Before commiting to getting involed in the stock market I had many hour + long meetings with my potential stock broker guy. Not that I wanted to be an expert as much as I wanted a little understanding of things. The part I liked the best was the test he gave to see what kind of investor I might be. I was the low risk low yield guy. The other thing I liked was I saw the many year chart/graph of Budweiser, AT&T,Bell, and othe fortune 500 companies. Everyone w/out fail had up and down periods of adjustments. Its like someone posted here said, it goes up and down, up and down, up and down etc.. or boom bust boom bust and we're just living threw it. And he encouraged hunkering down for the long haul, ten plus years at least with long term investments. It was felt people who jump in and out and al over the place during a panic is not the advisable way to go.

Still say when Harley stock got down to 7-8$ a share you mothers should have grabbed some. Its up to about 17$ a share. You could purchase in lots as low as 50 shares or was it 50$ minumum, I forget. I got 75 shares. I just always wanted harley stock. Never felt it was because they were gonna give me a nest egg.

 

Plant closings are the norm for the auto industry and other manufacturers. HD isn't immune to economic downturn and they have to cut costs like everyone else.

 

I agree the unions suck. I'm a non-union contractor and I pay my guys good and treat them right and we work all year. In the D.C. area the unions are a joke. I hope harley does go south to a non union state. Also hope some of these mega dealers go down I'll keep my '03 ultra and my '86 FXWG the heck with the unions. Plus I wouldn't ride the railroad its too damn rickity. Have a great Memorial Day and bring our boys home soon and pray they don't have to work the unions when they get back!

 

If we are not buying what they produce now then moving overseas won't help. They are working right now to make that option much less attractive. I think cutting production to make the bikes harder to get and holding the line on prices for a few years would work better. When the economy improves things will pick up for them. But like you said, only time will tell, its a new day with a new generation of buyers out there. So in the meantime...its time to plan a mountain trip!