Harley-Davidson is Meeting its Fiduciary Obligations
Congratulations to Harley-Davidson for having the courage and common sense to refuse to allow the interests of its stake holders , employees , dealers and customers to be compromised by inappropriate short-termism . As Scott Wine said about Indian Motorcycles , Harley-Davidson is committed to seeing 50 percent of sales garnered from ‘ international ’ markets by 2027 . They have both set out that stall not because they are unpatriotic , but because not enough people in the United States want to buy their products at this time . As an alternative to simply allowing atrophy to kill their companies , Harley in particular has instead adopted the ‘ American Way ’ and decided to not be passive , but to actually do something about it and try to improve trading prospects . Sadly , that reality is that whether air-cooled or combination cooled , normally aspirated or fuel injected , cruiser style 45 / 49 degree V- twin engined factory customs simply are no longer the riding lingua franca of enough domestic U . S . consumers to keep the dividends flowing , the union fees being paid and the dealerships able to meet their steepling local property taxes and regulatory overheads . As publicly owned and traded corporations , they have a federally mandated fiduciary duty to make the best decisions they can at any given time to keep the lights on , keep meeting the payroll , and protect the investments their shareholders have made . It ’ s called “ capitalism ”. At best , failing to do that is called incompetency , at its worst it is called gaol time ! I was recently dissed by a reader , someone I ’ ve known for many years , for allowing my “ rag ” to stray into territory where it apparently had no place to be - namely politics . The occasion of his ire was when I initially first reported on the prospect of EU retaliation to U . S . steel and aluminum tariffs some months ago . Actually , politics first and foremost , is 100 percent about trade . Trade created politics in the first place , and its own first and most important fiduciary duty is to enable and enhance the trading opportunities of its constituents - a duty mandated by the needs of voters to be able to feed their families , pay their own property taxes or rents , and prosper in secure and rewarding employed endeavor . For good or bad ( and I believe for good ), society has chosen “ capitalism ” as the mechanism through which it will achieve these ends . Therefore , the responsibility that society has , through its governance , is to do everything it can to enable rather than disable corporations such as Harley-Davidson to meet its needs . If the board of directors of Harley-Davidson has decided that , given the present outlook and the time it takes to enable new production operations , the best decision it can take is to add production capacity elsewhere than in the United States , then the purpose of elected and government officials becomes not to ask
‘ Society has chosen capitalism ’
what the company can do for them , but what they can do for the company . It is simple - no profits translates to nobody going to the bank . No dividends , no payroll , no taxes being paid , no federal budgets for defence , infrastructure , healthcare or anything else . Don ’ t get me wrong , those who know me know that my politics comes from all over the radar . It is my firm belief that anybody who claims that they have all the answers , whether on the right or the left , patently has none of the answers . The reality of politics , as in life , is that there is no monopoly on wisdom . It is perfectly possible for all politicians to actually have some good ideas , and for all parties to do some good things . If I have a driving force that is the default that I fall back on as my litmus to calibrate how I think of an issue , it is trade . What promotes trade , where the best interests of trade are to be found and how to further foster trade . That ’ s why , of all the media and publishing specialties available to me , I gravitated towards trade journal publishing . For me trade is the first gear on the car of progress . Production of surplus , known nowadays as the profit , is what set mankind off on this journey , and I simply think that the primary responsibility of politicians , the primary defining characteristic of good governance is to do exactly that – encourage the making of profits from trade . Simple . So why , in my own country as well as in the United States , are we led by politicians who appear to have no grasp of economics 101 ? If you think I ’ m just a pinko liberal having a pop at President Trump , no , I ’ m not .
I ’ m having a pop at all of them . I ’ d actually trade Trump for our Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson – did you hear about his “ f %&£ business ” remark as he prepares to be part of the team that is soon to conclude our ( in my humble opinion misguided ) negotiations to leave the European Union ? As I said , nobody has a monopoly on wisdom and everybody is just as equally capable as the next man or woman of being dumb sometimes . Is it too much to simply ask to have some maturity , balance , knowledge , understanding and context in how the affairs of governance are conducted in the 21st Century ?
Robin Bradley Co-owner / Editor-in-Chief robin @ dealer-world . com