Gibson CEO: Obama Administration Told Us Our Problems Would Go Away If We Used Madagascar Labor.....

Gateway Pundit ^ | 9/01/2011 | Jim Hoft

[bert]

An interesting event took place this week when Mr Henry Juszkiewicz appeared on Niel Cavuto in a fairly long interview. Curiously, neither made any reference to the Madagascar labor issue.

There was discussion of the recent raid and the gross disruption and high handed tactics, but no mention of the on record government actions/words about having the wood worked abroad.

Here I am on Free Republic having better access to a business problem than Niel Cavuto. Why did he overlook a major part of the story?

[GOPJ]

The loggers’ primary target was rosewood, ebonies, and other hardwoods. It is unclear how much timber has been cut from protected forests since the political crisis began, but photos provided by another confidential source show substantial stockpiles of contraband wood in local towns. “

People are starving so they lead unscrupulous chinese loggers to the rosewood trees.

It's usually not 'the starving' who do this - it's the 'corrupt'... That said - thanks for the information - interesting stuff.

[Scoutmaster]

An interesting event took place this week when Mr Henry Juszkiewicz appeared on Niel Cavuto in a fairly long interview. Curiously, neither made any reference to the Madagascar labor issue. There was discussion of the recent raid and the gross disruption and high handed tactics, but no mention of the on record government actions/words about having the wood worked abroad. Here I am on Free Republic having better access to a business problem than Niel Cavuto. Why did he overlook a major part of the story?

I can suggest two reasons.

One other poster on FR says "I call BS on this," regarding Juszkiewicz's comments that the government said in a pleading that Gibson's problems would go away if it used Madagascar labor. The pleadings in the civil case are of public record (I have them and have provided the source in may posts). Imagine how devastating it would have been if Gibson had actually produced the pleading. There would be a massive uprising and the quotes and pleadings would be in the news everywhere.

The problem is that the government didn't say what Juszkiewicz claims. He let his mouth get away from his brain and the facts. It sounded good at the time, but he can't back it up by producing the pleading. Juszkiewicz said it, he got mileage out of it, but he's not going to say it again because anybody with access to the pleadings can show he's wrong. Heck, his own attorneys probably told him not to make that statement again.

The second would be that the media hasn't been thorough in its research. I'll bet you that Cavuto didn't mention Gibson's use of a proxy "ultimate consignee" for these shipments either, did he? Or that 'use' of the East Indian Rosewood wasn't the issue, it was the form of the wood as imported? Or that C.F. Martin really isn't Gibson's main competitor, Fender is? Did he mention that, contrary to the blogs, there are other guitar makers in states without right-to-work laws?

There are simply too many facts to present, so Cavuto has to pick and choose.

And for the record, I think the government is probably wrong about the East Indian Rosewood blanks.

[Scoutmaster]

The outbreak of logging in the rainforests of northeastern Madagascar followed rangers’ abandonment of park posts during last month’s military coup in Madagascar.

The majority of illegal logging has taken place since the 2009 military coup. However, illegal logging continued to take place after Order 12704/2000 in 2000 and Order 16030/2006 in 2006, both of which made much or most logging illegal.

So pinning it all on the year 2009 isn't exactly right.

[bert]

Thanks for the outstanding explanation. The Gibson CEO was stoic and did not really say much. His answers were pretty short and to the exact point......so it seemed to me

[Scoutmaster]

The Gibson CEO was stoic and did not really say much.

Henry Juszkiewicz is in a tough situation. After the government discovered the use of a proxy "ultimate consignee' on the Dallas and Canadian shipments of East Indian Rosewood, and was told by Luthier Mercantile (in California and the Red Arrow warehouse in Nashville that the export, import, and customs paperwork was wrong and that Gibson was the ultimate consignee, the government submitted a sealed pleading in the civil customs case.

That suggests either that the government is preparing a criminal case to go with the thirteen-month-long civil case, or that the government is bringing in the East Indian Rosewood and perhaps some of the parties who were involved in the proxy ultimate consignee case.

Again, I think that the federal government is probably wrong on the East Indian Rosewood fretboards, but that Gibson made a legal shipment look shifty by using import paperwork that never showed Gibson's name and that incorrectly described the contents of the containers. And it's true that India's Harmonized Tariff Schedule does prohibit the export of chipped, split, or cut wood over 6mm in thickness. I just don't think that India has enforced that law. And I think the government is wrong for that reason.

