Now Arctic Cat

In reply to Tom1200 :

5.4% a year is bad, sure. But not as bad as many other countries have had it. Or as bad as it was in the 70's. 

alfadriver said:

In reply to Tom1200 :

5.4% a year is bad, sure. But not as bad as many other countries have had it. Or as bad as it was in the 70's. 

I recently saw a number that made me kinda shocked...

At 2.3% interest, a $500,000 house was total cost of ownership over 30 years (interest and principle only) was $692,642.  At 5.4%, a $340,000 house TCO over 30 years (P&I Only) is $687,313.   That means that in the past two years, the amount of house someone could buy for the same monthly payment has gone down $160,000.   I think you would struggle to find a decent property up here for $340,000. 

So yeah, I agree that interest percentages used to be much worse, but 8.7% on a 36000 house (to use my parents' first house and 1977 interest rate as an example) is still only a a TCO over 30 years of $100,500.   That's less than purchasing power has changed in the past two!

Just something to keep in mind when comparing interest rates only :) 

ShawnG said:

I'm in most of the local dealerships once a week or so for parts.

The amount of inventory sitting on their floors from all brands is incredible. Surely they can't be moving that much stuff, can they? Do people just have money falling out of their butts?

The prices are nutty too, on all brands. 

There's a Cat in my shop right now. Whoever writes their service manuals can suck it. "Resistance between the two wires should be X" Where might I find the connector? Where on the engine is the temp sender? Parts breakdown just shows the sender, separate from the engine, rather than where it goes. Which connector in the bundle? Why can't you print the resistance / temp chart on the same page as the diagnostic instructions like Polaris does?

I went and looked at a job for some slabs at a dealer and saw the same. Like.......75 snowmobiles minimum in this tiny shop. On shelves, 4 deep and 3 high.

And this is a small shop in an area that they closed 150,000ish acres to snowmobiles in the last few years. It's still popular but I can't imagine selling anywhere near that amount.

Also hilariously after telling me that business was booming and I gave him a figure for about 25 yards of broom finish he told me that he wasnt made of money and sales weren't what he had hoped. This was a conversation that lasted 10min.

Also told me that he expected it to be about $500 and was shocked because " he had a buddy that told him he'd do it for that". Yeah, no and never got done lol

ShawnG said:

...The amount of inventory sitting on their floors from all brands is incredible...

The prices are nutty too, on all brands...

The law of oversupply and under demand. Always a losing proposition.

"I can't afford to discount it, I'll lose too much money." Like keeping inventory isn't losing more money...

alfadriver said:

In reply to Tom1200 :

5.4% a year is bad, sure. But not as bad as many other countries have had it. Or as bad as it was in the 70's. 

An economist once said "when the US gets a cold the world get's the flu".

I can't believe the number of people I see who've been utterly dismissive of inflation..............it's like they are completely ignorant of the financial crisis of the 70s.

We've hit on the multitude of ways that modern business hurts products that are luxury toys. 

Modern business rarely thinks beyond the quarter and current fiscal year. 

Companies used to stow away cash to help weather times like these, but that rarely happens anymore.

Public companies in the modern era use the good times to do stock buybacks to make their share prices look better, rather than keeping the cash for the bad times. 

Private equity rarely does anything remotely good for a business.  

Local Powesports multi line dealer had a 2023 Base KLR Listed for $4,995.

OTD $7,985

NOT

Textron is closing these plants but has enough cash to do a $200M stock buy back.  You know cause it helps the business do things and such.