Legendary Guitar Maker Gibson Files for Bankruptcy - Thanks, Obama?

Legendary guitar maker Gibson files for bankruptcy

The 120-year-old company’s desperate move comes as annual sales of guitars have reportedly dropped to 1 million from 1.5 million a decade ago, as hip-hop music has come to dominate at the expense of guitar-fueled rock.

Curiously missing from the story was the assault they were subjected to by the Obama administration just a few years back. Could this have played a part?

By the Left Coast Rebel

Is it any wonder that American business is dying? Is it any surprise that China and India (not to mention several European nations, Asia et al.) are eclipsing the United States in entrepreneurial activity, wealth creation and business friendliness?

A story like this tells us everything that is wrong with the federal government:

(WSJ) (Memeo) Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson's chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company's manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. "The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier," he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.

(SNIP)

In 2009 the Feds seized several guitars and pallets of wood from a Gibson factory, and both sides have been wrangling over the goods in a case with the delightful name "United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms."

....But with the new raid, the government seems to be questioning whether some wood sourced from India met every regulatory jot and tittle.

Cross an international border with an instrument made of that now-restricted wood, and you better have correct and complete documentation proving the age of the instrument. Otherwise, you could lose it to a zealous customs agent—not to mention face fines and prosecution.

Potentially illegal Indian ebony wood? Oh my.

The WSJ also includes an extremely spooky, related story in the link above:

Consider the recent experience of Pascal Vieillard, whose Atlanta-area company, A-440 Pianos, imported several antique Bösendorfers. Mr. Vieillard asked officials at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species how to fill out the correct paperwork—which simply encouraged them to alert U.S. Customs to give his shipment added scrutiny.

There was never any question that the instruments were old enough to have grandfathered ivory keys. But Mr. Vieillard didn't have his paperwork straight when two-dozen federal agents came calling.

Facing criminal charges that might have put him in prison for years, Mr. Vieillard pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of violating the Lacey Act, and was handed a $17,500 fine and three years probation.

The delicious irony here is that a lot of musicians -- and creative musical types -- are raging libs that vote in ludicrous gunpoint-enforced laws like this.

Now, when their houses are raided (or companies) and they face airport coercion and molestation, they know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of government largess.

A conservative is a liberal musician who's
been mugged by the federal government

Update (by Proof): I saw this story. I started to comment and then the comment kept growing. Full disclosure: I owned a Gibson twelve string back in the early 80's.

It's sad that the oxymoron known as the Obama Justice Department won't protect the integrity of our voting system by prosecuting hate crimes committed at polling places (if the offender is a certain race or color), won't uphold the integrity of our borders against illegal immigration, failed miserably against tracking illegal gun sales to Mexico, (even encouraging and expediting them), but will enforce laws against raw milk producers and now, regulations about where wood comes from for a musical instrument.

Note to guitar pickers: The cost of your next Gibson just went up.

Note to Gibson employees: The Feds just gave your boss another reason to ship your jobs overseas.

Have a nice day!

Update II (by Proof): According to Doug Ross, campaign contributions (or the lack thereof) may have contributed to the raid(s).

One of Gibson’s leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Company. The C.E.O., Chris Martin IV, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the DNC over the past couple of election cycles. According to C.F. Martin’s catalog, several of their guitars contain “East Indian Rosewood.” In case you were wondering, that is the exact same wood in at least ten of Gibson’s guitars.

It's good to know that the oxymoronically named Obama Justice Department is above being used to punish one's political opponents or reward partisan political support. /sarcasm

Originally posted 8/26/11

Remember When Obama Saved Detroit? Me Neither!

And, of course, Romney was using "Detroit" to refer to the "Big Three" automakers. Obama has actually managed to let Detroit, the entire city, go bankrupt. Way to go, Barack!

More at Gateway Pundit

GM is Alive (?) and Chris Stevens is Dead

Probably too late to reach the skulls full of mush that need this the worst, but I'm tired of hearing this whole "GM is alive" bunk. I call it bunk, because GM would have weathered a restructuring with or without Obama's meddling.

You ever eat a Twinkie®? Hostess Twinkies®...yellow cake outside, creamy filling in the middle. When was the last time you ate one? I saw some last time I was in the grocery store. Did you know that Hostess had declared bankruptcy? At least once, maybe twice? And yet, they are still on the shelves...how can this be?

Well, for starters, there's more than one kind of bankruptcy. Chapter eleven gives a company a chance to restructure and reorganize and ideally, come out whole on the other side. Many people are seemingly only familiar with a chapter thirteen bankruptcy, where the door are shuttered, the remaining assets divided up among their creditors.

