It's no my ego. I know the facts. But I've been mean enough for one day. I consistently sold more of Fein oscillating tools and blades than any other company in the country, with a number of items available only from us in the US, and that included industrial models over a thousand dollar apiece - not a penny overpriced if one factored in labor expense and sheer performance. Had the biggest selection of true industrial Makita - was the first Makita retailer in the country, back when everything was industrial quality. Was on a first name basis with the leadership and top engineers in a number of these companies. Was on specific design teams with Festool engineers. Made the prototypes for a whole new more efficient generation of construction compressors. Some CEO's were remarkably knowledgable, some sheer idiot Frat president types; what inevitably happened to their respective companies pretty much verified which type was which. But how does one burn an industrial grinder that has a built in overload circuit and outright stops if it's overheated? All the serious ones do, as well having epoxy potted armatures resistant to abrasives. Makita makes everything from toys to some of the highest quality tools in the world. I take a toy grinder onto the roof to slice gutter, so if it drops and breaks I won't cry. The good one stays in the shop. As far as brand licensing, I once had a stern face to face conversation with the CEO of Metabo about it. There were experimenting with that idea at the time. It didn't last long, and only affected a few models. But right around the time retired, Metabo was up for sale, and it appeared the buyer was going to be TTI, the same Chinese company that destroyed Milwaukee in a matter of months and turned it into just another trash import line. Metabo was a grinder and rotary hammer speciality company, so never had anywhere near the product diversity or cash as Bosch, Festo, Fein, or Makita (all four of these are privately held corporations, so resistant to hostile takeover). Ironically, only two foreign companies, Bosch and Makita, still make significant quantities of commercial electric power tools in the US anymore. Sioux is still around as a premium US mfg air tool brand, but even they have a line of import cheapo stuff, basically identical to Jet. Metabo didn't make tools here, but abrasives. They started going downhill financially during the previous recession by following the other lemmings, and did something stupid - cut nearly all their sales staff and then discouraged the few remaining ones by working them to death while cutting their commissions. Put their worst food forward. I did just the opposite and sold more and more expensive tools all through that period based on the theorem that it would make customers significantly more productive, hence both happier with the performance of better tools, as well as more profitable due to greater efficiency. It worked, and my sales kept going up and up, while the competition was going broke trying to make a profit on cheaper and cheaper toy goods. It was like an arms race, with long lines in the store spending more every hour than most places sell in a month. Sadly, my post-retirement successors have reverted to believing business-school types instead, who couldn't personally run a hot dog stand. But the owners are a good honest family, so I still wish them the best, and the property alone is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, so they don't have much to worry about. But you get my drift and can take a punch with good humor, Donald. I obviously like good darkroom equipment too.