Y'all, I have to get something off my chest: the revelation that Betsy DeVos' family owns ten yachts has really been bugging me. Not particularly a resentment over said ownership. More in the manner of incredulity. I guess my question is... WHY? (thread)
Because I can see owning the one luxury yacht. I get the appeal. Some big ass party boat. I wouldn't spend $40 million on one, for godsake, but I get owning *a* yacht. I can MAYBE understand owning two for a particularly large family. Not likely but barely within realm of reason.
I can't shake this story because holy shit... TEN yachts? Five yachts plus five yachts? ⛴️x10?
What does even a large family do with 10 yachts? How much does the upkeep cost? So, I did some research...
What does even a large family do with 10 yachts? How much does the upkeep cost? So, I did some research...
First of all, the baseline: according to Investopedia, a yacht owner can expect to spend an annual 10% of the initial purchase price on upkeep. So, just for this $40m yacht, they'd obviously be paying $4m in upkeep annually. Five-year stretch? $20m in upkeep. Redonkulous.
How much does the average yacht cost? No idea. I went to a yacht site, took the average price of the most expensive five listings and the least expensive five listings and averaged those. It was way more than $40m. So, just to be conservative (ha), let's assume $20m.
Let's assume their nine other yachts are about $20m each. That's $180m for the total, which means $18m for annual upkeep, which, including the $40m yacht, would be $22m for upkeep. Annually. On yachts. Over five years, the DeVos fam would spend $110m on upkeep of yachts.
To give you a sense of $110m, that would be enough to pay the average salary of about 1,791 public high school teachers for a year at the current (rather underwhelming and ridiculous) salary of $61,420.
And that's on the conservative side. If we assume the average cost of DeVos' Armada is $40m per yacht, that comes out to $400m, and of course, $40m annually in upkeep, $200m over five years, or 3,582 public high school teachers. Teachers in D.C. public schools? 4,137.
I don't know, y'all. I think folks should enjoy their success, but to me, that's always meant owning your home, having time to take vacations, retiring at a reasonable age, relative comfort, freedom from worry over health and education costs. But 10 goddamn yachts? Nah. /thread
