To be rich....

We've got a £12,000 Albin Vega, she's all paid for and so is our tiny house - so we were able to take six weeks away to sail her round Ireland this year.

Next year maybe the Med.

Less is best, work to live, don't live to work.

Sail what you can afford and have time for sailing. Big boats will eat you up.

There, that's that discussed.

(All IMIHO of cours)

- Nick

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violent disagreement, get on yer bike

I dont agree webcraft. We live in a country (or on a planet)where there are (or where people aspire to) hospitals, law enforcement, free education, etc. Those things only happen as a result of the work of the population. It's always gonna be the case that some folk contribute virtually nothing to that pot of shared wealth, while others work their balls off and contribute millions, with loads somewhere in the middle. But don't we all have a responsibility to work hard and contribute as much as we can, at least for our 30years or so of our working lives? Isn't there an obligation to use your talents to the full? Maximise your personal output? If we all operated at a level where we just had enough to get by, and relied on others to build the schools. hospitals and roads, there wouldn't be any schools, hospitals or roads.

Nothing personal. This thread was trying to spark a debate I think, so I thought I'd chuck in a different point of view :-)

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Re: definition of rich

erm, think you're getting a rich life mixed up with a rich person. You can have a rich life regardless of wealth. But unless you have pots of loot, you ain't actually a rich person, technically, according to normal defintions. If you'd like to change the definitions...go ahead. It's only words.

Sounds like someone really skint thought up the quote, am i right?
 
Re: violent disagreement, get on yer bike

Err - I'm afraid that for most people the working life is 40years plus, only the privileged few can get away with 30 years /forums/images/icons/smile.gif.

To get a bit political - this government has totally destroyed any incentive to save money, and therefore to earn more than necessary to have a good time today. The pension industry has been hit hard, and benefits are now so means-tested that there is no point having any savings at all...let us eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die....

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Re: Bikes for courses...

I don't think Nick was advocating dossing around being a waister, as you implied (please correct me if wrong) more that our boat aspirations are tailored to our resources enabling us to do more actual sailing/boating... tho' there is an element of the work / life balance in the equation I think he is pointing out that one can do a lot of cruising in smaller boats and a fraction of the cost of the mega boats that many deem necessary even for an afternoon pottering.. and get the buzz from sailing/boating without a loan/marine mortgage that requires you to work 10 hours 6 days a week 50 weeks of the year.

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working till carried out in a box

Yeah I admit, the 30 years was a bit of an aspirational try on. Looks like 45years and counting......

The incentives are all a bit mixed up though. I agree all you say about hitting pension funds etc, yet at the same time you can build a business*, sell out after some years of graft and pay only 10% tax on the gain without any clever whizzy tax saving schemey stuff

* assuming you dont die of red tape in the process

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Re: Bikes for courses...

All agreed, was just being a bit provocative. Nothing personal aimed at Webmaster. Didn't want a dull thread where everyone agrees.

My point wasn't concerned with dossers and wasters. What I meant was, is it appropriate, if you have talent, to throttle back into cruise mode, where you work merely to live without any living to work? Shouldn't you seek to do more than that, if you can? So as to make the biggest contribution you can to those hospitals schools roads and education.

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Re: webcraft

um, from previous exchanges, i thik i have established that webcraft is a downshifter, and he's fine thanks.

Separately, the people with really monster massive boats - i hope you don't imagine that they work 10 hours a day 6 days a week, do you? Being rich isn't about working hard, it's about having a ton of loot.

Getting other people to work for you and accidentally making unspeakable amounts of cash are essential requirements of the modern society, and the sole outlet for the most monster amounts of cash are larger and ever larger boats. But, the pottering aspect is still possible, if only with the dinghy, or by poncing around doing DIY.

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Re: 10%

yes, it's a total bugger that the hardworking tax accountants have been blimin short-circuited by the heartless G Brown and can sell up for only 10% tax. Really and truly, i think this should involve lots of difficult forms and legals thingies, whispering in corridors and expensive people putting forms in front of you saying "sign this and then sign that, and date it last week, QUICK".

