sarnali

You yourself have commented many times on baby-boomer growth rates and the increasing "senior" population. Selling them health insurance is probably a pretty good market to be in

Buzz is just using his buisness acumen to provide a product that many people have a need for.

As an ardent capitalist I'm surprised you'd make disparaging comments about that.

Buzglyd

The funny thing is I don't even sell health insurance! lol



After reading your post I'm going to give it a whirl!

sarnali

There already is an American manufactured sportbike in the Buell XB9 and XB12 series.

Both these bikes come in two versions faired and unfaired, both offer interesting design concepts, and both have gotten rave reviews from almost everyone that has ridden them. Whats holding them back is full-on factory and dealership level support.

I'd also love to see Victory as a major player as I think their Vegas and Kingpins are sharp designs (albiet in the Kingpin's case saddled with a stupid name, full of Bill Murrey conotations). A sport bike from them would be well recieved if it was up to the visual and quality levels of the Vegas.

The reason Indian tanked, as well as E-H, was that the owners tried to market the name instead of the product. all they ever came out with IMO was gaudy-gauche ***** barges that couldn't compete on price, performance or quality.

Triumph is a going concern now because their management IE John Bloor, concentrated on building a quality product that was and is competitive with anything else on the road in terms of performance, handling, build quality, visual appeal and price point. That plus the name put them back on the market.

Harley and Ducati both went through major down turns and almost went bankrupt, but their core product generated enough support that they could modernize their machines and manufacturing facilities and stay afloat

Indian went under in the fifties, these new iterations are just picking over a corpse to sell a name on a T-shirt. I'd be embarrassed to own one

sarnali

C'mon now, you know what he meant.

nosajwols

Well I take it you also like orginized crime, corruption, over inflated wages, having your family and yourself attacked and/or threatened because you thought/spoke for yourself? Yes Unions have done a lot of good things, and about as much bad, that is not the point here. If you want to compete in the global manufacturing market you can't do it without large scale automation. You also can't pay 20+ an hour for bassically unskilled assembly labor. Step back a second and ask yourself how a company can make something in another country, halfway around the world, ship it here, pay extra duties and still under cut the US made price. This happens with 1st world countries, so it is not child labor etc., it is the cost of our labor that is killing us. In fact for GM the sales of cars has almost become a loss leader so they can make profit from GMAC, this is not uncommon.



Part of the Harley image is built by the t-shirts etc. Without it they would not sell the number of bikes they do (now). Take a highschool marketing course, it may help.... In the end they work out to be something like 5% of their gross profit, but that 5% is almost all profit (huge markup).



It is not about the Canadians having the right answers, it is about someone having the right answers... I am sorry you have an issue with the word Canadian, I was just pointing out which party in the recreation of Indian maybe had the right idea.



Yes I am an Engineer, I had a perfect score on my MSF course. I do not work in manufacturing, so I will have a job long after all the plants are closed.

sarnali

The reason you're waxing poetic about Victory (a Minnesota based corporation) isn't because you are now, and have in fact been for some time, AN EMPLOYEE OF POLARIS INDUSTRIES IS IT, ............. Hmmm?

(just the facts, sir)

sarnali

I'm going to call my buisness rep up right now and tell him to go ***** hisself, Who cares if my kids have a middle class standard of living. I think we should all follow the third world practice of no health insurance, no 40 hr. work week, no vacation, sick leave, retirement or benifits of any kind and just work till we drop.

Of course we won't be able to afford any of the products we produce, but hey we'll be doing the right thing for a change.

Or we could work for Wal*Mart and get the same thing in this country.

KPaulCook

Just so you stay out of economics, politics, physics, engineering, accounting, finance, etc. Did I leave out anything else your SDSU education failed to do.

KPaulCook

Didn't HD have the benefit of Reagan (Mr. Freetrader himself) putting a tariff on Japanese bikes.

KPaulCook