The power companies are building carbon free plants and investing in wind and solar power. You can see their results. Jerry claims the oil companies are spending a ton of money investing in alternative energy. All I see are record profits each year.

Remember what I told you guys a week ago?

Putin's Russia is proposing the use of an atom bomb
to "plug" the oil spill created by Halliburton and BP:

The Nuclear Bomb? Don't laugh, Russia's daily publication
Pravda says we should nuke it. True/Slant's Julia Ioffe translates the
piece: "In Soviet times such leaks were plugged with controlled
nuclear blasts underground... the underground explosion moves the
rock, presses on it, and, in essence, squeezes the well’s channel."

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/9-Ways-to-Fix-a-Catastro...
&
http://trueslant.com/juliaioffe/2010/05/04/nuke-that-slick/

...in the meanwhile D.C. is saying:

Oil spill may be hyped

Democratic Congressman Gene Taylor took a mocking from our
intellectual and moral superiors when he assured his constituents
along Mississippi’s Gold Coast that the oil spill would be cleaned
up naturally.  

"No Plan B"

All hope lays now on a 70-ton steel containment box while
BP is facing a barrage of lawsuits and clean-up costs soaring
above 10 million dollars a day... the 4 story "bell" failed.

...and starlifter is dead right, the media is NOT reporting this at all.

LA -

Your assumption is partially correct.  During undergrad, I was a flight instructor at Ohio State University's Dept. of Aviation, part time.  That income and my ROTC check paid for school.  I never lived off of "mommy and daddy" after high school, except my widowed mother allowed me to live in her rented house, rent free.  Then, after college, gov't employment for a while ( U.S. Army).

During law school, I was a construction laborer for 6 months, then I sold early generation estimating computers in the construction industry.  Then I worked for another construction company as a corporate pilot about 2 days a week, and spent the other 3 days in an average week doing finance work for the same company.

After that company went broke, and we were all summoned into a meeting to tell us we'd seen our last paychecks the week before, I got a job with the City of Columbus as a legislative aide for City Council, and then passed the bar exam and went into practice.  That was for about a year, and gave me my disdain of civilian gov't employment.  So, call those experiences whatever you will.

I have no really meaningful comment about Harley's problems - I'm not a manufacturing guru - some might say I'm not a guru about anything.

Jerry Eichenberger wrote on 05/12/10 at 13:11:35:



Of course the prototype was a monstrosity.  Prototypes are just that, an experiment to see if it will work.  44 years more of R&D and it  would have been pretty with leather reclining seats and AC.  Gas averaged 32 cents a gallon in 1966, but when the Arab oil embargo happened in 1972 with subsequent rationing of gasoline, and cars lined up for 1/4 mile down the street trying to get a maximum of 10 gals. of gas on even or odd days, development of this technology should have been a priority.  But our government did nothing.  44 years of advancing technology would have solved the issues they are now only recently addressing with this 50 year old technology.  I find it difficult to believe that Big Oil did nothing to discourage our worthless politicians from making development a priority. Or perhaps the Pols didn't act responsibly because they knew Big Oil would heavily fund  the Pols' opposition candidate's campaign funds.  But whatever the reason, government failed us once again.

America . . . RIP . . . Killed by Capitalism.

Jerry capitalism was the best thing ever until greed took over. Company managers are now fueled by greed. Jerry you look after your employees, thats one of the many reasons I respect you, but that is no longer the norm. Twenty years ago it was and we didnt need a national health care system. Then along comes computers and global economy. American businessmen are back in the slave market working Asians for $1 a day. Slavery is alive and well in America again. Jerry youve made the statement American workers want too much money but we deserve to be able to buy a home, a new car every several years, send our children to school and maybe be able to buy a motorcycle. I'm not asking to be rich, but I want decent jobs available so people can support their families. Big business no longer cares about their employees. Companies are controlled by get rich quick management and shareholders. America is the land of the middleman, we no longer produce anything. Harley is even threatening to move overseas, NOT because of union employess. Its because upper management tried a get rich quick Wall St scheme and they failed. I'm tired of American workers being punished all for the sake of big business. The company I worked for quit giving annual raises and took away benefits while upper management recieved 50% bonuses. Now they are outsourcing every job they can. Jerry if you are a decent lawyer you should be able to put yourself in the defendants shoes and see their side. Everything I say is the truth and deep down inside you should know it. Most of the people on this forum did what I did, scrimped and saved to come up with $2000 to buy a used Savage. 15 years ago there were 3 new European motorcycles in my garage. I dont need 3 European motorcycles anymore but it would be nice to be able to afford one. Jerry pull your head out of the sand and look around, there's another world out there besides yours that most of us on this forum try to survive in. Greed is now controlling capitalism and it is destoying this country.

Midnight -

I respect the dilemma you talk about.  Remember that I come from working stock - even though my father was a military officer, it was in the days when the military paid very little.  My mother was a payroll clerk in a factory for most of her working life, and they never owned a home except for a brief time when I was about 10 years old.

Greed is bad - no argument with that.  Like all questions, this one has a scale.  Where and when does a healthy profit motive morph into greed?  I sure don't know.

But to paint a broad brush and say that all big business is driven today by only an immoral greed is unfair, and not true.

I can't reveal the name of the company, but one large American clothing manufacturer has about 100 factories world wide, many in Asia.  They also have a large corporate flight department comprised of some biz jets with transoceanic range.

This company flies into the factories, totally unannounced, with inspection teams about once a year for each one - the teams are looking for any unethical working condidtions like child labor, forced overtime, shortened meal breaks, unsafe machinery, or other practices that are expressly forbidden to the contractors who own and run these factories.  This is a Fortune 100 American company trying its best to raise the standard of living for its workers.  Is that a part of the world wide greed of which you speak?  No.

Why are the factories in Asia?  Sure, cost of labor is a big part of that answer, but so is proximity to emerging markets.

Cessna Aircraft Co. is one company to which I'm fairly close.  They are manufacturing a whole new airplane in China - why?  Because they recognize the immense potential of such a large country as a market for their aircraft.  Sure, it'll be a while yet until China opens its skies to really free use by civilian aviation, since all aviation in China has heretofore been controlled by their military.  But Cessna sees sales of about 500 biz jets a year in China within a decade, and those jets are made in Wichita, not in the relatively small Chinese factory that produces a tiny, 2 seat airplane for the training market.  By building this little trainer in China, Cessna learns how to do business in China, how to adapt to Chinese culture, and where the market there is really going.  Just a small example of what can be viewed as "outsourcing American jobs" that, if things go just half right, will enhance American employment in the long run.

We'll continue to respectfully disagree about a few things.  But our mutual disdain of greed is a common ground.  Just please don't paint with such a broad brush and accuse every profit motivated business of dealing with greed as its only goal.  Try to see the long term effects, like Cessna has, and maybe your views will moderate a bit.