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My guess would be that an officer or owner of the Gibson Company has “dissed” the current administration or someone associated with it. I was fairly recently on the butt end of the Fed’s wrath, and, although I wouldn’t call myself an expert, I sure know more than I used to. Now I fear my government.
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
So it isn’t hurting the environment, and India isn’t complaining that the minimal amount of finishing involved in creating blanks is insufficient to meet its legal requirements. But Holder & Co. aren’t happy about this.
If all US based guitar makers use these blanks, I would guess Gibson got picked on because it is the biggest consumer of them. Holder’s trying to make them an example by this very dubious action.
Push to target GOP supporters.
Clinton targeted Microsoft simply for NOT supporting him.....with enough $$.
The thing that I don’t quite understand about this case is, how the heck does the gov’t go about determining how much finishing labor Indian workers *should* be imparting to these fretboard blanks. (And I have played and bought and sold guitars for 45 years, so I know what all this stuff is)
Are Indian workers supposed to saw out the fret slots? (uhhh, no thank you)
Should they round the edges of the blanks in a certain way? How could they do they do that if they do not know the width(s) of the necks the blanks are supposed to go on? (and you wouldn’t do it that way anyway, you glue the fretboard on and then finish the neck as one piece of wood)
Should they cut out holes the inlays or the position dots go into? You cannot do that until the frets are sawn and you cannot saw the frets until you’ve really got the ends of the fretboard under control.
But regardless of how arcane all these guitar-construction details are, how is this parameter, the ratio or relative amounts of US vs Indian labor directed to the fretboards, how is this measured? Time? Pay amount?
This won’t affect Holder’s people. Led Zepplin & Aerosmith already recorded enough Les Paul tones for every rap and hip hop playah to sample for their latest angry rant rhymes - I mean songs.