I'm with Timjet on this. Why all the negative vibes here fellow boaters?
Because these days as the country gets dumber and dumber anything in print is increasingly seen as being as gospel even though a great deal of it is utter crap. And inaccurate crap at that.
Some people who know better--- fewer and fewer of them it seems--- don't fall for the "if it's in print it must be true" BS. Reminds me of that lady in the snake oil commercial awhile back who says, "If it's free, it
must be good."
USA Today, which was created decades ago specifically to hook in the ADHD crowd who did poorly in school, and which probably knows about as much about boats as I know about the ethnic makeup of the suburbs on Mars, is simply pandering to the same reader gullibility as all the publications of its ilk.
Of course if the truth be known,
USA Today, like all the popular US media, could give a crap about accuracy or credible information or even the subject matter. All they care about is readership which is how the advertising rates are set. So anything, accurate or not, that will suck in readers is seen as well worth printing. In that regard
USA Today is little more than a tabloid in a tuxedo.
So they hatch up an article on expensive boats aka the lifestyle of the rich and famous which is always good for a hefty helping of panting readers, hang a bogus term on them, then chalk up a bunch of "facts" that are anything but, and the majority of their readers swallow it hook, line, and sinker. And
USA Today can go to Ford and Budweiser and say, "See?" and charge them an additional $2,000 for their ads.
It's not an article about boats, it's an article designed to suck in the Instagram and selfie crowd.
Fortunately, the folks who know better, the Tad's and psneelds and so forth, aren't shy about calling them on it, not that it will change anything.