though I live just a short distance from what used to be a major boatbuilding/repair center here in the USA.

Similar things happened to the light aircraft manufacturing industry in the USA from the tax. I think they lost ~1500 jobs or so.

For those of us who live in remote places, boats and light aircraft are often essential.

Up here on the Great Lakes, I’ve been told that the average age of shipbuilders has been rising. There are some specialized skills in the industry that we are losing fairly rapidly. Some of these “luxury taxes” have consequences that go beyond simple class warfare.

[Rogar]

The middle-class people buying regular boring boats found that the boatbuilding business here in the USA dried up and blew away as a result. ~7600 jobs were lost in the boatbuilding/service industry in the USA. When the cost of unemployment benefits is included in the calculation, the government *lost* money by collecting this tax. And I still take my boat across the border to Canada for service, even though I live just a short distance from what used to be a major boatbuilding/repair center here in the USA.

Thanks. I understand now.

Being a landlubber, I suppose that also would apply to a luxury tax on high end homes in Aspen. A personal favorite, but it probably wouldn't keep the riffraff out since it doesn't appear to change behaviour.

[Rogar]

In Germany, prices are also rising rapidly.
I just went shopping. I was struck by lightning with some products. Prices have doubled in just a few weeks. Unbelievable.
There are new offers here every week, but most of them are just junk. We don't have such an extensive voucher and coupon system.
Good thing I have a garden and can cook from scratch. So I can save something.

I would be interested in your perception of petrol prices where you live and how much people are concerned about the Ukraine war and it's effect on energy costs? Here they are telling us that gas prices are a major driver of inflation, although they've dropped about 10% in the last couple of weeks.

[Rogar]

My first utility bill of cooler weather just arrived. The utility provider is good about giving details for comparison to previous years. Electric was basically similar for usage and cost as the same period a year ago. Gas took a huge jump and was up at least 50% for the about the same usage as a year ago. I definitely dug out some extra sweat shirts, vests and warm socks. It was not even that cold.

Gasoline seems to be holding at around 3.39 where I go and diesel is near 5.00. A couple of rural friends were in town with a few of their farming and trucking neighbors. There was some conversation around how the price of diesel and fertilizer is causing enough of a financial burden on independent truckers and farmers that some may have to go out of business. I don't know how real or common this is, but they seemed to have some first hand accounts. I've assumed that the costs would just be passed among to us consumers.

[iris lilies]

We won’t have apples to apples comparisons of utility bills in this house because we have expanded the house, and we are also now living here full-time during the winter and that has never happened before.

[catherine]

I got my first bill using my heat pump. The comparison was from last year, when our heating was from three old baseboard heaters, three space heaters and the wood stove. The only variable this year was the discontinuation of one space heater and the baseboard heat and the addition of the heat pump. The bill for the same time period this year vs last was $43 less. The average temperature was 3 degrees cooler this year. This bodes well for our investment in the heat pump.