Briggs & Stratton to sell most of its products business

[Hammermechanicman]

My biggest problem with election season is trying to clean all the mud all the candidates sling out of my TV set.

 

[bertsmobile1]

BTW, my cousin who lives down under, says that Australia doesn't really manufacture much. That almost everything is imported. How true is that? Our manufacturing is what made us what it is. But with China, Mexico and other low wage countries, $8hr is an upper middle class wage. Here it's a poverty wage.
You're right about one thing in particular, about consolidated capital not being patriotic. We had companies forcing their employee's to train immigrants, so that they could shut their US operations down, and move to the country of the immigrants. And they did it, just to keep their jobs a little longer.

If Briggs goes under, I don't think it'll be anytime soon. If/when it does, I suppose we'll already be well trained on the chinese crap, like Powermore engines.

If they can not refinance they could go down as soon as the end of the financial year.
It all depends upon the financiers & the shareholder pressure groups.

As for manufacturing in OZ, it goes sort of like this.
We have 2 main parties
One is primarily financed through donations from unions called Labour party .
The other is a loose combination of every union hating group called the Liberal party ( liberal they are not )

So when Labour is in power they throw money at industries that are highly unionised & Social welfare for the bottom end of the population
When Liberals are in power they try to destroy any industry that is highly unionised to starve Labour of funding & buy votes with los of middle class welfare.
Most farmers are in the Liberals through the Country party ( farmers hate unions ) so in the old days they used to manipulate the currency exchange in order to make Aussie wool & wheat cheaper on world markets . Now days they sigh "free trade agreements " that shaft manufacturers in order , in the case of the USA - AUST one , a few thousand tons of lamb into the USA some undefined time in the future.
We did the same with the China - Aust free trade agreement.

In the middle is industry trying to modernise but one side prevents them installing robots & the other side forces them to use contract labour

Then there are the banks
If I wanted to borrow billions to take over a company, no worries . If I want to do the same to develope land that I have no title over, again the sky is the limit .
But if I am a small manufacturer needing a few thousand to get past a market slump or a couple of hundred thousand to buy new machines , no chance unless you have at least double the amount in real estate the bank can hold against the loan .
When Stens pervious distributor wen down I tried to get $2500 from my bank to stock up on the heavily discounted parts on offer to stave off Allpower going bankrupt.
I have been bankin with them for 50 years and they declined because my turn over over the past 2 years was too low & I no longer own property.
And to give you an idea, they were selling belts that retail for over $ 100 as low as $ 15 each , spark plugs for less than $ 1 .

And the final nail in the coffin is elitism & racism .
All of the politicians are university graduates .
All of the public service managers in fact just about all of the public service full stop are university graduates .
Thus they all believe that a "mature & advanced economy" is a service economy .
The fact that a service economy does not create wealth, just shifts it from one pocket to another apparently is beyond their comprehension .
But apparently all those slopey eyed people to the north are too stupid to argue a legal case or add up numbers so we will be doing all their accounting & legal services , and pigs will fly.

 

[StarTech]

The only problem is that we still got to deal with the mess if it happens for years. Here I am still dealing with the companies that failed over 10 yrs ago. Matter of fact I just got in Husqvarna rider with a Peerless hydro LT2000 unit that needs disassembly and the darn jig is NLA so I got try to make one from scratch without the plans. What wrong is a simple fix but the jig is needed to realign unit on reassembly.

 

[StarTech]

My biggest problem with election season is trying to clean all the mud all the candidates sling out of my TV set.

I just use the mud to fill in holes in my yard...

 

[Hammermechanicman]

I am amazed at how many experts don't realize that foreign trade is what drives any economy. I make something, i sell it for a profit to another country, my country's economy grows. Been that way since there has been money. If the land of OZ doesn't want manufacturing and export then good luck with politicians and their programs. It drives everthing down. Can't tax bankruput companies or ones that leave the country.

 

[PTmowerMech]

I am amazed at how many experts don't realize that foreign trade is what drives any economy. I make something, i sell it for a profit to another country, my country's economy grows. Been that way since there has been money. If the land of OZ doesn't want manufacturing and export then good luck with politicians and their programs. It drives everthing down. Can't tax bankruput companies or ones that leave the country.

Trading with other countries is fine and dandy. You're right, it does help a lot. It creates a ton of logistics jobs. Ports, warehouse, trucking etc etc etc
Problem is, those countries that have near slave labor wages, compared to our own, we're exporting more jobs than goods.
Politicians keep saying it's the USA corporate tax and regulations that drive companies to outsource jobs.
And that's just BS. It's overhead. Period. End of story.
Take a American vs a Mexican company with 500 employee's, and the overhead it costs each one.

500 Americans @ say $17hr, 40hr a week. Just the wages (no overtime, no insurance, nothing but wages) It's $340,000 per week. Or $17,680,000 per year.

500 Mexicans, who's generously making $2hr (Minimum wage in MX is $5 per DAY (not hour)) is $40,000 per week or $2,080,000 per year. That's about $15.5 million per year in savings. And even more when you throw in all the American benefits like health insurance, SS matching, sick pay, 401K matching etc etc etc etc.. It's probably about $20,000,000

But, if an American company can't outsource, it take a beating from the Chinese or MX companies who import their products and sell it for just a little less than an American. If there was one currency for all the world, jobs would go where the best workers are. Not the cheapest.
This is something that no politician can address, because it would expose the near slave labor that's going on in MX, that drives them across our borders. And more importantly, those lobbyist who pay the MX and our own politicians to keep MX a huge slave labor country.

