Comparison Yanmar lawsuit.

[NHmitch]

I have been following your thread, and I really hope that this turns out for the better, and these great red yanmars can still be sold. I have looked at them many times, and I bought a Bolens g154 Tractor made by Iseki, another Japanese company with a very similar history to Yanmar. They still make tractors for Cat, and New Holland in the US. My tractor was rebranded as a Bolens, and painted white, and the only changes they made was adding a pto shield, and the throttle gets pushed forward to accelerate, and pulled back to slow the engine, unlike the Iseki models in Japan. The funny thing is beside these small changes, I still have a 3 speed PTO with PTO speeds only seen on Japanese tractors, and my tractor did not originally come with ROPS, but that was in the early 1980's when it was manufactured. It is not considered a grey, only because it was imported/rebadged by Bolens under contract, but if you were to paint my tractor blue, you would have a grey market model for sure. Its really sad that their has to be law suits like this that essentially hurt the small guy, and the american farmer/homeowner. In America we are loosing 1 acre of farm land per minute, every day. Those are real numbers. How do they expect farmers, and small family farm operations to afford to buy a 20K plus machine, when you already are worried about your mortgage, and just getting by day, to day. We need to do some serious rethinking about how we look at frivolous lawsuits in this country that can have a potential devastating impact on small farm operations. The just passed the farm bill, maybe this legislation should include a grant to upgrade all existing tractors in the US, that do not meet the current US safety standards, regardless of who made them, or where they were made. We have the money, it would be a drop in the hat compared to how we bail out other industries, and we would be keeping our citizens, families, and the future of this country safe, at a relatively small cost. I received a grant for ROPS that is only available in NY, NH, VT, and PA. They allow grey market tractors, and encourage them to be retrofitted, and they maintain a database of suppliers that will outfit your grey with an osha certified rops. I think that this should be the focus, and not a trademark infringement, because these tractors were legally produced under the Yanmar name, yes for use in other countries, but a tractor is a tractor, and a grey can be retrofitted to meet the current US standards just like any other vehicle, be it a tractor, a car, or an aircraft. If anyone want the ROPS information, it is listed below. Good luck, and I hope that this works out well for you guys. I had hoped to buy a nice YM someday too..
This is the grant site:
Rollover Protective Structure ROPS Retrofit Program

This is the site that lists the ROPS for your yanmars:

ROPS

 

[clemsonfor]

Back to basics. I thought everybody understood this: We The People created government to do those things that are done for the good of all citizens. And We The People voted to tax ourselves to fund this work that we have delegated to our government to accomplish. It seems ignorant to me to claim that the government itself does nothing. In a democracy (or republic if you choose) the government is us. It's not a 'them'.

Most of our problems with this is there is more "them" than us. By that i mean when you look at the ratio of americans that pay ZERO federal tax its right at half. Heard yesterday there are 100 million americans getting somesort of welfare check, thats 1 in 3 people, which according to census data (looked it up, and 24% of population is under 18) that puts the ratio of adults receiving a welfare check at almost 50%(236Mill)!! And that will only go up with the proposed gutting of medicare reform (given to us by democrats and now our current one is removing in??)

What im getting to is that its going to be hard to VOTE to change anything with that many folks depending upon big brother to supply their daily bread and shelter etc. People dont want to take responsibility, and with the huge increase in foodstamp rolls and them trying to go out and sign up more (i am for it where a family actually has hungry kids and is struggling to make ends meet, not permanant residents to the system), this will only increase. Folks look out for them selves and there not going to vote their party that "gave" them all this out of office, especially when they say "oh the other guy wants to kill granny starve your kids poison the air" etc. They have proven most beleive anything they hear a politition say esp when its "their" polotition of choice.

 

[Car Doc]

The whole "road" thing is so deep its not even arguable its pure fantasy.

Its talk thats designed to cause the non self motivated non thinking individuals among us to stop and say "ooh I never thought about it like that maybe the government is right" and leave it at that never reason it out for their self's for the pure cow crap it is. IMO that is what has been and always will be wrong with this country. my .002 ymmv as always

 

[California]

No, the government isn't right, in this present era. We need to vote in a much better quality of people to represent us.

And its up to us as individuals to do it, nobody else will. Presently government serves only the 'stakeholders', those who have put up huge amounts of money to pay for the political ads - and consider that to be an investment, a business expense.

