Harley Davidson

Over the Winter I commented on one of my more generic blogs about a Milwaukee based tea company that was striving for excellence, as so many companies in Milwaukee have been known for. I accentuated the idea with comments on Alterra Coffee, another company of high standards, built by some of my high school classmates. By those committed to the area, their roots.

When I was young and we moved to the suburbs, whether you call it white flight or suburban sprawl, when we wrote our return address on letters (do you remember when we used to write letters?), we always wrote 'Milwaukee' as the city, as did most everyone I knew who was in a similar situation. So strong the commitment to the area by its populace. I speculated that if not for such a commitment we would be Michigan, economy wise.

And now Michigan is attracting more jobs than Wisconsin. And an icon of Milwaukee, Harley Davidson, may be leaving Wisconsin altogether. The tax and environmental regulation corporate hell Wisconsin has become did not happen overnight. Companies have been leaving for some time and more are planning to as each month passes. Perhaps the loyalty of its citizens has become a detriment as Wisconsin is so far gone. I see little hope of keeping Harley Davidson in Wisconsin. And with Harley Davidson having worked hard to establish their museum here in Milwaukee over the last several years, you have to wonder if this withdrawal from the Milwaukee labor market, and all of Wisconsin, has been planned for some time. Building a substantial presence, substantial ties to the city, without having to tolerate union wages and a smothering tax burden.

Their closing of Buell Motorcycles, a company many believe had potential, may be part of the same plan. They still own the intellectual property, as I understand it, and could restart the company in another state or country.

And as citizen devotion has carried Wisconsin far beyond the point of no return, keeping market forces from responding to failed government policies forcing a correction, so has California's domination of our Pacific coast taken it to the same point. In Wisconsin, the continual loss of tax revenue generating jobs and companies along with a growing government that awards its employees with extravagant benefits and pensions far beyond what they put in, has already destroyed my beloved Wisconsin. Bankruptcy is not a potential future for our state, we have gone past that point. The state has done its best to cover up the fact but the reality can no longer be denied. Yet even now our Wisconsin government is creating incredibly large future obligations on the tax payers by looking to build mass transit that no one will ride.

Greece, and in part Spain and others with similar policies, has gone bankrupt with incredible ramifications for the EU that can be felt all over the world. How will the inevitable collapse of the economies of Wisconsin and California, as well as several other states, hurt the United States? And the ramifications for the rest of the world will be far more severe than those created by Greece.

So are the liberals, socialists or what ever label you want to give democrats just stupid, incompetent, without any idea of what to do, chasing LaLa Land dreams looking to leave the country in a complete state of collapse? Yes! And more unfortunately no.

Glenn Beck and others have been warning of massive inflation. Or possible deflation. There is no or. President Obama and the democrats are working to create massive inflation. Yes, they will claim they aren't, but that is only so they can blame corporate greed and the republicans when it arrives. After pulling a majority of the population into government jobs, or jobs that depend on government funds (what company doesn't?), the financial burden, not to mention the national debt, is to be relieved by shrinking their salaries through inflation. And with a depressed economy where else could anyone find another job, locking everyone in place, under complete government control.

That is how they see it, and of course it will fail. They have far overreached because control has always been their goal, not helping those they claim to be fighting for. There will be no private sector that could possibly be taxed enough to support this system (not to mention the retired baby-boomers social security and medicare), even with raising government salaries slower than the rate of inflation, all the while declaring these public employees heroes for their sacrifice. Their will be no motivation to invest in the United States. And Harley Davidson and other companies will eventually go elsewhere. Why would Harley Davidson keep the 'American Made' image as a marketing tool. No one here will be able to afford one.