Gibson PING
More underhanded Big Government extortion to fund socialist wealth redistribution.
They use any pretense at all to control, tax, extort.
Nothing more than armed robbery by government.
Eat more chicken, buy another Gibson.
Overzealous, regulatory overreach.
DOJ and Musical Instrument maker reach a chord?
An horrific act of extortion by the Government.
It’s like those show trials in Mao’s China where people were forced to incriminate themselves - except that today’s Maoists also insist on extracting about half a billion dollars in tribute (I’m including the cost of the wood here).
(gasp) Does this make ME a criminal???
Government theft.
Gibson knows it is cheaper to pay the bribe than to fight them in court.
Government intimidation and extortion. Gibson had purchaced the wood in question long before it became illegal to purchace the Brazilian rosewood. There was no mandate to return purchaced wood. Martin was not attacked because the Martin owners ponied up money to the obama candidacy. Gibson was extorted. They paid the fine just to stop the legal fees from bleeding them into backrupcy.
An ethical and honest journalist (there aren’t any anymore, I’m afraid) would find out the principals in the company and find out what they’ve been forced to contribute [voluntarily] to Obama’s Re-election campaign.
We all know there aren’t any real journalists left so this episode in Americana Musicality will remain a mystery, I guess.
You need to re-do that graphic, and label every guitar an “AK-47”.
So... what happens to that wood now?
If anyone doesn’t despise the central socialist government raise your hand!
“The company will pay a $300,000 fine under a criminal enforcement agreement that defers prosecution for criminal violations of the Lacey Act. Another $50,000 fine will go to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation “to be used to promote the conservation, identification and propagation of protected tree species used in the musical instrument industry and the forests where those species are found.”
That’s a lotta Les Pauls, at $1K profit (probably overstating it) = 3500 guitars. And...if the evil wood is ebony, only a very few upper-end Gibson models use ebony (most use rosewood) fretboards. LP Custom, SG Custom (LP Customs only, not the LP Standards or the majority of the various down-line LP models) L-5, Super-400, not that many others)
I like how $50K goes to the NATIONAL Fish & Wildlife Foundation...as if one freaking splinter of ebony came from the US. A nice little piece of extortion. Unfortunately, the reverse protest on this issue is gonna be a little pricier than Chick-Fil-A.
I wonder about the size of the penalty relative to the corpus of the alleged violation. By that, I mean both the 2009 and the 2011 seizures amounted to something under $1 million worth of wood. (That number is entirely from memory) A bank committing money laundering, such as Wachovia and HSBC, probably pays a penalty of between 5 and 10% of the total proceeds of their crime for which they pay a penalty “without admitting guilt”. In the case of Wachovia and HSBC, the case is closed. Yet in the case of Gibson, the article says prosecution is DEFERRED in exchange for Gibson paying ONE THIRD the corpus of the violation. Deferred = delayed. Huh? You mean, the DOJ can pull this out of its hat again at some unknown future time?
The Federal Government did not get rid of organized crime, they just replaced it with themselves. This is political extortion, plain and simple.
Where in the story was the part about Madagascar persuing Gibson via our regulatory agencies for Gibson’s illegal purchase of their forest products?
Wondering how our government can justify going after Gibson without a complaint filed by Madagascar to initiate such action.
Perhaps there is another participant in this tyranny behind the scenes sticking their nose into the business of sovereign Nations, and private enterprise.
The whole thing stinks of U.N.
Wow. $350K for nothing. Guess it would have been cheaper to give $50K to the Obama election campaign.
Next time they’ll pay up front.
In the original complaint they were going after Gibson for Indian wood taken against Indian law. Except that the Indian government was OK with the procedures in place and had no complaint.
It sounds like Madagascar similarly had no complaint with Gibson. Which means they are accused of non-crimes and the price of not being bankrupted is to offer a soviet-style confession to this non-crime.
What a moronic law. There are literally millions of laws around this globe, and we have to know about the detailed ins and outs of every legal system throughout the world, or we are criminals?
Our Congress is the biggest band of idiots and our second greatest embarrassment after the inimitably idiotic Kenyan Clown.
This stinks. Not only do they have to pay huge fines, they lose nearly $300k of wood.