I know. And yet, Brexit. That was utterly impossible, couldn't happen, and yet it did.

Look, as far as the Constitution goes, one side of the country is pretty fed up with it. Hawaii recently issued a court ruling saying the 2nd Amendment was (basically) subordinate to "the Spirit of Aloha". A NY judge declared "don't talk about the 2nd Amendment, this is NY, the 2nd Amendment doesn't exist here." The NY Times just published a book review that asserts the Constitution is a "threat" to America. Meaning, the "America" that those people want, cannot come into existence because of that pesky Constitution.

There are many unconstitutional things happening right now; Chevron Deference was just overturned after being the prevailing behavior for, what, 40-50 years? I really don't think that in reality the obstacles you raise are going to actually stop it from happening.

I don't understand the pessimism. You know that New Zealand is a country, and their entire country's population is half that of the city of Houston (the greater Houston area)? And when you say "a small 100M people country", understand that there are 234 independent, sovereign nations in the world, and only 16 of them have 100M+ people. Some of the small countries you're referencing are Germany, the UK, Thailand, France, Italy, South America, South Korea, Canada, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Taiwan, and on and on.

And that's just by population. If you go by the actual economy, Texas's economy alone would be the 8th largest in the world, bigger than Russia.

I think they'd do OK.

Heck, several of our states were their own independent nations. The Republic of Texas, the Kingdom of Hawaii, Vermont, Oregon, Rhode Island, the Republic of West Florida, etc.

Exactly. Thank you for so succinctly nailing the issue.

Again, I don't understand the pessimism. Need I remind you of the "Arab Spring"? You want to say "no way" about a population overthrowing their government, it happened all throughout the Arab world when nobody could even have imagined such a thing happening.

And I'm not talking about an "overthrow". I'm talking about a mutually agreed divorce, a parting of the ways. And I'm not advocating for it, I'm just saying it appears to be inevitable.

Bullshit.

Look at the Grandmas in Ukraine, for one simple example.

"Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times." The rise of the beta male is a scourge upon a free society, but the pendulum swings, and it seems like it's already starting to swing back.

That is true. But to think that the nation is led by the average ... I recoil at the thought. My friend, I think you really need to take a step outside of California, I think it's tainted your view of what America is. This is the land of possibility.

I agree. National bankruptcy might even be the incendiary spark that causes the national divorce.

Again, a house divided against itself cannot stand. We're about as divided as it's possible to get, and throwing bankruptcy on top of us is probably a pretty good way to have a lot of the country say "F this". A division seems inevitable to me. Not impossible, but inevitable. How it arrives, and across what lines, we'll see how that plays out. And who knows, maybe after a few decades, reunification will happen. There's precedent for that too, East and West Germany for example.

Sorry for getting so long-winded. I still believe the American spirit and great Americans exist, so saying or implying they don't is pretty much guaranteed to trigger me as much as Trump gets triggered when you question his crowd size.

 

At Harley board meetings they hold hands and sing, "Kumbaya."

 

I agree with everything here except the "It’s not good or bad". It's 100% bad, from a variety of perspectives. It's bad for the company, because this type of strategy often destroys the company. It's bad for the consumer, because first they get screwed and then their brand is gone from intentional mismanagement. It's bad for the employees, because the company they work for declares bankruptcy and is divided and sold.

It is indeed the reality of this world, but that doesn't make it any less immoral, unethical, or bad.

Tragic, really.

 

I agree with you 100%. By good or bad I mean how it affects us, or you. It is what we make of change whether it becomes good or bad for us. Yes, the company, the employees are screwed. But my comment was more to us on HD forums. We can bitch and react to these things we don’t like and go down with the ship, or we can recognize that change has happened, and move on to more productive activities while cherishing the good we had with Harley Davidson “back in the day”. I imagine “Jeep” owners are feeling the same thing, Remington 870 and 700 owners, and so many more my list would take us to the bottom of the page and still not be complete. Then there are bright spots, I hope, like Ruger taking over Marlin.

I do share a sadness that this has happened to a brand we rode and helped through many poor choices, but made that trip together. It no longer includes us.

I do appreciate your clarification. I’ve had it happen to very important manufacturers to me in my life, so I am no longer surprised or hurt. Just saddened. I guess I still feel there was a way forward and that opportunity was wasted when Jochen was hired. I don’t know how Levatich would have worked out as I thought he had a solid grasp of growing the business.