 

[284 International]

I think this may be wandering (understandably) from the original topic of grey market lawsuits, but I can't help making a few observations.

Countries like the US, Japan, Germany, etc function function because of specialization in a society. The history of mankind is the story of developing the ability to generate surplus, at first of essentials like food, and eventually things with perceived rather than innate value. (Pretty beads or iPads rather than food or animal hides for warmth) Once a single person could grow enough food to support several people, these other people could do useful things in exchange for their services or products. I may knap you some arrowheads, for instance, or trade honey for baskets. This obviously carries through to the current day.

The statement made by the president is incendiary to those who have built a business from the ground up, risking their own money, on their own time, with no protection should they fail or struggle. Nobody else took any risk when startup company A was formed. But, as California pointed out, there is more to the story.

While the risks are all on the intrepid businessman with the idea, it is only civil society that allows things like this to develop. Some of the first first signs of civilization were walled cities, to separate "us" from "them," because the lure of this massive surplus generated by cooperative specialization drew the barbarians to plunder. At first houses were built touching one another, with their exterior walls forming the barriers, but eventually an organization was needed to build bigger, longer, higher, stronger walls, because the barriers were to the benefit of all.

Foundations of civil society require the government to do useful things that individuals cannot do for themselves, and is also predicated on individual specialization. Cardoc's shop needs power. He could generate his own electricity. He may be able to build his own generator, but likely cannot both mine the materials, cast them, machine them, bore for oil, and then refine the petroleum into useful fuel. He took all the risks in his business, as I did when I first was a framing contractor. But I didn't make my own nails, or saw my own lumber. I had "help" in the form of the remainder of society.

I know I can drink the water from my tap because many other people have drilled hundreds of miles of tunnel and piped water from the Sacramento and Colorado rivers, the filtered and treated it in a way that lets me turn a knob and get potable water at will. We help each other, and this is good, I think. It is misleading and politically manipulative to imply that because we live in society we are entitled to a cut of everyone's success. But the massive accumulation of wealth possible in civilized countries today is ONLY because of the help those individuals and companies have received. Otherwise, criminals, the poor, the selfish, or anyone whom felt like it could take it by brute force, with no recourse part from their own ability and willingness to do violence upon the thieves.

The way we find balance between protecting each other because we all benefit against the relative burden that protection inflicts is the fundamental question of government. We have, as a society, decided that border patrol agents and soldiers are less valuable than water plant managers or highway department supervisors for a variety of reasons most can figure out. Similarly, we believe teachers are less valuable in their labor than physicians or attorneys. The help we provide by learning to do something useful is the cornerstone that enables society to grow and flourish.

I think most here are more alike than different in their belief about the basic principles of what we all want. The details may vary some, and there may be disagreement over the particular avenue of best results, but nobody wants to live in Somalia. Or Haiti. Those places fail because whenever people begin to help one another in cooperative society that fabric is destroyed, through one means or another.

We shouldn't denigrate or diminish the success of businesses in taking risks for which only they are responsible, but we also shouldn't pretend that having even the fouled up court system we use isn't better than no legal system other than tribal warfare, ala Afghanistan.

In my opinion, and all that. I sure like this section of the forum.

 

[California]

This is the site that lists the ROPS for your yanmars:

ROPS

Thanks for posting that! I didn't know there was a comprehensive ROPS database for all (?) old tractors found in the US.

The manual for my Hoye (Fredricks) ROPS indicates it was built by a US longtime, large specialist in protective structures. I think it is likely that this same firm was the supplier to Yanmar-USA back in the day.

 

[California]

The statement made by the president is incendiary ...

While the risks are all on the intrepid businessman with the idea, it is only civil society that allows things like this to develop.

Just a couple of comments - first, when the President said 'you didn't build that', his 'that' was the civil society. All the same stuff described in 284's post, and mine. I've heard there was a dishonest political ad that edited out a couple of paragraphs to appear he said 'that' to refer to individual businesses.

Second, its good to see the other candidate understands and supports what our President said:

As he spoke Tuesday, the former Massachusetts governor came close to agreeing with the president.

