[kaibee]

> You'll have to explain that more. Ship builders aren't competing with plumbers.

Sure, on any given year. But the current economic organization of society wasn't born yesterday. On a longer timescale? Absolutely are.

> Well, that's a drop in the bucket. But you could apply this reasoning to any form of luxury goods.

Yes.

> Where do you draw the line? Nice clothes? Fancy watches? Sports cars? Five-star restaurants? Are any of these "the most productive/ROI generating activity for society at large?" Who decides what goods and services are worthy?

The neat thing about market economies is that you don't actually have to draw a line anywhere. You can just reduce income & wealth inequality via taxes and markets will sort it out. If you had taxed capital gains such that Bezos would have had to liquidate 10x - 100x in Amazon stock to buy his yacht, he likely would have settled for a smaller, but still perfectly acceptable yacht, and so on down the wealth ladder.

> You think people are having fewer children because luxury yachts are being built?

Yes I think income/wealth inequality + the amount of labor hours demanded from people to just stay in place is why people are having fewer children.