Boat builders that made it through the recession

[gn7]

The boom years built many, many, disposable income businesses that may have not otherwise started up, I somewhat agree with you there. But I'm not sure why you are singling out boat builders. If you sold disposable income items during that time, would you have told your customers "I'm sorry, I can't sell you a boat, or trailer, or motorhome, or Mercedes, or yacht, or airplane, or 2nd, 3rd, 4th home, because I'm certain this wave will crash and I don't want to be a part of it"? I don't think so. The truth is, no one questioned where the money came from, just like today, it still isn't questioned. Its either there or it isn't. There is greed in every segment of our economy, I don't see any point in singling out boat builders when the greed starts at the very top and trickles down to those who sell bottled water.

Taking the frame of mind that anyone in the disposable income market segment should have said "Nope, I refuse to grow in the booming economy" is unrealistic. Now the smart ones grew smartly, the others just took all that extra cash and got deeper in debt. Again, no difference in todays economy except there are just fewer of those getting rich.

I'm not even going to get in to the housing ATM fiasco. Very few people at the time believed the market would crash. The real problem is we've been trained to think our homes are simply an investment, when they are in fact, our homes. Your home is where you raise your family, not what you cash in on every time it gains a few bucks in value. Nuff said there cause its starting to smell political

I think you missed my point here. I am NOT talking about companies the were in the business before, some Looooooong before the credit fiasco. Those are the companies that are still here.
Many of the companies that aren't were as disposable as the income/credit was for the customer. The bubble pulled the rats and snakes out of their holes, and some of them went into the boat business. Its not the first, and its not the only industry/business it happens to.
Most if not all the builders that are still here are here because the have been thru this and WORSE before, and survived, those that didn't, oh well. Certainly no lose to the sport, and probably no big loss to the person the started or BOUGHT the business. They made their money, and its on to something new.

Who's the bad people that buy boats?

There are no bad people Wendi, and if there were, they certainly wouldn't own boats. Forget I even mentioned it.