[Texgreen] Modern times...

[Roger Baker]

There was about a 10% decrease in Texas household income, adjusted for
inflation, in the last six years, which just happens to be under Bush.
Here's the lowdown, via a map showing similar decreases across the USA:

<http://www.freep.com/assets/static/pdf/2006/08/censusincome0830.pdf>

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Size does matter after all:

... Buyers, however, who want to compete on this circuit need upward =20
of $100
million to make a splash, although these days that's entry level in the
world of deca-dulgence...


http://abcnews.go.com/Business/FunMoney/story?id=3D2257924&page=3D1

American Drivers Fund New Fleet of Megayachts
The Other Side of the Energy Crisis: Oil Magnates Turn to Megayachts to
Spend Their Fortunes
By BEDE MOORE

COSTA SMERALDA, Italy, Aug. 1, 2006 =97 - Spend time this summer in any =
of
Europe's elite cruising grounds -- Sardinia, Saint-Tropez, Monaco -- and
you can't miss the massive floating palaces littering the coastline.

Called "inch-fever," it's a curious ailment suffered exclusively by the
megawealthy.

The cure? Build a bigger megayacht than the next sheik or oligarch. And,
yes, a few Americans measure up.

Buyers, however, who want to compete on this circuit need upward of $100
million to make a splash, although these days that's entry level in the
world of deca-dulgence.

It's a massive price tag, and increasingly the people who can pay it
have one thing in common -- oil. Life is good at $70 a barrel.

"The megayacht industry was virtually invented for the Arabs," said Dirk
Johnson, managing partner for Churchill Yacht Partners in Fort
Lauderdale, Fla. "They're the ones who funded almost all the big yachts;
[in the '90s] ships were built for Arab sheiks and oil money."

The superyacht industry was really born in the 1980s, with Power and
Motoryacht Magazine, a listing of the world's largest yachts. Since
then, both the number and size of boats have grown beyond anyone's
expectations...=