Posted on 08/07/2012 10:41:41 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The difference? The owners of Martin are big Dem supporters, while the head of Gibson is a Republican.
This worthless excuse for a president is using the entire U.S. justice system to "punish his enemies" . . . just as he promised he would.
pay the extortioner and move on.
bastards (the Feds, that is).
I think Gibson got off easy paying a $300,000 settlement.
Consider that their main Gibson line guitars are not less than $1000 (I won’t use Epiphone since that’s their budget line). They easily go into the $3000 range for various models.
I’m also sure they decided to put away plenty of money for a rainy day (though they probably didn’t assume the rainy day would be feds raining down on them). It won’t take them a long time to make the $300k back.
There, fixed it.
Consider that their main Gibson line guitars are not less than $1000
Don't forget that a part of the extortion payoff agreement was that Gibson forfeit claims to the seized woods (did the government also seize completed instruments?). That could be a huge cost to the company. And the markup on instruments is in the neighborhood of 100% for major manufacturers. Also, don't forget that the wood used by a company like Gibson can't be used immediately. It needs to be dried slowly, until the moisture content gets down to a certain level.
I haven't seen an official list of what was seized, but it could be VERY costly to Gibson, far in excess of the shakedown amount paid to Obama's thugs.
Mark
That's not true. Find anything for me indicating that C.F. Martin or Taylor guitars purchased Madagascar ebony from Roger Thunam, a convicted lumber trafficker, whose wood was under government seizure. Gibson employee Gene Nix was on the ground in Madagascar and emailed Gibson executives that Thunam's wood was under seizure and that there was no 'legitimate' source for a purchase.
The owners of Martin are big Dem supporters, while the head of Gibson is a Republican.
That's not true. Chris Martin is an unabashed Democrat. Henry Juszkiewicz (Gibson's CEO) is not a Republican; he's an unabashed liberal. He's one of the founders of the Rainforest Alliance. Gibson, which he co-owns, was one of the first supporters of the Clinton Global Initiative. He was a presenter at MTV's Rock the Vote when Clinton received a special award and Barack Obama was also honored. He's on the board of countless liberal causes, such as one that promotes 'poetry slams' in children's hospitals to promote diversity. Since 1990, he's made two contributions to political candidates - one to a Republican (Huckabee) and one to a Democrat (Cooper, of Tennessee).
Let’s call it...Protection money.
I wonder what a ‘59 Les Paul Goldtop is worth now........
Ted Nugent better watch out.
Don't be so certain, unless Gibson's huge increase in sales as a result of public reaction to the August 2011 raids has been a help.
Gibson's been in financial trouble since before 2008. It went into technical default on $150 million+ in loans by failing to meet covenants in its loan agreements. For one thing, Gibson refused to provided audited financials for 2008 and has refused to provided audited financials to its lenders since then. The only thing that's kept the lenders from accelerating the loans is the IP value of the Gibson name.
You can read the details in a number of debtwire.com articles.
Then, while Gibson was floundering financially, the spring 2010 flood hit Nashville just as Gibson was preparing to relocate its production facility at Opryland Mills. Not only was wood on pallets on the floor, but all of its mandolin and banjo forms/molds were on pallets - irreplaceable forms and tooling dating back perhaps eighty years or more. Gibson lost it all.
Gibson didn't build another mandolin until early 2011 and has yet to manufacture another banjo (although there are rumors that the custom shop has a waiting list of over 250 orders with no set delivery dates).
So Gibson was on shaky financial footing for a couple of years before the first of these raids, then was hit by a natural disaster.
As a collector of guitars for 40 years and an attorney, I've been downloading all pleadings in the civil forfeiture actions as well as talking with my contacts in the industry (some of whom are former Gibson executives). Since the August 2011 raids, I've been crying out in the FR wilderness that Gibson clearly did something it knew was illegal when it purchased the Madagascar ebony.
Guess I can’t believe everything I hear down at the guitar store!
Wow, $300k for Øbozo’s reelection coffers. Not a bad day’s work.
I didn’t know about any of that.
I guess it’s a good thing I’m not a big fan of Gibson, though as a guitar player I’d hate to see them have to close shop.
It turns out, the Madagascar company did not have a dispensation for ebony, but Gibson was getting the wood through two respected dealers, as far as it was concerned.
I can pick apart so many statements in this article.
Take this one. Two respected dealers?
Theodor Nagel Gmbh, yes. But the other dealer was Roger Thunam. He'd just been released after serving a term for illegal trafficking in Madagascar lumber. All of the wood at his 'factory' was under government seizure - and Gibson employee Gene Nix emailed Gibson executives with this information.
Nix also reported that there was no 'legitimate' source for the wood.
If you read through the legal documents filed in the civil forfeiture action, several parties who were also on the trip with Nix gave statements that all of the parties, including Nix, discussed Thunam's legal troubles, trafficking conviction, and the fact that purchasing wood from him was illegal.
And Greenpeace? Just no. Don't make me dig through the hundreds of pages of pleadings, but the host organizations that organized the trip to Madagascar didn't include Greenpeace.
This article plays fast and loose with details.
> The owners of Martin are big Dem supporters
Glad I never bought one of those overrated clunkers.
I’ve been buying Ibanez, since Gibson has been somewhat out of my league. I did once own a beautiful SG, but it was stolen.
:(
Once this administration is turned out, it would be very instructive to do a thorough investigation of how all these raids by various branches of Obummer's bureaucracy were initiated, with e-mail correspondence, etc. Congress should start collecting data on this now, but much would remain, somewhere in the system, even after Obummer, Holder, and their people are gone.
Then it would be even more instructive, since many of these operations were fraudulently conceived and carried out under color of law, to go after each of these individuals personally, making them pay fines and serve prison terms, of course—but also seizing their personal and marital assets to repay any wronged individuals for losses and damages, so that the former administration officials if necessary would lose their domiciles. Pour encourager les autres.
This would be part of a vast house-cleaning, a period of national renewal, wherein Congress eliminates every agency and practice that has no basis in the Constitution. Whether it takes years or decades, it must be done.
Then the governmental projects and regulatory agencies that can't be justified through the Constitution, which would be most of them, can be shut down and their offices sold to any private businesses that will buy them—or to Maryland farmers for pasture.
50 to 75000. Gold tops don’t bring the same amount in like the 59 to 60 Bursts do. The bursts are now going for 125 to 350000.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.