Civilization collapses as makers Go Galt! Yacht Parade cancelled!

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Like many successful job creators, I own a couple of yachts, including one I dock at Newport Beach, Connecticut. The harbour needs work though:

The city's five-year plan for the harbor calls for $29 million in long-overdue maintenance. Its silt-filled channels haven't been fully dredged since the Great Depression. Ancient, leaky sea walls protecting neighborhoods need to be repaired or replaced. "We have the makings of a perfect storm like they did on the East Coast" during Superstorm Sandy, said Chris Miller, the city's harbor resources manager. "The sea walls are nearing the end of their useful life."

Easy problem to solve: just make a payroll tax on the lazier classes, or borrow the money.

But what did the class warriors do? They've increased the fees:

Newport's dock fee, which has stood at $100 a year for the last two decades, will now be based on a dock's size. The city says rents will increase to about $250 for a small slip to $3,200 annually for a large dock shared by two homeowners.

What a rip off! At this rate, I might as well just get a private dock, since it would only cost ten or twenty thousand dollars more. I should do it just to spite these statist goons. And I would, if it didn't cost more. They should be begging me to honor their docks with my presence, not expecting me to pay for them, at the extortionate rate of 10% the private-sector price.

So, the yacht-owners of Newport Beach are GOING GALT! We are going to show the world what happens when you don't have millionaires and billionaires around:

We will "...boycott the boat parade and festival of lights by a group calling itself "Stop the Dock Tax."

"It costs us thousands of dollars to voluntarily decorate our homes and boats to bring holiday smiles to nearly 1 million people," organization Chairman Bob McCaffrey wrote to the city. "This year, we are turning off our lights and withdrawing our boats..."

I'm not just stopping at having an unlit yacht, I'm also going to take my Sunday drives without shining, no, with out even WASHING (the outside that is) of my sports cars. Every Sunday I bring smiles to people, as they gaze upon my cars, and my young import "secretary" Katya (or Kathia, she seems to change how she pronounces it all the time). How, I ask, how will you in the lazier classes be able to smile when you can't see my shiny cars and import secretaries? (You'll still be able to see her, but she'll be wearing more clothes.)

See how the collapse of civilization is coming, as we Go Galt? Now you'll have to live without yacht parades. Next others will also drive unshined luxury cars, and our secretaries and autobiographers will dress unsexily. Next, just to drive home how much you need us, our powerpoint presentations will be in black and white!

And you know how we deliver smiles to people by having fancy ornate gates in our gated communities? Next it will be plain old razor wire. See, now we're straight into Mad Max territory! See how much you need billionaires?

[Bob4God]

Re: Civilization collapses as makers Go Galt! Yacht Parade cancelled!

This is typical liberal get-more-give-more nonsense.

Whatever happened to good old conservative values like get-more-give-bare-minimum? How is anybody supposed to make a profit in this economy?

[Little Donkey]

Re: Civilization collapses as makers Go Galt! Yacht Parade cancelled!

Mr. Thurmond, on behalf of poor people let me apologize to you for our greediness. Rest be assured I will be campaigning hard for the City of San Diego to purchase full service docks for billionaire yacht owners and a new stadium for our loser football team. We all benefit from the miracle of trickle-down economics so it's only fair we return it many-fold over in tax breaks and debt forgiveness. After all, a few billion dollars of incentives to a billionaire, when spread over millions of poor people, is only a few thousand bucks each.

[WilliamJenningsBryan]

Re: Civilization collapses as makers Go Galt! Yacht Parade cancelled!

It turns out that rich Christian capitalists are not the only ones going "Galt". The rich Limousine Liberals – the ones always admonishing the rest of us to pay "our fair share" of the taxes are "Galting" their "responsibility" as well – like the Democrat Senator John Kerry from the socialist workers paradise of Taxachusetts.

John Kerry Saves $500,000 By Docking 76-Foot Luxury Yacht Out Of State
First Posted: 07/23/10 11:09 AM ET Updated: 05/25/11 06:10 PM ET

BOSTON (AP) -- Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is docking his family's new $7 million yacht in neighboring Rhode Island, allowing him to avoid paying roughly $500,000 in taxes to the cash-strapped Bay State.

If the "Isabel" were kept at the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee's summer vacation home on Nantucket, or in Boston Harbor near his city residence, he would be liable for $437,500 in one-time sales tax. He would also have to pay $70,000 in annual excise taxes.