And every time Democrat, lying through their teeth, politicians (but I repeat myself), spoke of what Romney wanted to do to (or for) the auto industry, they spoke of bankruptcy in terms of chapter thirteen, as if unemployed auto workers were at the top of Romney's wish list.

Enter Obama. Instead of allowing GM and Chrysler to go through a legal restructuring, he imposed a political restructuring. Only, unlike the bankruptcy at Hostess which allowed them to renegotiate unreasonable or overly expensive union contracts, the political deal locked in lavish union salaries and benefits, at the expense of bond holders and the American taxpayer.

Yes, GM is "alive". But, so is Hostess! Obama didn't save jobs at GM so much as he saved overly generous union benefits. And then, he gave a large controlling interest in GM to the unions. This will make it easier for GM to negotiate reasonable contracts with the unions in the future /sarc.

(BRB - all this talk of Twinkies® is making me hungry!)

Much better! Now, where were we? Ah, yes, political restructuring. Businesses need money to run on, to meet payroll, make expansions, buy new raw materials, etc. People who bought GM bonds, did so at a slightly reduced rate or return (how much money they got paid for their investment, like interest on a savings account), for a guarantee of lesser risk. Risky investments pay higher rates of return, because there's less guarantee you'll even get your money back. As such, GM bondholders were supposed to get "first dibs" in any restructuring process. But since Obama's restructuring was political, he could make up the rules as he went along. (Maybe this is what he meant about "not everyone playing by the same rules"?)

GM bondholders got the shaft, in favor of the unions. Non union subsidiaries of GM, like Delphi, had their pensions decimated to cover the union pensions. Welcome to the crazy world of "fairness" under Barack Obama! I cannot tell you the extent, but if I were an investor in bonds, I would keep my money in a mattress before putting it at risk in any company the president might want to restructure for the purpose of his friends!

And even though "GM is alive and bin Laden is dead" makes a lovely bumper sticker, it is based on two lies. One, is that GM would have collapsed without Obama's political restructuring. That is false. Many companies have gone in and out of chapter eleven bankruptcy and are thriving today. The main difference is, that there are very specific rules and laws governing legal bankruptcy. Obama's was more reminiscent of a banana republic.

Second, for all the chest thumping at the Charlotte convention, and Democrats continually "spiking the ball" about the death of bin Laden, al Qaeda did not curl up and die when bin Laden was shot. For the Obama administration to equate the death of one man to the death of a movement is foolishly naive. When Lincoln or JFK was assassinated, did the country cease to exist because we were momentarily leaderless? Or did we pick up right where we left off, only under different leadership?

Instead of "GM is alive and bin Laden is dead", substitute "Al Qaeda is alive and the economy is dead" and you'll be better at summing up the last four years of this administration. Or you could personalize it: "Al Qaeda is alive and Chris Stevens is dead".

America: we can do better! Tomorrow's the day to find out!

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Barack Obama is "Fighting for You"...Above His Weight Class!

This week, I saw what was to be an unfortunate comparison for the Democrat contender for the Presidency. BTW, is the opposite of "Rocky", "Stoney"?

Many of you know, I live in Stockton California, at one time, and perhaps to date, the largest city in the country to declare bankruptcy. As such, I guess we are a microcosm of the country at large. Anyway, in the mayoral race here, the top of the ticket citywide, the Mayor is running for re-election. Not running on her record, because, after all...we're bankrupt! Crime is on the rise. We don't have enough money to pay for all the police we need and many experienced officers are taking their time and talents elsewhere. Cops are leaving about as fast (or faster) than we can hire them. This makes crime suppression and criminal apprehension a challenge at best.

So, she can't really promise a lot of pork, since there's little to dish out. She can't run on how wonderful things are since she's been mayor, so what does she do? She adopts the campaign slogan that she is "fighting for our city". Wow. I feel better already!

And then I got to thinking that I'd heard that someplace before. Obama's closing statement at the first presidential debate he said he was "fighting for us"! No offense, Mr. President, but if you throw Pee Wee Herman in against Mike Tyson, it really doesn't matter how hard he's fighting for us, if he doesn't have what it takes to get the job done.

Obama must have focus grouped this word, since it's a regular part of his stump speech.

"Mr. Obama used the word "fighting" thirteen times in the speech, which he delivered at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, and the word "fight" an additional nine times." Jan 2010

Video from Jan of 2012: in addition to repeating the lie that he's "signed a "trillion dollars in spending cuts", even though the federal budget only gets larger every single year under Obama, and that he will wake up every single day (before he heads to the golf course) to think about how to make this country better, Obama promises to "spend every ounce of energy I have fighting for you". Jan 2012

Again, Pee Wee Herman can spend "every ounce of energy he has" against Mike Tyson, but the results will be the same. Even Clueless Joe Biden is getting into the act!

