JustRandy

Prices being up just means the dollar is going down. Venezuelan stock market is up 3000% this year. Your returns will be a function of how well Trump can compel the fed to trash the dollar with QE to support his fake economy. Homelessness is exploding, opioid epidemic is still raging, suicides are up, farmer suicides are 50% higher than in the farm crisis of the 80s. That's not indicative of a good economy. Unemployment is still the same 20% it's been all decade http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts One of the things I originally liked about Trump is that he pointed out that the unemployment numbers were a lie and really 20, 30, 40%. Now he's taking credit for what he previously called a lie. He also said the stock market was a "Big Fat Ugly Bubble" in the second debate with Hillary. Now it's the greatest ever. Just another lie to add to the list of 15,000. Boomers don't have the numbers to win it for Trump. It would seem even a potato could beat Trump. GA will probably flip blue since Stacey Abrams only lost by a mere 50,000 votes out of 4 million in a state with 10 million people. If Trump can't hold GA, he can't hold the swing states (PA, WI, MI) that he barely won by a collective 77k votes. I think it's less of a question of whether he will win and more of a question of how badly he will lose. And that is a function of who is running against him. Bernie would clobber him, but Biden won't fare as well.

I have 2 mufflers on my atv and now that the engine is quiet, you'd be surprised how loud the geartrain and tires are. The ticking valves, intake pulses through the carb and various pieces of plastic slapping together are really prominent now that the exhaust is silent. I too can't wait for an electric atv, but I think it's going to be louder than we had hoped. That reminds me when my battery died on my gasser which left me stranded on top of a mountain. I had to walk 2 hours back to camp to get a new battery which I had brought to power radios n stuff. Some irony there lol. The 250ex cannot be started unless it's in neutral, so no way to pushstart it down a hill. There is also no recoil or kicker. When the battery dies, you're done. But you're right.... I wouldn't take an electric quad out in the bush without at least 2 extra batteries and probably an extra controller. Heck, I wouldn't take a gasser in the bush without extra batteries, gas, and tools. One redeeming attribute of electric is the potential to charge it via portable solar panel. It would be slow, but at least there would be hope of eventually making it out. Running out of gas in a gasser leaves one with no recourse.

I'd like to give it a good home, but NYC is too much work lol. I draw the line at Corning.

Lower NY?

Is it the 250 or 200? How far away are you? I'm in GA.

Ah thanks man! Yeah if we lived close we could help each other out. Sounds like you'd make a good friend! I just want something to knock the berm down in the middle of my trails. Is the 87 the 250 or 200? Does it have the high/low ranges? Can't wait to see what this is going to be. Like an episode of American Pickers lol

Yep and that's what I have a problem with. I can talk people down a little, but then I start feeling like I'm ripping them off. I know how it feels to be on the other end trying to sell something for a fair price. I'm more likely to feel sorry for someone and give them their price than I am to get a screaming deal. Yes it's the thrill of the hunt. I can relate to that. Yes but I enjoy mechanics. I don't like it as much as I used to because it's like the same work over and over. But when I was younger it was all about learning. I'd like to find a Big Red trike in excellent condition.

Sure you can put less than $1500 and sell it, but to have a quad that's reliable on the trail always seems to require $1500. Idk, it's just a rule that a buddy and I decided we could never violate. He bought a 250ex for $100 from a pawn shop that was closing down, gave it to his daughter and still had close to $1500 in it by the end. I mean, it could be $1200, but close enough. (btw a high-comp piston in a 250ex makes a beast) I bought my 250ex for $1000 and put new tires on it, then battery, so I'm close to $1500 into it. I got my 300 King Quad for $100 and a bottle of scotch and have way more than $1500 in it (but much of that is winches n stuff). My quadsport was $100 and have $3000 in it at least, but it has a big bore kit, +4 swingarm, +6 a-arms and is more of a crotch rocket than anything else. My Lakota was about $100-$200 and after a bore job, tires, rims, battery, chain, sprockets, etc, viola... $1500. Usually a quad selling for less than $500 is going to need a bore job. If it doesn't, then the seller didn't know what he had or else the plastics are trashed or something else is wrong with it. Then of course if we're doing a bore job, we may as well do the valves. Then carb rebuild and air filter. If the quad is kinda old, then electronics start breaking down, so maybe a regulator is needed. And the brake pistons are plugged with rust. Wheel bearings are trashed from years of water infiltration. Shocks are blown, bushings are toast, ball joints and tierod ends are loose. And the tires are usually either worn down or rotted. Then all the cosmetic items like plastic and seat. Then we get the beast built back up only to find the clutch is slipping lol It seems flipping quads is less about mechanics and more about being able to get people to sell for less than what they want.

