Henry is a survivor and the brand is still strong, enough aging baby boomers out there buying the stuff with their pensions and "youngsters" - my son for one - have a positive image of the Gibson heritage too. My bet is on Henry - nothing a little fine-paying cannot do - surviving unless in a purge-like move and with strong financiers behind them some of Gibson's younger management buys him out. Remember how he and his business partners paid only five million bucks for floundering Gibson in the mid eighties - I'd think he'd do fine with his investment if he pulled out today.
I don't think that Henry J. is evil incarnate for showing a cavalier attitude towards some "Hindu wood". But in today's times of compliance and corporate governance it is grossly and sorely outdated and testimony to lousy, hardly visionary and sustainable "good management". And it's never too late, they can still roll out the "we have seen the errors of our ways"-program now, hundreds of PR advisors will happily counsel them in this, you just
have to take the advice, Henry!
And I don't care whether he beds Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck or both at the same time (I'd prefer Palin alone, like here we wouldn't have to discuss
environmental issues such as baby seal culling politics at all, I could just see myself "drill, baby, drill!" all night, well, half the night given my age ...
), laws apply to every company, Republican or Democratic CEO or not and it distorts competiton when Taylor and Martin abide and Gibson with its large acoustic guitar turnout does not. The assumption that a fly shit on the wall company like Gibson (in terms of turnover and size of workforce) would mean anything one way or another to even the most vigilant Democratic administration is preposterous though. And certainly a brand name such as Gibson with a "friendly product" such as electric guitars would have been a bad choice to seek out for punishment.