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Am I rich,,,, no,,,do I want to be rich,, yes of course,,I'm I likely to get rich,,, with this government not a b****y hope. I tried to get rich by running my own company and working hard but the harder I worked the more Gordon took from me so now I'm trying semi retirement ie I work just enough to get by. Do I own a boat,,,not any more,, but I belong to a YC that lets me play boats whenever I want, I sail on my uncles 32' Gibsea and do a bit of delivery work for friends. The next ones coming up this month a Grand Soleil 45 (the one on display at SBS) I still fish out of Ramsgate with a good friend so I'm rather happy with my life and quite happy in the knowledge that I will never be (money) rich unless I win the lotto but I consider myself very rich with the wife and kids and life I've got!

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Re: violent disagreement, get on yer bike

Erm . . .

I DO work - directly in the provision of that free education of which you speak, among other things. It's just that I do it as far as possible when I choose and when I choose (which is not 40 hours a week 47 weeks a year).

The idea that all work is good because it makes money is not exactly an enlightened view of global economics in these post-Kyoto days.

I believe in working to live, harming no-one and walking lightly on the planet. If I can do some good in the process than that is a bonus. One of the pleasant side effects is that I can go sailing more - albeit in a smaller boat.

If that makes some of you careerists uncomfortable then I'm sorry. I suggest you comfort yourselves by taking the cynical view that I believe has been expressed (tongue in cheek I think??) by TCM in previous threads - namely that those who advocate being satisfied with less only do so because they lack the talent/ability to procure more for themselves.

- Nick

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Re: sponging off others

i agree that relaxers, downshifters, whatever are not actually sponging...but they sort of ..are. A bit.

The schools and the roads and the hostipals don't get built by the people who "just get by". They get built thru systematic taxation of those who are driven to "get ahead " whatever that means - earning more money, buying more stuff and paying more tax. Or of course, using their brains to think up better ways of doing things, making cheaper medicines and so on. Or teaching others to help do the same. Or even work out how to build decent boats more affordably.

All this does indeed allow people to make a personal choice. BUT there's certainly a case for encouragement of those who make a bit more of an effort, isn't there?

separately..some people enjoy working! yes, really!

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Re: violent disagreement, get on yer bike

I wasn't talking about money, I was talking about effort. And I wasn't talking about creating personal wealth, I meant contributimg to the shared wealth, infrastructure type stuff. Money is just a measure of wealth, it is nothing in itself. Wealth so far as I am talking about it is having heat, light, medicine, shelter, a cure if you get sick, education, roads, etc etc.

It's a fact that the luxuries we have in this country and to which less developed countries aspire dont/wont exist if everyone works only at half throttle. So is it right, if you have the talent to contribute more to the nation's/world's wealth, to throttle right back? You can curtail your personal income/wealth as much as you want, that's none of my business, but is it morally right to contribute less to the "infrastructure wealth" (for want of a better word)? If you in fact contribute less than you can, surely you are actually sponging off those who work harder?

Enjoying/experiencing the wonders of the world is all very nice but it doesn't contribute one jot to anyone apart from yourself, so isn't it worse even than amassing lots of money, buying a big boat and fab wimmin etc? If adopted as a life strategy (rather than a vacation) is gawping at wonders of world downright lazy?

PS, I totally agree about Kyoto. But that's a different point. There's no inherent conflict between making maximum contribution to infrastructure wealth and walking lightly on the planet.
 
Re: violent disagreement, get on yer bike

Webcraft, I wasn't making any specific allegations about you. I have no idea what you do. I was just taking an opposite view on the philosphy you put forward, about working to a minimal-ish extent. Absolutely nothing personal. Much better to make a point with a bit of extremism, I hope you agree!

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Re: violent disagreement, get on yer bike

This has to be a wind up!! Yea??
Terry

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Re: downshifting

ooh, you are a windup you are webcraft! "Involved in free education" and "albeit in a smaller boat" you are certinaly hitting all the red buttons!

My primary beef with webcraft is tht of course he has far more of the necess. abilities than many of the numpties who follow a hardworking career have, and who plough their furrows with far less useful effect than he would giben the same (greater) challenge. But anyway, I wd bet that this partly triggered his downshifting?

Anyways, i understand (turn to Guardian pages 1-5 incl, and editorial) that Kyoto is back ON cos the ruskies have endorsed it. Which means, ooh bugger, that all these targets have to be met to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2012. Is this true?

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