Excessive Regulations: The Case of Gibson Guitars

...Another out of control regulation is the little known Lacey Act, originally passed in 1900 to regulate the trade of wildlife and expanded in 2008 to curb illegal logging. Under the Act, if the U.S. government interprets that a foreign law, concerning the exportation of wood or wildlife, has been broken it is up to the U.S. government to conduct raids and confiscate said products.

Gibson maintains its innocence and is still struggling to get back property from a 2009 raid (involving ebony imported from Madagascar), even though charges again were never brought against the company. Moreover, both Madagascar and Indian government officials have stated the exports were allowed under those countries’ laws. So apparently, not only does the DOJ interpret and enforce U.S. law, it has taken it upon itself to interpret, how they see fit, the laws of any nation on earth.

The Gibson case has nothing to do with conserving the world’s most valuable trees; rather this is protectionism at its worst...

[I hit the 300 word limit so here is the rest of the article by Kelsey Zahourek.] ...According to the Wall Street Journal, defenders of the regulations include the U.S. timber industry (the very industry nearly decimated due to another overly broad environmental regulation) believing “it has preserved U.S. jobs in timber, furniture and retail sectors and helped boost U.S. exports of wood products to foreign buyers…” In other words, one industry refuses to compete in the marketplace and therefore needs what is essentially a government subsidy at the expense of a vast number of U.S. businesses. The Administration tried to achieve the same results with “Buy American” provisions in the 2009 stimulus bill. What resulted was more expensive products for Americans and jobs lost because of higher input costs. Gibson prides itself on making high quality guitars that produce an amazing sound. It just so happens that the materials needed to make the iconic instruments are located outside the United States. The only other option, as pointed out by four leading Republicans in the House, would be for Gibson to manufacture the guitars outside the U.S. with the same wood and then import them into this country. Under this scenario, they would be in compliance with the Lacey Act. Not a great idea for job creation, especially when Gibson added 600 employees to its workforce during a recession. Additionally, Gibson Guitars would be first in line to talk of the importance of forest conservation. In the past, they have partnered with environmental groups, Greenpeace and the Rainforest Alliance to promote better forestry practices. Simply put, no more wood, no more guitars. While being rather high profile, this is just another incident in a series of many that highlight the need for serious reform and elimination of thousands of federal regulations.

“The Gibson case has nothing to do with conserving the world’s most valuable trees; rather this is protectionism at its worst...”

That maybe true. I know a guitar player who went around to different luthiers to find enough older stockpiled wood (the endangered South American species) to have a Les Paul built for him with the wood. He swears that it has everything to do with the tone (like listening to Nigel from Spinal Tap talk about it). According to him, Les Pauls after 59 went down in tonal quality due to the change in wood and I think Jimmy Page also says the same thing. I have a 76 Les Paul and the quality is not great but I’m not the kind of guy who goes around saying, “Hear that, hear that tone... (especially when it is not plugged in).”

I understand the owners of Gibson Guitars are big Republican contributors.

Gibson Guitars is a privately owned company and has two owners: Henry Juszkiewicz, the Chairman and CEO; and David Berryman, the President.

Opensecrets.org is a free website where you can track political donations to candidates, political parties, and PACs since 1990.

Here are Juszkiewicz's donations since 1990:

The Consumer Electronics Association donates to both political parties.

Berryman has no donations. Gibson Guitars has no corporation donations. You can confirm this at the website.

Fox News correspondent John Roberts first wrote in an FoxNews.com article that Juszkiewicz had contributed to Republican and Democratic candidates. By the time that had been filtered through the blogs, Juszkiewicz was a big Republican contributor. In fact, he rarely contributes to political candidates and never to political parties, as you can see.

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