Marginal utility of money. After redistribution through a luxury tax, the same craftsmen could make say 100 smaller yachts at the same cost as one mega yacht, each with less status appeal (which is zero sum), and on net increase wellbeing more.

That's not necessarily how the taxes were structured and the money might have gone into other things that hurt luxury yacht craftsmen.

We'd probably be better off with even one smaller yacht and paying the craftsmen to dig holes and fill them back in with the excess time. Less status to the yacht-buyer, but the same goes to his competitor buyers so it probably nets out, and then you have less exposure to fiber-glass dust and solvents and stuff for the workmen who are now doing something just slightly less productive from a marginal utility standpoint. Probably a net win overall.

This was quite a popular media thing among conservatives who were torqued about the evils of the 10% luxury tax in the early nineties. It was always about the yachts and yacht industry, too. It was the opposite of persuasive because in reference to the luxury tax, they were always going on about the freaking yachts. I imagine in the end, it did little more than make most normal people conscious of how little they cared about the yacht industry.

The way the repeated messaging was effective in getting everybody talking about the same (ridiculous) thing was an early taste of what was to come in right-wing media.

The yacht costs $2,995,000, but, thanks to the current luxury tax that kicks in at $100,000, you have to fork over another $289,500. Rich people aren't happy about paying this extra money. Even if they can afford it, they think it's unfair. And in some cases, they're refusing to pay it -- simply by refusing to buy new boats and planes.

Funny stuff.

> This was quite a popular media thing among conservatives who were torqued about the evils of the 10% luxury tax in the early nineties. It was always about the yachts and yacht industry, too. It was the opposite of persuasive because in reference to the luxury tax, they were always going on about the freaking yachts.

>> The yacht costs $2,995,000, but, thanks to the current luxury tax that kicks in at $100,000, you have to fork over another $289,500. Rich people aren't happy about paying this extra money. Even if they can afford it, they think it's unfair. And in some cases, they're refusing to pay it -- simply by refusing to buy new boats and planes.

> Funny stuff.

Hilarious, and so transparently selfish and self-serving. Something tells me that if you can afford to spend $3 million on a conspicuous-consumption item like a yacht, you'll still find $3.3 million affordable. They just don't like paying taxes. I'd bet they'd have to raise the luxury tax to a level quite a bit higher than 10% to negatively affect the yacht industry.

Even the tax did hurt the yacht industry, the important question is: what did people spend their money on instead? If a tax kills the yacht industry, but strengthens industries more beneficial to the common good, I think that's a positive result.

The incredible depreciation of yachts is a much bigger part of the cost of owning a yacht. A million-dollar yacht will go down to like 200k if that after 10 years.

Boats are holes in the water into which you throw money.

This sounds a lot like trickle down economics.....