When my friend and I were doing this roughly 10 yrs ago, we found there was no way to avoid the $1500 rule: meaning that regardless how cheap the quad is, we're going to have $1500 in it in the end. $500 for a quad + engine rebuild + tires, battery, brakes, etc = $1500. One trick I learned the hard way is to always check the rod bearings before I buy. On the bayou it would be a cinch to remove the 3 bolts on the pull-starter and rock the crank back n forth. If there is play, it means the rod bearings are shot and the engine is worthless. A lot of quads were run without oil. Anything else I can fix, but rod bearings I can't fix. For instance a bayou 220 was run without oil and the cam was ground down, so I welded the lobes back on and filed them down square with the rockers. Roughly a decade later it's still going. Btw, 25 inch tires on the back of a 220 bayou makes the gearing about right.

If I were foreign to the US, I'd feel US affairs were of my concern simply because the US is the terrorist of the world butting into everyone else's business.

I was comparing the top rates of taxation, so 33% was correct. I got the corp tax rate from here https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/corporate-tax-rate Basically, they're taxing individuals more than corporations. Not all individuals, but the richer ones. And by the time you consider paying the 12% sales tax and whatever other taxes Canadians pay, I'm sure the corporations have it relatively easy. The US doesn't have a national sales tax, but the states are pretty close to your provincial rates, though some states have no sales tax.

I got to it before you edited it. Hopefully my changes to his post are acceptable.

You don't support freedom of speech? What does Trump or Obama have to do with your pay? Except that people found to have higher IQs as a child grow up to be liberals. http://personal.lse.ac.uk/kanazawa/pdfs/SPQ2010.pdf Liberals are also more educated https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282421724_The_Association_of_Cognitive_Ability_with_Right-wing_Ideological_Attitudes_and_Prejudice_A_Meta-analytic_Review While conservatism is associated with failed states http://davesource.com/Fringe/Fringe/Politics/Conservatism-and-cognitive-ability.pdf The evidence is based on 1254 community college students and 1600 foreign students seeking entry to United States' universities. At the individual level of analysis, conservatism scores correlate negatively with SAT, Vocabulary, and Analogy test scores. At the national level of analysis, conservatism scores correlate negatively with measures of education (e.g., gross enrollment at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels) and performance on mathematics and reading assessments from the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) project. They also correlate with components of the Failed States Index and several other measures of economic and political development of nations. Essentially, conservatism arises from calamity. Conservatism isn't necessarily a disease, but it comes from a diseased society. It's a consequence of poverty. The neurological differences are so pronounced that they can determine who is republican or democrat with a brain scan and be correct 82.9% of the time, which is the best prediction model available to science https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0052970 The amygdala is the part of the brain associated with fear which explains why conservatives need guns, military, strong borders, etc because they're terrified. The TPJ region of the brain is associated with empathy. And the liberals are taking over. Love it or leave it lol

lol yup. Mine is a 2005 and it was yellow, so I painted it blue. But I like your pepsi blue better. I think the engines are different sizes though. If I remember right, the 250x is 246cc and the 250ex is 229cc. The 300ex is a bored out 250x. I'm pretty sure the engines are the same, only the jug is bigger on the 300 (282cc). They bumped it up 36cc and added a starter. I guess that's where the E comes from in EX. I'm not sure which weighs more. My 250ex is 350lbs. I weighed it myself. My quadsport is a little over 300lbs. I can bunny hop it with the engine off. The 250x is probably in the middle of the two. The shaft drive really sucks. I put bigger tires on hoping to go faster, but it didn't make much difference... I'm still searching for 6th gear lol

That sucks man. The cotter pins won't stop the nut from backing off. I've tried nails before, but can't remember if they worked. If you get new hubs, hopefully they fit tight on the axle. If not I'd try to pack something in there to take up the slack. I've snipped off thin strips of aluminum flashing to fit in the grooves trying to tighten the fit before. It worked ok, but aluminum wears out after a while.

