More on the Gibson raid

[Dave W]

India has banned export of rosewood?  Geez, how will they survive?  You can't live forever on customer service bull pens.

Not a permanent ban, evidently. According to the raid affidavit, they put a moratorium on the export of rosewood and ebony beginning in August 2009 and lasting until sometime in 2014. There's an exception for veneer under 6mm.

Finished products aren't covered. So I suppose the plan is to encourage manufacturing products there.

[drbassman]

Not a permanent ban, evidently. According to the raid affidavit, they put a moratorium on the export of rosewood and ebony beginning in August 2009 and lasting until sometime in 2014. There's an exception for veneer under 6mm.

Finished products aren't covered. So I suppose the plan is to encourage manufacturing products there.

Interesting.  If I can't use Indian rosewood, I'll use whatever is available.  Wood is a renewable resource.  Sounds like forestry management is lame in India.

[OldManC]

Factories and/or manufacturing in the U.S. have been up against increasing regulation and environmental hurdles since the early 70's if not before. Vilifying companies for moving off shore is only going to take this thread even further down political paths we've agreed to avoid here. This thread is fine as long as it's focusing on Gibson's immediate issues and a small amount of politics is probably unavoidable within that discussion, but let's please leave the rest for other forums where political commentary is allowed or encouraged.

[eb2]

Tough call on this one. Gibson's defense is that there is a political component.  That seems to pump a lot of blood for the folks who believe in that is a load coming from a typical biz criminal.  After Firebird X, I have a hard time with the guy.  All arguments and Media Matters or Fox sourced info aside, I wouldn't be surprised if there were or there weren't.  But the politics are part and parcel of the whole shebang.  So considering the players, I will wait and see. 

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Interesting.  If I can't use Indian rosewood, I'll use whatever is available.  Wood is a renewable resource.  Sounds like forestry management is lame in India.

Rosewood is a 'trash tree' there, much like Locust here, grown to shade tea plantations. The trees are all harvested when they get to certain age. They're exceedingly well managed; India just knows what it has. There used to be some large international guitar manufacture there (Jackson, pre-Fender) for inexpensive instruments that left for East Asia and has never returned. My guess is that India is trying to bring it back when China's manufacturing costs rise.

Factories and/or manufacturing in the U.S. have been up against increasing regulation and environmental hurdles since the early 70's if not before.

Even though this idea has widespread acceptance in the guitar community, it, for the most part, is not true. Aside from finish formulations and disposal methods, guitar manufacturing suffered ZERO impact from any so-called environmental regulation. It's commercial carpentry, and I can say for certain that all the furniture factories where I am from made their product almost exactly the same way they did 40 years ago. I'm sure Carlo will echo this as well. They only shut down the factories here (Berkline finally closed last year) to move them to Mexico for cheaper labor. The same BS was shovelled by Aspen Pittman in regards to tubes, too. The truth is that transistor manufacture is much more toxic and strictly regulated, but that didn't stop him from knowingly lying about it either. I'm not saying you are being dishonest, (Pittman KNEW the truth) but your belief is misinformed.

Vilifying companies for moving off shore is only going to take this thread even further down political paths we've agreed to avoid here. This thread is fine as long as it's focusing on Gibson's immediate issues and a small amount of politics is probably unavoidable within that discussion, but let's please leave the rest for other forums where political commentary is allowed or encouraged.

Factual topical discussion doesn't seem to be a problem. Your own relative impartiality speaks to that.

OTOH:

But the politics are part and parcel of the whole shebang.  So considering the players, I will wait and see.  

Seriously? What is your basis for this?

[Dave W]

I haven't seen a shred of evidence that this investigation has anything to do with politics. The more I see Henry trying to turn it political, the more I think he knows he violated the law. He's just setting up a political defense in advance, in case he's indicted.

Did anyone catch Henry's slip in this article?

"We've had a lot of our raw materials seized, and it's really hard to come up with alternatives in a very short period of time," he said. "So we're not producing the guitars that our customers necessarily want, we're just producing whatever we can get materials for."

