Re: Are boats just not selling right now????
I was just down at the marina talking to my boat broker. He told my that he just sold one of those big race boats (Fountain) last week and the financing etc. was all approved for the sale. Last Thursday they got word from the bank that all credit had dried up, for boat, airplane, & car purchases, so the deal fell through.
The banks here (Germany) used to freely extend credit to people who had a good history with the bank, and had always paid loans back. Credit lines came automatically, you didn't have to ask, it just showed up on your bank statements. You now have a pre-approved credit of X00,000.00, use it as you wish. No questions asked.
It stopped like a car on the highway hitting a concrete wall in 1999. They had made so many bad loans to other banks, and bad investments with their customers money, they had no money to loan anymore. They are broke.
Then the disappearing middle class started all unexpectedly loosing their profit producing jobs, due to the offshoring/outsourcing of all things once made in Germany, to Asia. This left the banks setting on unpaid loans made to people who had spent the last 20-40 years working steadily, and making payments regularly.
Now you won't get a loan for anything, if you can't put up collateral of at least double the amount of the loan. They now hope you will default, and loose your house, because it is a quick way to generate income for the bank. Even businesses that can show contracts of guaranteed income, can not get working capital to cover payrolls needed to complete these contracts.
Germany has set a new record every year since 1999, for private and commercials bankruptcies. This means that contract, or no contract, the banks don't trust you to pay back any loan, even if you are a honest, long term client, with a great financial history.
Everyone is now treated as a deadbeat bum and Germany is a cash only country now.
The banks encouraged their clients (Big Business) to dump their local employees, and go overseas to produce, thereby killing the local economies, while using & loosing their customers (You & Me) money in wild get rich quick financial schemes. Now they are broke, and somehow it is the little guy (You & Me) they are blaming.
They are in really deep****, and they are using, once again, German tax payers money to bail the banks out of a living nightmare, the banks created themselves. The people they blame (You & Me), are once again, the people they want to pay for their mistakes. With these guys, it is always someone else that is the bum. They are responsible for nothing and continue to make the same mistakes, over and over agian. Always expecting a new bailout when things don't go as they planned at the poker table, they call the investment world.
When was the last time they stepped in, and bailed you out?
The government keeps saying don't run on the banks, leave your money where it's at, if you still have any, while at the same time, the banks are all running to withdraw what little money they have at the other banks.
This is what I am afraid is happening in the States.
Want a loan for a small boat here, yea, sure. Put the complete value of your paid for house up as collateral.