@JoeBiden tweeted, in what has been called "the most focus-grouped tweet in the history of Twitter", "Barack and I are in this because we'll never stop fighting for you."

Why does Team Obama tell you they are "fighting for you"? Simple. To distract you from the actual results of any "fighting". Presumably, Obama has been "spending every ounce of energy he has" fighting for us, for the last four years and where has it gotten us? In 2008, candidate Obama told us that, as president, he would go through the budget "line by line" to discover and eliminate any waste in government spending. Other than cuts to the military, can you point to even a single line of that budget he has cut? Instead, it has grown to Brobdingnagian proportions under his "watchful eye"!

And when he tells us of his "vision" for America, one filled with flowery words and empty platitudes...didn't he have the exact same vision four years ago? What's changed that makes you think he will be any more successful the next four years than he was the last four?

And do you honestly think the country can survive four more years of high unemployment, higher gas prices, higher energy and food costs? Please don't "vote like your 'lady parts' depend on it" Vote like all your parts depend on it.


Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Of Course There Will Be Death Panels!

Not the USS Stockton

For the record, I live in Stockton, California. Yes, that Stockton, California! The largest US city ever to declare bankruptcy. After a couple of days of waving our giant foam fingers and shouting, "We're number one!", the time has come for a somewhat harder look at what's going on.

Last night, the news coverage was filled with accounts of many of the people who are going to be hurt by the city's plight. Many retirees showed up at City Hall, fearful of what was going to happen to them, on a fixed income, if their benefits were reduced and their health care costs were to increase.

Rather than dissect, at the moment, how the city and its retirees got into this mess, or how they're going to get out of it, and at what cost, I see the City of Stockton's bankruptcy as an example of what happens when the resources are inadequate for the demand, and unfortunately, a microcosm for what looms large for both the state of California and the nation as a whole.

But first, a little trip down Memory Lane. Anyone here remember "Situational ethics"? Situational ethics was a supposedly Christian theory put forth in the 1960s by an Episcopal priest Joseph Fletcher. As I recall, it started gaining favor in school curricula in the 1980's.

Situational ethics taught that what might be unethical in one situation might be perfectly acceptable, should the "situation" call for it. It is a bad thing to tell a lie, but if you were in Germany in the 1940's and Anne Frank was hiding in your attic, it was permissible to lie to the Nazis if they asked you if you were hiding any Jews. So far, so good.

And then, there was the infamous lifeboat scenario: There are fifteen of you in a lifeboat with only enough food and water for twelve. If you all stay on the boat, you are all going to die. Therefore, in this situation, wouldn't it be better to throw three people overboard so that twelve might live?

They made it easy for you, too. There was usually a rabbi or a priest on board, in his seventies or eighties, and, after all, he'd lived a good long life. Better to throw him overboard than your freckle faced fifteen year old niece, right? (The holy man always has to go first, otherwise, he might introduce some morality into your situational situation and muck up everything!*) There'd usually be at least one more elderly person in the boat, because euthanizing the elderly is not something we can teach our children soon enough! So, Granny goes over the side. In some cases, there might have been a handicapped person, or one with Downs syndrome, and since their quality of life isn't all that great, and who knows how long someone with Downs syndrome might live anyway, into the water with them, too.

At this point, having killed the elderly, the infirm and the retarded to save your own skin, may I point out the irony in a comparison between you and the Nazis you were lying to in the previous example? Perhaps here we could contrast, too, those four chaplains on the troop ship USAT Dorchester in 1943, who gave up their own life jackets when there weren't enough to go around. It is quite a different thing to volunteer to give up one's own life as opposed to having some committee decide it for you.

In bankruptcy, there isn't enough money, simply not enough resources to pay all the bills and keep all your promises. In the lifeboat, there aren't enough resources to keep everybody alive, so Father Flanagan and Granny go in the drink. In the proposed government takeover of the healthcare system, which hopefully will have a stake driven through its heart tomorrow, you cannot add millions of people to a shrinking system in a bankrupt country, full of bankrupt states, cites and towns, and expect that there will be enough resources for everyone.

Granny will have to go. Maybe she'll get a pill instead of an operation, like Obama suggested, but rationing would become a way of life in healthcare.

Unless we can get some national leadership in Washington to grow the economy again, get out of the way of mining and manufacturing, and create new wealth, new resources, rather than trying to ration what we have now, we will go the way of Greece. (And Stockton)

Our Founding Fathers were made of sterner stuff and meant us for better things. Unless you want to see the misery of those people in Stockton multiplied from coast to coast, it is time for genuine change in the White House. Vote for change this November.



*I kept thinking..."A preacher, a priest, and a rabbi go into a lifeboat..."

Cross posted at LCR.