Reconsidering Happiness

Whoa!  My two previous posts on the current state of the Harley-Davidson state was clearly like a sad country song in an old rundown coffee shop, yup one of those “bummer zones” so, we need a change of scenery.
Speaking of, have you been to Nashville?  If you haven’t been to the Country Music Hall of [...]

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Harley Nurses A Flat Tire

My how things change.
A year ago with gas prices jacked to the $4.00 a gallon level scooter sales exploded.  Especially the 51 cc-to-155cc category as it was a break out year.  Dealers over ordered and now inventories are high.  2009 predictions seem to indicated the scooter party is over.
And speaking of party over… That “hissing [...]

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Harley-Davidson CFO Abruptly Resigns

I’m fascinated by the decline or some might say the “fallout” of the Harley-Davidson management team.
HD announced a couple days ago that effective immediately the CFO, Tom Bergmann was leaving the company.  Labeling the hasty departure with the all too familiar and politically correct words; “seeking other career opportunities” to describe his abrupt exit.   Mr. [...]

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All Aboard

The money train…. Wow … I think I just had a flashback. A warm sunny afternoon sitting on the hill overlooking the river. The birds singing in the trees, everything is so bright and colorful.  Oh wait weren’t we talking about Harley-Davidson?
Harley announced today its second round of job losses since the beginning of the [...]

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Risk Adverse Shoppers

Taking a page from the Hyundai play book, Seacoast Harley-Davidson and the Rochester H-D shop have implemented what is called the “Walkaway® Vehicle Return Program.”
Designed to provide a unique way to help consumers in a challenging economic environment (read: “Got laid off down at the factory…”) that offers up financial protection for the risk adverse [...]

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No Ho Ho Ho

On Monday (December 8th) the Wall Street Journal reported that Merrill Lynch CEO, Jeff Thain requested a $10M bonus. 
I was speechless!
Mr. Thain believes he deserved this bonus for “holding-the-loss-line” at Merrill to a staggering $11.67 BILLION melt down and then astutely arranging the pennies-on-the-dollar sale to Bank of America.  Sheez, I could have done that [...]

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Harley Dealers Shutdown

The sign in the window tells the story.  It’s not something that Harley-Davidson dealers have experienced since the 1980’s, but it’s starting to happen across the U.S. – foreclosure and going out of business sales.
Today it was announced that in Dubuque, Iowa, Wilwert’s Harley-Davidson is being foreclosed after almost 50 years in business.  According KCRG [...]

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Harley-Davidson Needs More Cowbell

If you have a finance fever then the only prescription is more cowbell – Guess what?!  Harley-Davidson Financial Services (HDFS) has got COWBELL, and when they’re done we’ll all be wearing gold-plated diapers.  NOT!
With credit markets in the deep freeze, financial details are starting to leak out on how HDFS aggressively went after a “lower-quality borrower” to [...]

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The Greedy, The Corrupt, The Stupid

I’m not an advocate for bailouts.  I think it means responsible people (like me!) will L-O-S-E and end up giving my hard earned money to gamblers, cheats and liars.  It doesn’t matter if you’ve been paying your mortgage….it’s now YOUR job to pay for others lack of responsibility. 
It’s reckless and we need to shout out [...]

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Cry Me a River Of Harley Dollar Blues

Harley-Davidson reported out on Q1′08 earnings.  They had net income of $187.6 million or 79 cents a share down 2.5% from $192.3 million or 74 cents a share in the prior period despite revenue rising 11% to $1.31 billion, from $1.18 billion in 2007.
The impact of the economic slowdown was felt mostly at U.S. retail [...]

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