Affording a spaceship?

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Don't think it resolves the issue though. Your net worth is theoretically a bunch in that case. That doesn't actually make you obscenely wealthy.

Realistically, if you're not obscenely wealthy you are going to have a hard time holding onto your extremely expensive toy. Between taxes and fees, operating expenses, and other costs you either need a large cash flow (i.e. wealth) or you will quickly run into a situation in which you cannot pay some part of those expenses and wind up losing the asset. In the real world average people don't own and operate cruise ships, jet liners, or sky rises. It takes a great deal of assets and wealth in order to both own and operate such an expensive toy. Even if you scale it down to an example of something an average person can afford to buy (say, a 2-4 person propeller plane or small yacht) it is an extremely expensive toy to own, and many people who buy one wind up losing or selling it because they cannot afford the upkeep on it while other people don't bother buying it because they don't want to sink that kind of money into it.