First, an LBC question. I have a 76 1500 Midget that has been sitting for
about 2 years (Hey, I bought the car before I even knew I had a choice of
rubber bumper or no rubber bumper). I brought the car with me to the
Washington DC area from Hawaii. Enjoyed the car so much on the narrow,
curvy roads in Hawaii that I didn't want to sell it. I'm finally getting
around to getting it going again. I know just enough to be dangerous but try
to do most of my own mechanical stuff on all of my cars. I learn as I go.
I tried starting her the other day. Cranked away. Got spark but no fuel to
the carb. My first suspicion is the fuel pump... I think I have the
original mechanical pump. Will the pump go bad by just sitting there? I
know a lot of you have converted to the electrical generic pumps. Any
advantage/disadvantage to keeping the mechanical pump?
How can I know if the fuel pump is shot? Can I rebuild it if it is? If
it's not the pump, what else should I look at to get this car back on the
road?
Now... about this Stanley Tool thing....(no LBC... you can ignore the rest
of this if you want)
I guess we all have our biases and mine are some of the biggest... Hey, I
(and as many people as I could persuade) stopped shopping at Kmart when they
quit selling ammo, so I'm not going to deprive anyone else of his right to a
few biases. Just a couple of thoughts.... I'm not sure there is any legal,
moral or ethical obligation to organize your affairs in order to pay more
taxes than you are legally required to. In fact, if you are running a
publicly held corporation, you have a fiduciary and ethical responsibility
to your stockholders to maximize value (which includes minimizing taxes).
Since everyone seems to know that Stanley set up in Bermuda to reduce its
tax burden and no one is getting arrested, then the arrangement would appear
to be legal. If they are doing any manufacturing in the U.S.(or even
selling any tools in the U.S.), then they are not avoiding all taxes.
Congress doesn't always get high marks for brilliance, but they are at least
smart enough to make it more difficult to avoid all taxes than simply to
move headquarters offshore. What if I move my business from Hawaii (a tax
hell) to Nevada (where taxes are less onerous)? Have I shown a lack of
patriotism or ethics? A second thought..... in a publicly held corporation
(I assume Stanley is publicly held) the "fat cats who own the company" are a
lot of people like you and me. Pension funds, mutual funds, individual
investors, and employees of the company.
I guess the bottom line is that I would judge the tools on their merits,
i.e., whether you're getting good value for your money..... but if you feel
strongly about the corporate decisions, go ahead and make your statement by
not buying the tools. This is coming from a guy who no longer buys from
Kmart even when they have a great sale on auto parts. :-)
----- Original Message -----
From <TeachJP at aol.com>
To: <wsthompson@thicko.com>; <spridgets@autox.team.net>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 6:55 AM
Subject: Re: Hey Frank
> I believe that Stanley Tools is just moving its Corporate headquater's
> address to Bermuda in order to evade U.S. taxes, most of the manufacturing
> will remain in the US. However, this just means that while the fat cats
who
> own the company will not be paying taxes on their profits, the rest of us
> poor suckers will have to pay more in order to make up the difference.
It's
> nice to know that the people who run our companies in the good ole US of A
> are so patriotic to want to pay their share to provide us with what we
have
> in this country. I have purchased my last Stanley Tool.
> JP
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