Now Arctic Cat

In reply to Feedyurhed :

Most EVs still have radiators so the radiator manufacturers will be fine.

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

Part of the skillset of the modern CEO (And to be fair, many businesspersons) is their  ability to spout sheer nonsense while being paid vast amounts to drive their companies off the cliff. I remember watching an interview  with the CEO of GM who was talking about how they were all in on carsharing as the future of transportation. Yeah, maybe about 20 years after you die, but probably not even then. Think of all the things that you hear that don't pass the simplest test of common sense. What do CEOs, venture capitalists, politicians, car salesmen and carnival barkers have in common?  Everything.

Kind of makes one question the idea of a 'meritocracy' that we were all taught was the cornerstone of the work reward calculus.  

Feedyurhed said:

 my point is it's a new world........ how we grew up is changing.

It's been changing for a long time. Motocross peaked in the 70's, but we still have 500 members in our club, which are good numbers, and every day I see kids and young families out riding like I always have. Modern bikes are incredibly capable, and I'm sure sleds are even more so. But there's a price to pay for that. I bought new bikes as a teen in 1976, and in 1978 with my summer job money. In today's dollars they would both be under $6000, but it would cost me the better part of, if not $10,000 or more to buy now. The stuff has gotten too expensive.

I have friends that, every year after Christmas, they load up the sleds, go up north and spend the week. I can't imagine what that costs, between the gas to get there, the motel rooms, and the food, not to mention the beer.

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

golfduke said:

You're probably right,and if that's the case, I want absolutely zero part of that game... yikes.  I fully admit I'm ignorant to the goings on of high-level corporations... But it just seems so reckless to destroy a legacy brand due to ridiculous and unsustainable short-term market trends.  It's sad really...

It's pretty much how private equity takeovers work. They strip mine the assets of any company they can, shift debt and liability to it while still making it look shiny and viable, then drop it. 
It's like a spider sucking an insect caught in it's web dry, or those fungus that take over the brains of ants.


 

And the sad thing is that that could be so easily reined in by just changing a couple key laws that underpin it.  But that never happens.  

RacingComputers said:

Local Powesports multi line dealer had a 2023 Base KLR Listed for $4,995.

 

OTD $7,985

 

NOT

Probably didn't even include the requisite milk crate.

A 401 CJ said:

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

golfduke said:

You're probably right,and if that's the case, I want absolutely zero part of that game... yikes.  I fully admit I'm ignorant to the goings on of high-level corporations... But it just seems so reckless to destroy a legacy brand due to ridiculous and unsustainable short-term market trends.  It's sad really...

It's pretty much how private equity takeovers work. They strip mine the assets of any company they can, shift debt and liability to it while still making it look shiny and viable, then drop it. 
It's like a spider sucking an insect caught in it's web dry, or those fungus that take over the brains of ants.


 

And the sad thing is that that could be so easily reined in by just changing a couple key laws that underpin it.  But that never happens.  

I'm of two minds when it comes to that. Sure, people lose jobs, legacy companies go away, but those PE firms are not obligated to provide any of that. It's a business, if it makes money then what's the problem? Do you only agree with capitalism when it makes you feel good? I know there's more to it than that, but there's a lot of hate for PE that doesn't seem appropriate to me

I have friends that, every year after Christmas, they load up the sleds, go up north and spend the week. I can't imagine what that costs, between the gas to get there, the motel rooms, and the food, not to mention the beer and all the weed they smoke.

I fixed it to reflect my family........

Peabody said:

Feedyurhed said:

 my point is it's a new world........ how we grew up is changing.

...I have friends that, every year after Christmas, they load up the sleds, go up north and spend the week. I can't imagine what that costs, between the gas to get there, the motel rooms, and the food, not to mention the beer...

Gosh, that's almost costing as much as... racing a car on-track.

In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :

That stuff is so cheap up here now it's a non issue

I guess I'm spoiled racing motocross, it's comparatively cheap.

In reply to Peabody :

It's close to impossible to even comment on this without veering into the political, but I'll try to keep it as apolitical as I can.

The specific issue with PE in its current form is that it is purely extractive. You buy a company with debt financing that is the purchased company's (not your own - that's a huge difference), and require the purchased company to not only service the debt that you loaded it up with, but also pay all sorts of managed fees and special dividends to the PE company, potentially have exclusive purchase agreements for supplies at above-market rates with another company owned by the same PE company (*cough* endless shrimp *cough*), sell off any real estate (preferably at a discount to another company owned by the same PE company) and lease it back at above-market rates, and sell off anything else that's not out the door by the count of three. Don't forget to squeeze both the workforce and the customers until they're past crying uncle, too.

Bonus points if you manage to gobble up all businesses of the same type in a specific location within a reasonable radius so you now have a local (or even country wide) monopoly, so your customers are captive.