Yeah that's what I'm complaining about: blind loyalty and inability to admit error. I admitted I was wrong, you were right, so why can't others? No biggie... I learn and move on. I win some and lose some. After watching enough historical documentaries I've come to the conclusion that humans have a predisposition for blind loyalty because if the serf wasn't loyal to the lord, he was killed, and probably if he had a family, they starved or worse, so therefore any genes that got passed down were those who just obeyed orders without question. The Clintons threatened us with mediocrity. Biden's job will be to protect the opulent minority from the majority by giving the people the bare minimum to shut them up. That's why he said "nothing will fundamentally change" to his rich donors. So instead of socialized healthcare like you have, we'll have the cluster-fluck obamacare that safeguards the big profits for insurance companies and increases inefficiency overall. Costs will go up, taxes will go up on the middle class, quality of care will go down, but the important thing is that the profits for big corporations are secured. Sure, Hillary would have been a better president, but then the people wouldn't be fighting for a canada-style healthcare because they would have been pacified already with obamacare. We have to keep the people riled up with Trump to keep them fighting for a real solution. If the people are pacified with a half-assed solution, then they won't fight. That is the primary job of establishment dems, who aren't at all democratic (Biden is a republican who believes in states' rights). Hillary has "a heart of a liberal and the mind of a conservative" in her own words. In other words, tampons in the mensroom with tax breaks for the rich and nothing for the poor. That's why I say I can see voting for Trump as a protest vote being noble, but that doesn't mean one has to actually support Trump. I read somewhere that he didn't have to pay anything because Donnie was passed simply as a favor to Fred. What about Boris in the UK? How are they going to get rid of him? The electoral college wasn't what the founders wanted, but giving the states rights was the only way to get the states to ratify the constitution. The territories already existed and they couldn't threaten to abolish the territories and expect the territories to agree to it, so they had to reluctantly include provisions to protect the territories from the federation. The electoral college wasn't the best way, but the only way; a necessary evil. Madison acknowledged that while a popular vote would be ideal, it would be difficult to get consensus on the proposal given the prevalence of slavery in the South: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College#Background There isn't much I can do. I'm just a spectator. We have to wait for the kids to outnumber the seniors. As the great Max Planck, himself the originator of the quantum theory in physics, has said, science makes progress funeral by funeral: the old are never converted by the new doctrines, they simply are replaced by a new generation. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/09/25/progress/ I think you'd be surprised at just how much neoliberalism has infested the entire world since Reagan. Tax rates around the world started to fall after 1980. Click "max" and see: https://tradingeconomics.com/denmark/corporate-tax-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/corporate-tax-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/corporate-tax-rate I could fill a whole post describing just how conservative Denmark is. Denmark has a 55.8% income tax and 22% corporate tax. Does that look like socialism to you? It looks like neoliberalism to me. They value corps over individuals. On top of that they have a 25% sales tax, 8% social security tax and the employer pays 0. All the taxes are on the backs of the workers while the corps pay hardly anything. But Denmark doesn't have a military to speak of, so the tax revenue goes back to the people in social services which pacifies the people while protecting profits for corps. Canada has a much fairer system with a 33% income tax and 26.5% corporate tax, 5% sales tax, and the employer and employee pay the same amount to social security. (correct me if my stats are wrong). At least the corps are bearing more of the burden in Canada. The US is almost identical to Canada, except much of our revenue goes to the military and then to the corps instead of healthcare and education.