Wait a minute, Henry -- so now you admit those rough sawn fretboard blanks really are raw materials, and not finished products like the approval form says?

[Dave W]

Rosewood is a 'trash tree' there, much like Locust here, grown to shade tea plantations. The trees are all harvested when they get to certain age. They're exceedingly well managed; India just knows what it has. There used to be some large international guitar manufacture there (Jackson, pre-Fender) for inexpensive instruments that left for East Asia and has never returned. My guess is that India is trying to bring it back when China's manufacturing costs rise.

That could be the motive. In any case, you're right about the rosewood being plantation grown to shade plantation tea trees. That's one of the reasons it was considered so inferior to Brazilian rosewood.

Yet when this whole thing started, Gibson put out a video where an endorsing artist was talking about how these rare woods are what makes a Gibson a Gibson. Yeah, right.

[drbassman]

Good to know Indian rosewood is plentiful, now I don't feel so bad.  Maybe the Lacey Act is just stupid and needs repealing.  Either way, we'll never resolve it here.  It's Henry's problem.  I hope it all works out, I still like Gibson and their products, even if they are rife with contraband wood.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Maybe the Lacey Act is just stupid and needs repealing.

...and far more likely, it's a sound demonstration of international goodwill which will prove itself more and more useful in the future as the US slips into a second-world economy and we start trying to market the low cost goods produced in domestic corporately owned sweatshops. And even that aside, is it really THAT unreasonable to officially respect the laws of another country in regards to export?

Why are conservatives so obsessed with deregulation, when the regulations that exist were put in place to protect folks like them? Why is it that so many people who are being royally screwed by the plutocrats in this country the first to rush to their defense? Sucking up will only get you so far. The line of 'expendable' doesn't just stop with people you don't like. You might be getting by fine right now, but the worm will turn.

[nofi]

that is the question that has bugged me forever. why do the screwees support the screwers. i can find no rational explanation for this and would love a plausible answer.

[drbassman]

Being protected isn't all that it's cracked up to be and free trade is anything but fair trade.  But hey, I'm in way over my head here when it comes to international politics and law, so I'm heading out to the shop for some woodworking relaxation.  Blessings!

[dadagoboi]

that is the question that has bugged me forever. why do the screwees support the screwers. i can find no rational explanation for this and would love a plausible answer.

IMO there is none except ignorance.  What I can't understand is why the crimes committed by Wall Street and the banks aren't considered 'Class Warfare'.

[uwe]

No one wants to see Gibson destoyed, crippled or damaged here. They weren't dabbling with baby porn or selling land mines in toy shape. But asking them to do what any international company must do these days - follow the law everywhere even if you don't like it - is not asking too much.

I have no idea how much money Gibson saved with their wood import shenanigans, but it can't have been much compared to what this investigation has already and will continue to cost them, the reputational loss and the senior management attention that needs to be diverted to it. And IIRC not all Gibson players are members of Lynyrd Skynyrd or in their audience either, so positioning yourself as the new found darling of the Tea Party and Fox News is maybe not the greatest long term perspective marketing ploy either.   Non-Republicans have - at least in the past - played Gibson too. Unless Neil Young has been hiding something from us all that is.

Not "Bad Gibson!" then, but "plain bad management", "stone-age corporate governance" and "suck-shit compliance". At least some colleagues from my cherished profession will now have a field day. Henry could have had this all much simpler by asking them to do the honing of the fretboards at their hourly rates in the past - the economic outcome would have been about the same.

[drbassman]

I have to agree that going to the media while trying to hash things out with the Feds is suspect and probably not too bright!  Maybe just complying with the law would be a lot easier!

I agree, Uwe, while I don't always agree with Gibson's manufacturing or finishing or design choices, I don't wish them ill will.

[Dave W]

I liked this comment from the now-locked thread at TDPRI:

"If Gibson isn't bigger than their raw materials, they aren't very big at all."