Now keep going until there's either nothing left to squeeze out and the company collapses, or if you're in a regulated industry the regulator might wake up and decide that you've taken it too far and shut you down. Unless you've been able to monopolize your business to the extent that they can't, because their "customers" can't get, say, oxygen concentrators anywhere else and they'd literally croak if the regulator shuts you down.

It's a purely extractive play, and the only contribution to society is the transfer of wealth into the PE company's pockets, ideally while leaving the instituations of whatever social safety net exists in the country that this is taking place to pick up the social cost. From an economics perspective, no new value is being created at all.

All of that is very different compared to investing into companies that are trying to build something new and increase their contribution to the economy, like a venture capital firm does.

Oh, and the hilarious part about all of this? PE is touting their alleged superior returns, but pretty much any reasonable analysis I've read is that the funds themselves tend to deliver lower returns at higher risk than investing into commonly recommended index funds.

Peabody said:

A 401 CJ said:

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

golfduke said:

You're probably right,and if that's the case, I want absolutely zero part of that game... yikes.  I fully admit I'm ignorant to the goings on of high-level corporations... But it just seems so reckless to destroy a legacy brand due to ridiculous and unsustainable short-term market trends.  It's sad really...

It's pretty much how private equity takeovers work. They strip mine the assets of any company they can, shift debt and liability to it while still making it look shiny and viable, then drop it. 
It's like a spider sucking an insect caught in it's web dry, or those fungus that take over the brains of ants.


 

And the sad thing is that that could be so easily reined in by just changing a couple key laws that underpin it.  But that never happens.  

I'm of two minds when it comes to that. Sure, people lose jobs, legacy companies go away, but those PE firms are not obligated to provide any of that. It's a business, if it makes money then what's the problem? Do you only agree with capitalism when it makes you feel good? I know there's more to it than that, but there's a lot of hate for PE that doesn't seem appropriate to me

There is probably not a bigger champion of capitalism on this forum than myself.  However, the way PE firms run and the way a lot of American businesses are run and have been run in the past 30 years, and the bespoke rules that they got the government to adopt, just for them, isn't capitalism.  It's corporatism.  How do you know the difference?  Easy.  Capitalism loves competition.  Corporatism loathes competition.  Capitalism drives long term growth.  Corporatism, and PE in particular, drive short term gains but are antithetical to long term growth.  This has to end.  

BoxheadTim said:

In reply to Peabody :

It's close to impossible to even comment on this without veering into the political, but I'll try to keep it as apolitical as I can.

The specific issue with PE in its current form is that it is purely extractive. You buy a company with debt financing that is the purchased company's (not your own - that's a huge difference), and require the purchased company to not only service the debt that you loaded it up with, but also pay all sorts of managed fees and special dividends to the PE company, potentially have exclusive purchase agreements for supplies at above-market rates with another company owned by the same PE company (*cough* endless shrimp *cough*), sell off any real estate (preferably at a discount to another company owned by the same PE company) and lease it back at above-market rates, and sell off anything else that's not out the door by the count of three. Don't forget to squeeze both the workforce and the customers until they're past crying uncle, too.

Bonus points if you manage to gobble up all businesses of the same type in a specific location within a reasonable radius so you now have a local (or even country wide) monopoly, so your customers are captive.

Now keep going until there's either nothing left to squeeze out and the company collapses, or if you're in a regulated industry the regulator might wake up and decide that you've taken it too far and shut you down. Unless you've been able to monopolize your business to the extent that they can't, because their "customers" can't get, say, oxygen concentrators anywhere else and they'd literally croak if the regulator shuts you down.

It's a purely extractive play, and the only contribution to society is the transfer of wealth into the PE company's pockets, ideally while leaving the instituations of whatever social safety net exists in the country that this is taking place to pick up the social cost. From an economics perspective, no new value is being created at all.

All of that is very different compared to investing into companies that are trying to build something new and increase their contribution to the economy, like a venture capital firm does.

Oh, and the hilarious part about all of this? PE is touting their alleged superior returns, but pretty much any reasonable analysis I've read is that the funds themselves tend to deliver lower returns at higher risk than investing into commonly recommended index funds.

That's one of the more succinct descriptions of PE that I've read.  
 

When the vast majority of the comments in the WSJ (The Wall Street Journal....not Mother Jones), are against how PE operates, it's probably time for an overhaul.

A 401 CJ said:

Peabody said:

A 401 CJ said:

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

golfduke said:

You're probably right,and if that's the case, I want absolutely zero part of that game... yikes.  I fully admit I'm ignorant to the goings on of high-level corporations... But it just seems so reckless to destroy a legacy brand due to ridiculous and unsustainable short-term market trends.  It's sad really...