What would y'all think of me if I came on here saying nobody knows more about ATVs than me? Would you worship me? I really need people to worship me. The super genius of all time!

For prison? lol What I don't understand is how people who ordinarily despise liars are able to support the biggest documented liar in history; how people who usually defend women are able to support someone demeaning to women; how people who pride themselves on honest and fair play are able to support an unabashed cheater. I don't know what to make of that contradiction. How does one say: "You see that lying, cheating, womanizing dimwit over there? Well, that's my man! I will support him to my dying day!" How does that happen? How does one rectify that level of hypocrisy? Everything that everyone complained about the Clintons are exponentially worse with Trump: They said the establishment democrats don't represent the people and don't have the people's interests mind, and that they just lie to them to get elected. Well hell, Trump said he could easily balance the budget, but instead ran us $1 trillion deeper in debt by giving huge tax cuts to the 1%. He said trade wars are easy to win, then got us mired in a trade war requiring the farmers to get bailed out and prompted central banks around the world to make preemptive interest rate cuts to offset his dumbassery. He said he was going to make Mexico pay for his useless wall, but then took money from the Pentagon to fund it. Back when the fed was doing QE, he was complaining that low rates and cheap money would destroy America, but now he's wishing he could fire Powell because he won't cut rates fast enough to support his "strongest economy ever". And he led us to believe he had some special talent for picking talented people, as exhibited in his Apprentice show, but everyone he hires, he fires or wishes he could fire them. He's worse at picking people than flipping a coin! Then he said he was going to drain the swamp, but instead filled the white house with swamp creatures: He has a Goldman Sachs guy as Secretary of Treasury, an oil lobbyist as Secretary of Interior, a Rothschild as Secretary of Commerce, a pharma lobbyist as Secretary of Health, a coal lobbyist as Administrator of EPA, and to top it off: a confederate slavery advocate as Secretary of Veterans. You couldn't make this crap up! Essentially, he put Al Capone in charge of the cops. And the rest of his cabinet are religious fundamentalists that believe the earth is 6000 yrs old and the rapture is coming any day now. Well, no need for the rapture because Trump already claimed the title of the son of god! The messiah has already returned and he's paying off po** stars! In light of all that there is no choice but to conclude anyone supporting Trump at this point has drawn their integrity and intelligence into grave question. The only remaining defense is spite, which is to concede that Trump is a lying cheating nitwit, but that's good because he makes other people mad. Essentially, people are smearing feces onto their own walls to make other people mad. They're destroying their own world just to see others in pain. Once again I have to say it: support for Trump draws one's integrity and intelligence into grave question. I supported him in the beginning because he fooled me, and I didn't like Hillary. But I got off the sinking ship by admitting I was wrong after seeing what he did. Honestly, I still don't think I could vote for Hillary because those establishment dems have to go, and maybe I could see voting for Trump over Hillary as having a noble spin to it, but "voting for" and being "supportive of" are two different things. I might vote for the lesser of two evils, but that doesn't mean I have to support the evil that is lesser. To advocate Trump without even knowing who his opponent will be is proof that one supports the evil unconditionally. Blind loyalty should only be an attribute of dogs, not large-brained humans. But even a dog is smart enough to abandon an owner who abuses it.

Yeah those spines are aggravating. If you don't get that wheel nut really tight, a little play will develop and then it's only a matter of time till the spines go. On my quadsport I've done everything but weld the nut on to keep it from wiggling loose over time because my spines have play. Dad always drove cars standard trannies too because he thought automatics wasted gas, so he understands the concept, but on cars he can see what gear he is in while on the ATV he can't. With a car, he can leave it in 5th gear and come to a stop while pressing the clutch, then shift directly into neutral or 1st. On the ATV if he does that, then he's at a dead stop trying to find 1st from 5th, which is a pain in the butt even for me. I downshift as I slow down, so when I'm stopped, I'm in 1st already. Also when I'm riding I keep a mental note of what gear I'm in. He just doesn't ride enough to become accustomed to it and I find that's a problem common to people of any age. It seems there is a market for ATVs that are easy to drive for people who really don't want to become experts at riding, but just want to tag along with other riders occasionally, like dad. The 4x4s are too big and the Chinese ones are too small or they handle strangely.