"Of course he describes people who we care very deeply about, who make a difference in our lives: schoolteachers, firefighters, people who build roads, Romney said, summarizing the president's remarks. We need those things. We value schoolteachers, firefighters, people who build roads. You really couldn't have a business if you didn't have those things. But you know, we pay for those things we pay for them, and we benefit from them, and we appreciate the work that they do, and the sacrifices that are done by people who work in government, but they did not build this business."

Source: L.A. Times, a generally Republican-leaning paper. Another analysis of the quote, Tampa Bay Times

 

[clemsonfor]

California, i saw a clip and heard many of the so called u didnt build it speech. Even if you beleive what you said, others still say that was roads and bridges, it seems to be a back step to me and a froidien slip (my spelling is horrible). OK even if you beleive that, he STILL said in context that a successfull business owner is no smarter or works no harder than an average "worker" person. I seriously would have to dissagree with this statement. Sure there are many who are handed over a pile of money and a successful business from dad run by good people where all they have to do is play golf, fish , hunt, drive a tractor, chase women, whatever. But there are also a whole lot more folks including that guys dad that DID work harder than others.

Since were talking car doc here, and he is in on this and i know he owns his biz and works for himself and has also mentioned having employees in the past... I gaurantee you he worked harder and longer hours than his employees did. I bet he was there first turned on the lights opened the doors and was doing something when the first guy arrived. And even if he walked out the door that same day as Doc i bet doc either went to the house paid bills or cut the grass at the shop. During the day doc probly took all the hard jobs and gave simpler stuff to the employees just cause he had to to stay profitable. Is this cause he was smarter or had more exp, probably both.

It takes a different person to put it all on the line and start their own business. Where you dont know where the next days money comes from, vs just showing up and knowing you will get paid as long as the boss keeps work lined up.

 

[Car Doc]

Yes thanks Clemson you are correct! In my case we also cashed in every savings bond and annuity and IRA in order to keep my people in a job over the winter and when times were tough. They are worse now than ever I couldn't afford help if they worked for minimum wage.

What annoys people like me when someone like the president say what he did is the government is a small businesses enemy and I dont mean that lightly. We pay lots of fees and taxes that the average person is unaware of.

If anything the government make it very hard to survive with a profit. Work comp for instance is not an employee tax, unemployment insurance is not an employee tax it goes on and on we have OSHA you name it costs of doing business.

Mr president doesn't know what a hard working person is he couldn't even find where they have been he has never had a real job and doesn't know what work really amounts to.

For instance: My wife cleans houses and a couple big offices after hours and weekends when the hourly and salary people are at home etc as her self employment and was a waitress all her life isn't one now but she irons every nite including weekends she puts in every bit of 80 hour weeks no exaggeration.

When she last worked as a waitress just a few years ago she had to pay 8% of her gross tickets as a tax. Now think about that......she was getting $2.50 an hour per shift and paying the employer to the state 8% of her gross tickets and that was whether she got tips or not (how many of you tip well???) so when the pres says he knows something about hard work I want to spit. She was in the hole at that restaurant more than ahead and she quit she had to. The government is so obsessed with taxing the cash tips etc they are killing the little people I will never apologize for them.

Oh and I am on my 3rd insurance company since this ***** care crap started Blue cross got up to $1k a month so I dropped me off and kept her on. I dont even have insurance now all I can afford is 5k deductible 50/50 and I burnt my face and hand fairly badly recently setting a burn pit with gasoline on fire now I cant re-apply for insurance for 6 MONTHS **** with it I am going to wait it out and see what happens and start over I guess.

Oh and I forgot those of us who actually made any money to spare and legally follow the tax code are actually crooks in fact most anyone with money is a crook that is another arrogant statement or stand point.

 

[California]

That wording in that speech wasn't ideal. It was vague enough to allow his meaning to be twisted by others to something he never intended. I still take his words to mean an individual has more opportunity to be successful in our complex society compared to other countries. And that we need to continue to support education etc so the next generation will again have the opportunities that seem to have disappeared since the 2008 crash. The image of ***** dissing small business is a made-up invention of Republican propaganda.

I wasn't a government employee all my life. I started at 35 after finishing grad school. My own small business was a gamble that worked out as I had planned. It earned me the money to attend grad school full time and graduate without debt. Yes I've met a payroll. And I have the greatest respect for individual business owners. BTDT.