What's the old saying? "Follow the money."

 

[Tinkerer200]

StarTech - " even had one engine's heads to go NLA then to a pair and finally when a I got the one head that I was needing it was double in price."

Seems I offered you a way to salvage heads in another Thread which you apparently were not interested in.

Walt Conner

 

[tom3]

Plus these foreign countries have no EPA or OSHA or child labor laws, anything goes with those factories. Not to mention that China has been locking down raw material sources for the last 20 years or so.

 

[StarTech]

StarTech - " even had one engine's heads to go NLA then to a pair and finally when a I got the one head that I was needing it was double in price."

Seems I offered you a way to salvage heads in another Thread which you apparently were not interested in.

Walt Conner

Walt you can't save one that has a busted valve seat that I know of; unless, you know of Briggs part numbers for the valve seats use in the OHV heads. I mean there was nothing left of the seat on that head I needed to replace. As the head when to a pair for $145 then I got one for $145. PN 84001919

 

[bertsmobile1]

Trading with other countries is fine and dandy. You're right, it does help a lot. It creates a ton of logistics jobs. Ports, warehouse, trucking etc etc etc
Problem is, those countries that have near slave labor wages, compared to our own, we're exporting more jobs than goods.
Politicians keep saying it's the USA corporate tax and regulations that drive companies to outsource jobs.
And that's just BS. It's overhead. Period. End of story.
Take a American vs a Mexican company with 500 employee's, and the overhead it costs each one.

500 Americans @ say $17hr, 40hr a week. Just the wages (no overtime, no insurance, nothing but wages) It's $340,000 per week. Or $17,680,000 per year.

500 Mexicans, who's generously making $2hr (Minimum wage in MX is $5 per DAY (not hour)) is $40,000 per week or $2,080,000 per year. That's about $15.5 million per year in savings. And even more when you throw in all the American benefits like health insurance, SS matching, sick pay, 401K matching etc etc etc etc.. It's probably about $20,000,000

But, if an American company can't outsource, it take a beating from the Chinese or MX companies who import their products and sell it for just a little less than an American. If there was one currency for all the world, jobs would go where the best workers are. Not the cheapest.
This is something that no politician can address, because it would expose the near slave labor that's going on in MX, that drives them across our borders. And more importantly, those lobbyist who pay the MX and our own politicians to keep MX a huge slave labor country.

What's the old saying? "Follow the money."

What you are talking about is exploiting third world countries by first world countries in order to increase the wealth in the first world economy.
It is all about corperate greed driven by the consolidated capital model of companies to the advantage of the already rich in order to make their wealth increase faster and any body elses wealth .
If Americans are earing $17/hr then they can AFFORD to pay $ 5000 minimum price for a ride on mower because internal economics balance out.
However from day one we are taught to be greedy selfish and even worse wanton consummers so we want a 72" TV and we are not content with one for the lounge, we want one for the outdoor space, and another for every bedroom teaching our children to be greedy , selfish & intollerant to the desires of others .
We want a big house to live in plus a cabin in the mountains for fishing and a summer house by the beach plus an overseas holiday at least every second year .
However if we pay a fair & reasonable LOCAL price we can only get about 1/3 of that which is still twice what we actually need .
Even worse still is the wealthier we get the more reluctant we are to paying a fair price for anything and in particular taxes to run the country.
You won't find wage earners hiding money in secret off shore bank so avoid paying tax and to a person all of secret bank account holders could afford to pay 10 times the tax they are STEALING from the rest of the hard working people in their own country . Even better is when we pay what we feel is a lot of tax, then we hold the government to account for how they spend OUR money.
This is why we desperately need changes to company & tax laws.
Firstly the Tobin tax on currency transfers so that every time President Trump sends a lazy billion to his secret off shore bank account he pays $ 1000 in tax . When he shifts that cash to buy a Russian hotel chain from his mate Putin he pays another 0.001% in tax & all that collected tax goes to poverty relief in 3rd world countries .

The other big changes needed is to tax companies on their total turnover , not the 20% of the real profits that they declare to pay tax on.
This tax rate can & should be adjusted according to the type of business so farmers might pay 0.1% and factories might pay 0.15% while importers would pay 1 % & retailers 2 % or some thing along those lines so government could direct capital to where it does the most good for the country . This is how Westfield charge rent for their shopping centers ( malls to some ) space & how a tiny company became the largest retail space manager on the planet.
Next all bonuses paid to managements and in particular directors must be in 10 year redeamable paper so if they make big profits by running the business into the ground and it is not there in 10 years time neither is their bonuses which typically are big multiples of their actual salary .
Flat rate tax on every cent paid to an individual regardless of how it is paid . This kills the incentive to hide income to avoid going into a higher tax bracket and the rate should be around 30% which is what a lot of religions demand from their followers . Then the government can do the adjustments for total income via welfare so the bottom 1/3 are on an effective 0% tax rate because they are what really drives the economy as they spend every cent they get the day they get it . Government grants to schools per child & to municipal authorities for capital projects or even worse , making basic medical services free as it is in most 1st world countries in the world apart from the USA ,etc etc etc .