It's pretty much how private equity takeovers work. They strip mine the assets of any company they can, shift debt and liability to it while still making it look shiny and viable, then drop it. 
It's like a spider sucking an insect caught in it's web dry, or those fungus that take over the brains of ants.


 

And the sad thing is that that could be so easily reined in by just changing a couple key laws that underpin it.  But that never happens.  

I'm of two minds when it comes to that. Sure, people lose jobs, legacy companies go away, but those PE firms are not obligated to provide any of that. It's a business, if it makes money then what's the problem? Do you only agree with capitalism when it makes you feel good? I know there's more to it than that, but there's a lot of hate for PE that doesn't seem appropriate to me

There is probably not a bigger champion of capitalism on this forum than myself.  However, the way PE firms run and the way a lot of American businesses are run and have been run in the past 30 years, and the bespoke rules that they got the government to adopt, just for them, isn't capitalism.  It's corporatism.  How do you know the difference?  Easy.  Capitalism loves competition.  Corporatism loathes competition.  Capitalism drives long term growth.  Corporatism, and PE in particular, drive short term gains but are antithetical to long term growth.  This has to end.  

The only realist way it ends if if people consistently lose money. The PE should take the loss for building at the unrealistic rate of production- but I bet they will pass that onto the suppliers when they go to bankruptcy court. That's the part that needs reformed- how companies can do really dumb things, and the only losers are the normal workers, not the leaders, when they go to court. 

alfadriver said:

A 401 CJ said:

Peabody said:

A 401 CJ said:

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

golfduke said:

You're probably right,and if that's the case, I want absolutely zero part of that game... yikes.  I fully admit I'm ignorant to the goings on of high-level corporations... But it just seems so reckless to destroy a legacy brand due to ridiculous and unsustainable short-term market trends.  It's sad really...

It's pretty much how private equity takeovers work. They strip mine the assets of any company they can, shift debt and liability to it while still making it look shiny and viable, then drop it. 
It's like a spider sucking an insect caught in it's web dry, or those fungus that take over the brains of ants.


 

And the sad thing is that that could be so easily reined in by just changing a couple key laws that underpin it.  But that never happens.  

I'm of two minds when it comes to that. Sure, people lose jobs, legacy companies go away, but those PE firms are not obligated to provide any of that. It's a business, if it makes money then what's the problem? Do you only agree with capitalism when it makes you feel good? I know there's more to it than that, but there's a lot of hate for PE that doesn't seem appropriate to me

There is probably not a bigger champion of capitalism on this forum than myself.  However, the way PE firms run and the way a lot of American businesses are run and have been run in the past 30 years, and the bespoke rules that they got the government to adopt, just for them, isn't capitalism.  It's corporatism.  How do you know the difference?  Easy.  Capitalism loves competition.  Corporatism loathes competition.  Capitalism drives long term growth.  Corporatism, and PE in particular, drive short term gains but are antithetical to long term growth.  This has to end.  

The only realist way it ends if if people consistently lose money. The PE should take the loss for building at the unrealistic rate of production- but I bet they will pass that onto the suppliers when they go to bankruptcy court. That's the part that needs reformed- how companies can do really dumb things, and the only losers are the normal workers, not the leaders, when they go to court. 

I bet you're right.  The leaders will not lose a thing.  Sometime in the last generation, or perhaps longer, a new paradigm has emerged.  One in which the "leaders" are rewarded with outsized profits and accolades not only for great success, but also for abject failure.

kb58 said:

Peabody said:

Feedyurhed said:

 my point is it's a new world........ how we grew up is changing.

...I have friends that, every year after Christmas, they load up the sleds, go up north and spend the week. I can't imagine what that costs, between the gas to get there, the motel rooms, and the food, not to mention the beer...

Gosh, that's almost costing as much as... racing a car on-track.

This.

My neighbor is trying hard to get me to buy a sled.

I might do it, just to go to the sled drags a couple times a year. Might be good for business. There's also no "broken down, miles into the wilderness at -20c." that way.

If I do, it will be used. Sleds don't need to be complex. They certainly don't need fuel injection. 

ShawnG said:

kb58 said:

Peabody said:

Feedyurhed said:

 my point is it's a new world........ how we grew up is changing.

...I have friends that, every year after Christmas, they load up the sleds, go up north and spend the week. I can't imagine what that costs, between the gas to get there, the motel rooms, and the food, not to mention the beer...

Gosh, that's almost costing as much as... racing a car on-track.

This.

My neighbor is trying hard to get me to buy a sled.

If I do, it will be used. Sleds don't need to be complex. They certainly don't need fuel injection. 

What I mentioned is just the cost to get there, it doesn't include any of the actual sledding, or the equipment, which is not cheap.

I have a 25 year old VMAX 500. It's all the machine I need.