Rhode Island repealed those taxes in 1993. That has made the state something of a nautical tax haven.

Kerry spokesman David Wade said Friday the boat is being kept at Newport Shipyard not to evade taxes, but "for long-term maintenance, upkeep and charter purposes."

Wade noted the vessel was designed by Rhode Island boat designer Ted Fontaine and purchased in the state. It was built in New Zealand by Friendship Yachts.

A Department of Revenue spokesman said Kerry would be liable for Massachusetts taxes if he berthed the boat in the Bay State within six months of its purchase. If the "Isabel" were brought to Massachusetts after that period, the state would have to decide if it wanted to pursue the taxes.

Massachusetts, like most other states, has been grappling with plunging tax revenues. Last year's budget decifict was $600 million, and officials are bracing for a $1 billion deficit this year.

The 76-foot sloop has two cabins, a pilot house fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage, according to the Boston Herald, which first reported its Rhode Island berthing. It derives its moniker from the middle name of Kerry's mother and the name his wife, Teresa Heinz, planned to give a daughter.

Instead, she had three sons.

Coast Guard registration records show the vessel is owned by Great Point LLC, a limited liability corporation based in Pittsburgh, Heinz's longtime home. The millionaire heiress to the Heinz ketchup fortune is a philanthropist and environmentalist.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/23/john-kerry-saves-500000-b_n_656985.html

Of course John Kerry didn't arrive at his fortune the old fashioned way – by actually working to make ketchup, he did it by marrying a heiress to those that did.

If Obama has his way, all those involved in the trickle down yachting industry – from manufacturing, selling, and maintaining yachts, will be out of a job soon. They might be able to find work at the IRS making sure that the rest of us can't go "Galt" escaping ObamaCare.

Healthcare Reform Law Requires New IRS Army Of 1,054
By Paul Bedard

The Internal Revenue Service says it will need an battalion of 1,054 new auditors and staffers and new facilities at a cost to taxpayers of more than $359 million in fiscal 2012 just to watch over the initial implementation of President Obama's healthcare reforms. Among the new corps will be 81 workers assigned to make sure tanning salons pay a new 10 percent excise tax. Their cost: $11.5 million.

…

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/02/15/healthcare-reform-law-requires-new-irs-army-of-1054

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Re: Civilization collapses as makers Go Galt! Yacht Parade cancelled!

Another key part of civilization collapses: now you'll miss out on the pleasure of looking at our mansions, as we abandon them. He might even stop working - how will civilization survive without advertisers?

Legendary advertising guru Jerry Della Femina is the latest Hamptons fat cat to unload his East End spread at the precipice of the dreaded fiscal cliff. The flamboyant Madison Avenue guru has sold his 8,500-square-foot estate — the host of many legendary bashes — for $25 million, and blames his flight squarely on President Obama’s fiscal policies.

“I’m basically the loser in Obama’s class warfare. That’s what this boils down to. If Romney was elected, we would have had our parties in East Hampton this year. … I want the proceeds of this sale to go to my kids and my grandkids. I don’t want my money going to Obama, and that’s what’s going to happen in the New Year. That’s why I sold right now, that’s why I wanted to get this done.”

Exactly: don't give your money to some mooching construction worker to repair infrastructure. This should be a land of rugged individualists, who pull ourselves up by own own bootstraps. The truly self-reliant don't need government jobs, we inherit our money.

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Re: Civilization collapses as makers Go Galt! Yacht Parade cancelled!

“I don’t want my money going to Obama

I tried to find out how much of the federal budget goes to Obama's salary, but the government is engaging in a coverup. Look, it's not even on the chart:

[Little Donkey]

Re: Civilization collapses as makers Go Galt! Yacht Parade cancelled!

I tried to find out how much of the federal budget goes to Obama's salary, but the government is engaging in a coverup. Look, it's not even on the chart:

All this talk of financial cliff. I can solve it with common sense right now.

Military: It's expensive but we need to be safe from terrorists. Trim a little, if possible.
Education: I've been to school already, I don't need that. Abolish.
Transportation: I've got a car, I don't need that. Abolish.
Health: I'm doing alright and mamma's on medicare. Abolish.
Administration of Justice: OK, we can keep that but CUT by 50%.
Veterans: Didn't we pay them already under Military? Abolish.
Housing assistance: I've got a house already - duh! Abolish.
International affairs: I don't even want to know what that is - abolish.
National resources and environment: OK, we need to preserve the oil.
General science blah blah: Abolish.

