Made In America..

[j-dub]

I think if YOU had a friend who has $2000 to spend on a bike, and NEEDED to buy one for sole form of transportation, and you told him to buy a Harley, you'd be a ******bag... just saying.

 

Spare me the latent homosexuality. Some people don't weigh 300 pounds, and actually like to make turns.

 

 

No, just don't be a weenie & don't be self-righteous if other people don't ride a Harley. There's a lot of styles of riding to the sport, and Harley only offers a narrow slice of the equipment.

 

 

i see your point, but you took the long road to saying it. you can't buy a harley engine for 2k, so why discuss. you have done nothing but show disdain for this motorcycle, so i defend. no need to get emotional, i am not slamming you. i personally know many female riders, the vast majority who ride harleys do not ride sportys, but the big twin, softails and the likes, they can get them pretty low. riding ain't about strength, or chicks who weigh 120lbs wouldn't be riding 800lb hogs.

if i was you, i'd look at mid to lat 70's inline 4's, good solid bikes and plenty quick enough even today. plus retro is cool

 

 

not yet my fuzzy friend

 

no train wrecks for this thread

 

[Searcy]

If you're looking for an American made sport bike you can look up some used Buell bikes.

 

Diamond Gusset Jeans are 100% made in America which is very rare.

 

http://www.gussetjeans.com/made_in_usa/

[Notes_Norton]

Proud to say it was made in the USA - IMHO the best super-strat on the planet and the best guitar I've ever played.

 

 

 

Notes

[j-dub]

Proud to say it was made in the USA - IMHO the best super-strat on the planet and the best guitar I've ever played.

 

 

 

Notes

 

that is one sweet looking guitar

[milod]

When I was a teen, I'd hang out at a joint my Dad called a "den of iniquity," which, of course, it was in that bygone era. I never once saw a woman darken the door; the guy who ran it was on the phone half the time handling a pretty big illegal sports book, the ticker-tape in the back end behind the beer, coke fountain and coffee bar kept information up for a blackboard with the bet-on games. Illegal gambling machines clicked away and there was an off-sale liquor area of the place.

 

We teens could hang out there if we did not use the gaming machines and if we behaved like adults.

 

Anyway, behind the bar was a huge poster similar to the famed Marilyn Monroe photo/movie where she stood over a grate in the sidewalk that flipped up the skirt of her dress.

 

Written on the picture was the slogan, "Advertise your business or the sheriff will."

 

I think that's where a lotta American manufactured goods are today. If they're quality, they should promote how they do this or that more efficiently and less expensively than cheaper items that don't last or aren't efficient. Unfortunately, they don't.

 

Unions? In Germany the union bosses were bragging to me on one assignment years ago about how much new business they helped bring into their company and how that gave more leverage for the workers at wage/bennie negotiations. They didn't understand the adversarial relationship of American unions and companies. Hmmmm.

 

The "Made in America" thing is really difficult because as technology changed since WWII, so also has a throw-away society become our "thing." The TV or computer quit working? Throw it away and buy another one that's the cheapest we can get with the features we want. It's almost the same with cars, non Harley or BMW motorcycles, etc.

 

Levi shut down their jeans manufacturing... did they promote "American made, tougher than nails?" Nope. They cut off Boy Scouts from financial support and sent manufacturing overseas to better support the San Francisco gay community. Regardless of one's politics it is invalid logic with no premise other than perceived marketing benefit and less cost of manufacturing. That's the sort of decision making that helped to take manufacturing overseas. Why buy a famous American brand import rather than a much cheaper store brand made in the same factory overseas from the same materials? Because they support your politics? I don't think so after a certain point.

 

I'm with those German union guys I did a story on those years ago: How about folks working together to increase market and do a better job sharing the profits as opposed to the absolute adversarial relationships we see in U.S. union shops and a lotta non-union shops that damages productivity?

 

Anybody wonder why we wear shirts and socks from China and figure Japanese and German manufacturing is superior to ours and why functional illiterates in the third world can put a pre-formed blue piece into a pre-formed green piece engineered to allow illiterates to assemble stuff?

 

As to raw materials and such, "we" always have had to import various raw materials and partially-manufactured goods clear back into the bronze age, so I don't think that's something that will stop.

 

The question is whether workers and companies in advanced nations can work well enough together to maintain a standard of efficiency and perceived value to their mutual economic benefit regardless of changing technology.

 

It's funny. Gibson is one company that has succeeded in exactly that. A few disgruntled employees, I'm sure, but I'll wager at no higher rate than in union shops. Oddly they seem to be targeted by the government.

 

m