Then, you have to realize that Gibson's in an interesting financial situation, suing its insurers over the Nashville flood, being sued for price-fixing in California (I don't think that suit's been dropped), being in technical default on its loans for (among other things) refusing to release audited 2008 financials. I don't know if Gibson had business interruption insurance after the flood, but it went a year without being able to produce mandolins (I bought one of the first ten to come out of the Custom Shop after they were available again; it's a beauty). If Gibson's started making banjos again, it's been within the last month, so that's something like nineteen months without banjos. And no Dobros.

Henry Juszkiewicz is in a tough situation.

Just curious. Did Juszkiewicz mention the internal Gibson email saying there being no way to obtain legal Madagascar ebony?

[bert]

I don’t think so

A mandolin playing Scoutmaster....... doesn’t get much better than that

Last Friday, I attended a performance by one of the East Tennessee State blue grass groups. ETSU offers a degree in Blue grass and have 60 students declaring that major. They are simply great.

[Captain Beyond]

That is extortion and where is our justice department to take down these perps. Oh that’s right they part of the extortion. No hope and the only change is to a totalitarian government way to run things.

[Scoutmaster]

A mandolin playing Scoutmaster....... doesn’t get much better than that

I don't play much mandolin. As a collector, the chance to acquire one of a special series of the first 2011 mandolins to come out of the Gibson Custom Shop after the May 2010 floods was just too much to pass up. Although I will be playing mandolin in church tomorrow as part of a bluegrass Gospel group put together for a 'camp meeting' service that's nothing but old-time bluegrass Gospel songs.

The guitar player in our group plays a 1952 Gibson J-45 which he bought in . . . 1952.

I play guitar, banjo and ukulele. I just mess around with mandolin and dobro.

[Scoutmaster]

bert: Here's an example of the kind of thing Juszkiewicz is saying, what the truth is, and why I'm amazed that people take what Juszkiewicz says as Gospel. Here was the interview about the "US telling Gibson to use Madagascar labor:"

CHRIS DANIEL: Mr. Juszkiewicz, did an agent of the US government suggest to you that your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of American labor?

HENRY JUSZKIEWICZ: They actually wrote that in a pleading.

CHRIS DANIEL: Excuse me?

HENRY JUSKIEWICZ: They actually wrote that it a pleading.

CHRIS DANIEL: That your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of our labor?

HENRY JUSKIEWICZ: Yes

Here was the government's statement in a pleading. it's part of Special Agent Kevin L. Seiler's affidavit. How do I know this is the part that Gibson's referring to? Well, first, I've read the pleadings in the case. This is the only place I've found where the government refers to finished products from Madagascar. Second, paragraph 18 of this affidavit is specifically referred to in Gibson's pleadings as the section of the government's pleading discussing "finished products" from Madagascar (by the way, on eight occasions, Gibson's defense is that that its ebony fingerboards are finished products; Gibson now says it's incensed that it was supposed to use Madagascar labor, after it made the argument eight times in court filings that the import was legal because the ebony was a product finished in Madagascar).:

18. I have reviewed Madagascar governmental documents that appear to authorize [Roger] Thunan to export, on or about March 27, 2009 from Madagascar, over 46,000 kilograms of "finished products" of ebony. Export Authorization Numbers 455, 458 and 461-09?MEFTSG/DREFT SAVA.

19. I have not discovered, despite diligent effort, any authorizations for exports of unfinished, semi-worked, or sawn ebony by Thunan from Madagascar since September 2006.

20. I examined Madagascar 2008 inventory records of existing stocks of Madagascar ebony maintained by the Madagascar Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests. I could find no such stock of Madagascar ebony wood recorded for Thunan.

So, you can see why Henry Juszkiewicz didn't produce any documents to back up his claim that the U.S. government wrote in a pleading that Gibson's problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of American labor. He can't.

Again, I think the truth lies between what the government says and what Gibson says. It's clear that Gibson is not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And I don't trust the government to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (and I don't trust the Obama DOJ).

And I think the government's probably wrong on the East Indian Rosewood issue.

[Prole]

My parents for example and my husband’s mother would vote Democrat no matter who was the candidate, Obama or Piggly Wiggly.

My mother and sister are the same. In terms of politics at the dinner table, I often feel like a psychiatrist talking to his patients, or perhaps a Priest talking to a possessed person.

Trust me, I understand your problem all too well.