The rest is just annoying little stuff - who cares? That's already about a trillion saved in my budget plan without getting into the petty stuff. Job done.

[H. Montague Worthington]

Re: Civilization collapses as makers Go Galt! Yacht Parade cancelled!

I tried to find out how much of the federal budget goes to Obama's salary, but the government is engaging in a coverup. Look, it's not even on the chart:

It makes me SICK that we're wasting 7% of our budget on so-called "transportation."

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Re: Civilization collapses as makers Go Galt! Yacht Parade cancelled!

National resources and environment: OK, we need to preserve the oil.

No we don't, we just need to pray for God to provide more. This can be a volunteer position.

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Re: Civilization collapses as makers Go Galt! Yacht Parade cancelled!

Every summer when I'm roughing it at the cottage I always bring smiles to my neighbours, as I "share the wealth" the capitalist way. When I'm at my cottage I'm always letting people enjoy the sound of my children's $23,200 Yamaha FX Cruiser SHO jet-skis, and of course my ~$300,000 Goldmund Epilogue Signature Audio System, which the neighbours get to enjoy almost 24/7. And of course they get free visits from my $600,000 purebred Tibetan Mastiff, who can kill any bears that come near and as a bonus even fertilizes their lawns for them.



The ungrateful losers hardly ever thank me though. I don't let the small dogs leave the house, but everyone around gets to hear them yapping day and night, free of charge. They don't thank me for that, either.

When I accidentally send golf balls onto their property I don't even leave tracks when I come to pick them up, thanks to my investing in a $58,000 hovercraft-golf-cart:



And to keep bugs away I have a fire constantly making smoke, which I generously donate to everyone downwind. Do they even know how much money I have to have to spend, and how many favors you have to call in, to get African Blackwood smuggled from Tanzania? It's $25,000 for a pickup-truck load, but do you ever heard them thanking me? (Yeah I know the smoke smells like I'm burning tires but that's why it keeps the bugs away so well.)

This disgusting ingratitude is going to eventually destroy America, you're going to see us turning from a mighty power into a 3rd-world cesspit like what happened to Great Britain. I don't usually trust wikipeda, but the page on the fall of the Country House sums it up well. In the beginning, British mansions were so lavish they literally put oriental despots to shame:

Trentham Hall...was so lavish that the Shah of Persia in 1873 remarked to the future King Edward VII, of their host "too grand for a subject, you'll have to have his head off when you come to the throne."

But then:

...The destruction of country houses in 20th-century Britain...has been described as a cultural tragedy...often demoralised and impoverished owners... the demolition of the ancestral seat, strongly entwined with the family's history and identity...

Before the 19th century, the British upper classes enjoyed a life relatively free from taxation....by the mid-20th century they had no power and were suffering heavy taxation....ignorance of the nation's heritage was a large contributory factor to the indifference that met the destruction....In addition, death duties were raised to all-time highs by the new Labour Government that swept into power in 1945; this hit Britain's aristocracy hard. These factors, coupled with a decrease in people available or willing to work as servants, left the owners of country houses facing major problems...the law was powerless...the severely impoverished Duke Of Marlborough, sought American heiresses....punitive to a social class able to live comfortably off inherited wealth ...Death duties, however, slowly increased and became a serious problem....an act of sheer class-war vindictiveness...the socialist government to wrest the house from its owner, the Earl Fitzwilliam, and convert the architecturally important house for "homeless industrial families"...

To some owners, the principal house was more than just a dwelling; built when the family was at the height of its power, wealth and glory, it represented the family's history and status. It was an integral part of the family's being and needed to be preserved and retained by the family, even if this meant "entering trade" [working] a prospect which would have been unthinkable just a few years earlier.

This is just too depressing, I can't go on.

[Trent Harvey, Jr.]

Re: Civilization collapses as makers Go Galt! Yacht Parade cancelled!

The ungrateful losers hardly ever thank me though.

We should have a whole thread just about toxic neighbours. There were a lot of ones around the Green Zone: they refused to sweep up all the flowers they threw at us when we liberated them, they would carelessly dispose of old munitions, often dangerously close to our vehicles (which allowed the media to make up all sorts of nonsense about a so-called "insurgency"), they'd set off fireworks at al times of the night, causing journalists to panic and claim firefights were going on.

And they didn't mow their lawns. Most didn't even PLANT their lawns. No matter how many b-1 bombers roaring overhead as a show of force, no matter how many midnight raids we did, they just couldn't get it into their thick skulls that bad lawn maintenance is a serious crime where everyone is the victim.