You need a new regulator. It's a common problem on those machines. I wouldn't buy another one just like the old one because it will fail too. I called these guys https://ricksmotorsportelectrics.com/ and bought the biggest they had. I think it's for a Triumph motorcycle. It can handle 50 amps. What's happening is once the voltage gets to 17-18 volts, the CDI stops working correctly which causes the sputtering. Turning the lights on reduces the voltage to allow the CDI to work right... until you rev it up higher then the problem comes back, so you'll need more lights to reduce it more or a new regulator. The regulator is on the front of the machine. I cut the plastic to access it. When you get it off you'll probably find the back of it is cracked.

Thanks man. All manufacturers have something to like and dislike about them. I kinda think Honda gave up after the threat to ban ATVs in the 80s and then the 2-stroke emissions thing. No sense competing when the government is attacking them. Wow you're 76? Much respect man! My dad is 76 and I can't get him to understand the importance of downshifting. It's a common problem with people who didn't grow up riding: they get the atv into top gear then fry the clutch trying to go uphill. I'm always hollering "Downshift! Downshift!" I wish someone would offer a CVT machine that is small (350lb) so non-enthusiasts can ride. That said, the 250ex still has the original clutch in spite of everyone trying to destroy it. It's amazing how durable those machines are. And no one would ever guess it has push rods. The only trouble I've had is starter brushes, but I use the starter a lot. I ride to the garden (200ft) and shut it off, then back up to the house and shut it off, then to the pond and shut it off, then back to the house and shut it off, yada yada... I use it like a scooter or something just to save me walking lol. Brushes are $5 on ebay and I keep a stock of them in my warehouse.

I think Honda in the 80s was the standard for all others to be judged by, but since then my opinion is they're bloated and lackluster. Honda to me is synonymous with reliability and nothing more. Since the 80s it's like they haven't even tried to compete with Suzuki or Yamaha and have mainly rested on their laurels of brand recognition by churning out machines that excel at nothing except always working when you push the button. Suzuki had the quadzilla and where was Honda's answer to that? Yamaha offered the Banshee and how did Honda respond? Yamaha has 5 valve heads and what's Honda doing? What about the Warrior with 6pd tranny and reverse from any gear? Even going back to the 80s to compare the Honda 250x to the Suzuki 230s (the first fully suspended sport quad, btw), true enough that the 250x was faster, but the 230 had a longer stroke which meant boring it out increased the cc's more. If you bought a 250x, there wasn't much you could do to meaningfully increase power, but the 230s had big bore kits to increase the cc to 260 at 10.5:1 to run circles around the 250x. Then in 1989, Suzuki released the 250s which had a +1mm bigger rod bearing, meaning it would take a KZ1000 streetbike piston for 280cc in a 300lb (wet) machine. Another thing I like about the Suzukis is the top end of the 230 is the same for the 250 4x4 models and the 250s top end is the same as the 300 4x4 models. So if I buy spare parts for one, then I have spare parts for everything. And all the cams will interchange. I have a 250s cam in a 4x4 quad. And that's a quad with 15 forward gears and diff-lock! But the Honda 250ex is the quad I ride everyday simply because it excels at nothing which means is works for anything and, most important of all, it always works. I changed starter brushes 2 or 3 times so far and still haven't needed to work on the engine. It's a pushrod engine with no oil filter and a marvel that it can take such a beating for 14 years and never die. It's not the fastest, but it's fast enough for an all-around-quad. It can climb and descend hills that 4x4s can't. It can be pushed over logs that 4x4s need to winch over. And it doesn't get pinned between trees like 4x4s. Kids can ride it. Seniors can ride it. Even thrill-seekers can find fun in it. It's the best all-around quad on the planet. That's pretty much how I see Honda: the best at nothing, but good for anything.

