reminds me of when hillary said "we will never win against China unless we take back the means of production"

  • betelgeuse [comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    That's weird, how can anyone possible use capitalism against anyone? From what I have been told the market is efficient and if we just let things play out, then the right people will get the money. So if China attracts investors, and investors flock to China, then they must be providing good returns on investment. If you want to stop that then you need to provide even better investments. You can't invoke the state to step in on your behalf to shut out a large part of the market. That would be bad capitalism.

    Hmmm something fishy about all this free market stuff, what could it be?

      • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Harley's marketing people must be the dumbest MBAs on the planet, they went through the "scrambler" craze with what is basically a modern version of an original scrambler dressed up with skulls and slammer shocks. All they needed to do was put taller shocks onto the sportster and a bench seat and price it competitively against the triumph and ducati scramblers and they would have sold a ton and gotten a bunch of people who would never buy a Harley in the door.

        • Pseudoplatanus22 [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          2 years ago

          They had Buell for a while, which kind of did just that. Then Harley shut them down, and sealed their own fate. The Harley owner demographic is aging steadily, and now they're starting to go for trikes instead of bikes - which Harley can do of course, but it doesn't bode well for the future.

          Edit - I just looked them up, and Buell are now developing new models under new management! I'll be interested to see what they come up with next.

          • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            The new Buell company is doing some interesting (but expensive) stuff, it would be cool if they can do something fun and not as expensive as a new sedan though. Erik Buell s doing an electric bike thing called Fuell now.

          • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            The XR1200 was a good looking bike and probably rides great, but it's too street-bikey in appearance (and came our right after the damn '08 crash). Lawdy if they'd bothered to make a proper flat tracker with a 19" rear wheel (and leveraged some tire manufacturer to start making a decent street 19" rear tire) they wouldn't be able to keep them in stock. Now that they've killed the Evo motor it's a done deal, but imagine what could have been with a factory Hooligan flat tracker.

              • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
                ·
                2 years ago

                There's some great sportster scrambler builds over on advrider.com, too. Check out Phil Little's tracker parts: https://phillittleracing.com/motorcycle/xrx-sportster-street-tracker-kit

                Of greatest note is the steer tube insert he sells to steepen the head angle to 27.5*, seems very cool.