[Bobby-Joe]

Re: Civilization collapses as makers Go Galt! Yacht Parade cancelled!

We should have a whole thread just about toxic neighbours. There were a lot of ones around the Green Zone: they refused to sweep up all the flowers they threw at us when we liberated them, they would carelessly dispose of old munitions, often dangerously close to our vehicles (which allowed the media to make up all sorts of nonsense about a so-called "insurgency"), they'd set off fireworks at al times of the night, causing journalists to panic and claim firefights were going on.

And they didn't mow their lawns. Most didn't even PLANT their lawns. No matter how many b-1 bombers roaring overhead as a show of force, no matter how many midnight raids we did, they just couldn't get it into their thick skulls that bad lawn maintenance is a serious crime where everyone is the victim.

That's always been the problem with Others (as in not-white, not male, not Baptist, not Republican) Brother Trent. They have no appreciation for what makes civilization, civilization. They go on all the time whining about their children dying from malaria and just ignore the simple joy a wedding can bring.

And you are right, their lawns are a mess.

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Re: Civilization collapses as makers Go Galt! Yacht Parade cancelled!

I knew politicians are having a tough time, but I had no idea:

Republican Lawmaker: ‘I’m stuck here making $172,000’

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) lamented in a closed-door meeting Wednesday that his staff can get rich as lobbyists while he is "stuck here making $172,000,"...Gingrey said that staff may not make a lot of money on Capitol Hill, “but in a few years they can just go to K Street and make $500,000 a year. Meanwhile I’m stuck here making $172,000.”

During the meeting, Republicans discussed a proposal to exempt lawmakers and their staff from a new law requiring them to participate in federal health-care exchanges.

Gingrey and other lawmakers expressed concern about the financial toll the new law would take on them on their staffs...

Lawmakers haven’t had a pay raise since 2009 (And after all they've done for us!)

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Re: Civilization collapses as makers Go Galt! Yacht Parade cancelled!

Still wondering why so many are Going Galt? Just look at the persecution faced by former JC Penny CEO Ron Johnson.

He did lots of hard work laying off 43,000 employees, and under his leadership JC Penny only lost 73.33% of it's value. (you can't win 'em all).

Yet all he gets to show for it is "a compensation package worth 1,795 times the average wage and benefits of a U.S. department store worker...Comparing his earnings to the $29,688 average compensation for a department store worker is the equivalent of stacking the length of a loaf of bread -- give or take a few slices -- against the height of the Empire State Building."

And it gets worse: now the democrats want to invade the privacy of corporations by making them disclose how much they pay their employees. Which means they would have to figure out how much they pay them, which costs too much for the poor corporations to afford:

“We don’t believe the information would be material to investors,” said Tim Bartl, president of the group’s advocacy arm, the Center on Executive Compensation. Accounting for country-to-country differences in wages and benefits at global companies would be costly..."

Of course we can't expect corporations to pay for extravagances like figuring out how much they pay their employees. Look at how they're just scraping by: "...the company awarded six top executives $190 million for the fiscal year that ended in January 2012"

Other CEOs are suffering too:

"Abercrombie CEO Michael Jeffries got $48.1 million....1,640 times the average clothing-store worker’s $29,310 in pay and benefits. Jeffries’ stock-appreciation rights -- valued at $43.2 million in the proxy -- had no realizable value as of April 25 because the share price fell."

Now, just because the share price fell doesn't mean he's a failure who doesn't deserve 1,640 times what his workers make. After all, bad luck happens to us all (except the poor, who are lazy).

The article also mentions that the CEO to average-worker pay ratio was "20-to-1 in the 1950s" - which just proves that liberals are luddittes who hate progress.

[Trent Harvey, Jr.]

Re: Civilization collapses as makers Go Galt! Yacht Parade cancelled!

Republican Lawmaker: ‘I’m stuck here making $172,000’

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) lamented in a closed-door meeting Wednesday that his staff can get rich as lobbyists while he is "stuck here making $172,000,"...Gingrey said that staff may not make a lot of money on Capitol Hill, “but in a few years they can just go to K Street and make $500,000 a year. Meanwhile I’m stuck here making $172,000.”

See, that's why they call it the "poverty trap".

I'd like to help him, but as a billionaire who hasn't made his billions yet, all my assets are tied up in the fact that they don't exist yet.