Depends how you define "economy". If the economy is the stock market, then giving corps money will boost buybacks, which is a way of inflating the shares that the boardmembers own. It's essentially embezzlement. They don't create jobs, they don't invest in equipment, they don't raise the wages of employees, they don't conduct more R&D (because that's taxpayer funded anyway), but all they do is buy their stock back to increase the wealth of the boardmembers. If the rich get richer, where is the money coming from? If there is a gold standard and the rich get richer, then it's obvious that the gold is coming from everyone else because there is no place else for the gold to come from. Printing money doesn't change that fact because as more money is created to account for the increased wealth of the rich, it dilutes the money that everyone else has. (Your money is devalued in terms of house prices, stock prices, bond prices, classic car prices, art prices, and other investment asset prices. We could say the dollar went down in terms of those things since it takes more dollars to buy them now.) So if Bezos is getting richer faster than you are, then his money is coming from you. Capitalism is a synonym for exploitationism, but sounds better. If you capitalize on a situation, then you've exploited the situation to your benefit. Capitalism leverages against a person their bad luck to compel them to work for low wages. If people did not need to work to survive, they could demand higher wages. If people have to work to survive, then they are in no position to bargain and the free market is gone. Work is not voluntary, but forced, and that's enslavement for profit. They are capitalizing on the fact that people must work to live. As a former business owner, I'd say it's deliberately difficult to start and run a small business. Taxes, insurance, accounting is all a nightmare. They do not want you starting a business just like they don't want you collecting government checks because it does nothing to enrich the rich. They want you working for a wage so that you can be exploited for profit. Standing on your own through self-employment is not encouraged or it would be easier to do so.

Yep, it's the Red Scare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare Chomsky describes the propaganda here: There was no socialism in the USSR. Since 1918 the USSR was the most anti-socialist place you could imagine. It was the exact opposite on every point. Same could be said of Venezuela today.

That's the theory, but you have to wonder who will vote for Trump just because the alternative is too far left. It seems to me that anyone who voted for Hillary in 2016 will definitely not vote for Trump regardless who he's running against. I just can't picture the kind of person who voted for Hillary and then switched to Trump. The same can't be said of Trump voters. Most Trump voters in 2016 will probably vote for him again, but some of them will switch. Richard Ojeda is one. He's supporting Bernie, but might switch back to Trump if Biden is the alternative. I think we can conclude that people who voted for Trump was mostly protesting establishment democrats. Well, Bernie isn't a democrat. So although his idea are farther left than Hillary and Biden, he's not an establishment democrat and that's probably more important to ex-Trump-voters. The next question is what people will do who did not vote in 2016? Well, they are probably young. The 60+ group is almost maxed out. Retired people vote with consistency, but the youth are volatile. If the candidate doesn't excite them, they stay home and play video games. And the youth are overwhelmingly democrat. So if more people show up to vote, it favors democrats and it's hard to see the fact that a democrat candidate is too far left being a reason for a democrat to vote for Trump. The way I see it (which is extremely unpopular) is it's monumentally important for Bernie to beat Biden, because if Biden wins, then he'll probably beat Trump and we'll have 8 years of Obama 2.0, which fixes nothing and helps no one except corporations. The people will be happy because Trump is gone and the corporations can resume screwing us. Biden is the worst that can happen because he'll pacify the people (remove their will to fight for change) while not fundamentally changing anything. If Trump wins, then it preserves the will to fight and progressives still have a chance in 2024. That logic is based on the fact the FDR needed Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover preceding him to cause the mess that FDR cleaned up. If there is no calamity to fix, then we don't need a savior. So if the great depression didn't happen, then FDR wouldn't have been elected. That's why the "elites" support conservative democrats: they give the people just enough to shut them up while allowing the elites to retain power. The elites are fine with Trump too, because he gives them lots of power, but the risk is that the people grab their pitchforks, so it's better to have Biden, Hillary, Obama, etc in office than risk having Bernie come to power because they got too greedy with Trump. Bernie is who they're scared of. He'll slaughter the military industrial complex. He'll neuter the criminal justice system. He'll strip the power from the oligarchs and they know it.