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SurfGuitar101 Forums » The Shallow End »

Permalink Gibson Guitars Made with Illegal Wood?

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IvanP wrote:

Matt22 wrote:

Nowhere else in the free world is there such a
poisonous attitude of its citizens.

Matt, as someone that grew up in a different country
(Croatia) and that has gone back there twice in the
past few years, I can assure you that is not true.

Hmmm...What? Care to elaborate?

I see this thread hasn't really improved since my last visit...

I fix now.

image

image

image

image

image

Dalibor wrote:

IvanP wrote:

Matt22 wrote:

Nowhere else in the free world is there such a
poisonous attitude of its citizens.

Matt, as someone that grew up in a different country
(Croatia) and that has gone back there twice in the
past few years, I can assure you that is not true.

Hmmm...What? Care to elaborate?

Dalibor, all I heard from both family members and friends when in Croatia in '07 and '09 is how corrupt the government is, which is now common knowledge - see here and here and here, for example, as I'm sure you already know. Nobody I had talked with had any confidence that the government was there to provide justice or protect the rights of its citizens. Resentment and apathy (an even bigger problem) were high. Growing up in Croatia (Yugoslavia) wasn't much different. My father was a public auditor for the state of Croatia, traveling all around the state and checking on the books of state entreprises. The managers of these enterprises frequently tried to bribe him to not report some uncomfortable data. And everybody knew this happened. In addition, nobody worked. People would go to work and pretend to work, and often not even that (at my dad's government office it wasn't uncommon to spend the morning reading the newspaper and the afternoon playing chess). The level of cynicism about the entire system was off the charts. Once again, the notions of justice or abiding by laws (whoever thought they could get away with breaking the law without getting caught did it) or trusting that the govt was there to aid its citzens were completely absent. The whole thing was one big game, and everybody knew it. My dad had to join the communist party in order to be able to get the apartment in which I grew up (he quit immediately afterwards). My uncle worked for ZET, the Zagreb transportation system, and he actually worked for the city maybe 25-30% of his work time - for the rest he would use the garage to fix the cars of his friends and referrals for under-the-table payments. My aunt's husband was a higher-up at the same place, and he actively embazzled money, as did his wife, my dad's sister, from the govt bank for which she worked - the money they used to buy themselves a very nice house and nice cars. Now, that was then and this is now, but I see little evidence that things are much better in Croatia. If resentment, apathy and cynicism do not constitute a 'poisonous attitude', I don't know what does.

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

Jake, adults trying to talk here. Maybe you should switch to the Feist discussion group for the time being and talk about how totally tortured she sounds on Metals.

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

IvanP wrote:

Dalibor wrote:

IvanP wrote:

Matt22 wrote:

Nowhere else in the free world is there such a
poisonous attitude of its citizens.

Matt, as someone that grew up in a different
country
(Croatia) and that has gone back there twice in
the
past few years, I can assure you that is not true.

Hmmm...What? Care to elaborate?

Dalibor, all I heard from both family members and
friends when in Croatia in '07 and '09 is how corrupt
the government is, which is now common knowledge - see
here
and
here
and
here,
for example, as I'm sure you already know. Nobody I
had talked with had any confidence that the government
was there to provide justice or protect the rights of
its citizens. Resentment and apathy (an even bigger
problem) were high. Growing up in Croatia (Yugoslavia)
wasn't much different. My father was a public auditor
for the state of Croatia, traveling all around the
state and checking on the books of state entreprises.
The managers of these enterprises frequently tried to
bribe him to not report some uncomfortable data. And
everybody knew this happened. In addition, nobody
worked. People would go to work and pretend to work,
and often not even that (at my dad's government office
it wasn't uncommon to spend the morning reading the
newspaper and the afternoon playing chess). The level
of cynicism about the entire system was off the charts.
Once again, the notions of justice or abiding by laws
(whoever thought they could get away with breaking the
law without getting caught did it) or trusting that the
govt was there to aid its citzens were completely
absent. The whole thing was one big game, and
everybody knew it. My dad had to join the communist
party in order to be able to get the apartment in which
I grew up (he quit immediately afterwards). My uncle
worked for ZET, the Zagreb transportation system, and
he actually worked for the city maybe 25-30% of his
work time - for the rest he would use the garage to fix
the cars of his friends and referrals for
under-the-table payments. My aunt's husband was a
higher-up at the same place, and he actively embazzled
money, as did his wife, my dad's sister, from the govt
bank for which she worked - the money they used to buy
themselves a very nice house and nice cars. Now, that
was then and this is now, but I see little evidence
that things are much better in Croatia. If resentment,
apathy and cynicism do not constitute a 'poisonous
attitude', I don't know what does.

I certainly have different memory about Yugoslavia but I'm not sure if it is of interest to wider audience. My point was that you think that your government is better than mine or Indian and that is bullshit:) Corruption is more or less international thing.

IvanP wrote:

Jake, adults trying to talk here. Maybe you should
switch to the Feist discussion group for the time being
and talk about how totally tortured she sounds on
Metals.

But I read that she was at her most assured on Metals?!? And you should totally know I'm into my wearing black, drinking coffee, and discussing how worthless life, listening to the Cure phase of my life(despite knowing in the back of my head the lyrics are actually not depressing and are heartfelt most of the time).

.

SSIV

Last edited: Sep 30, 2011 03:38:20

I was hoping this thread was gonna get locked after Brian's post on page 7.

Dalibor wrote:

My point was that you think that your government is better
than mine or Indian and that is bullshit:) Corruption
is more or less international thing.

Dalibor, my point was actually just the opposite. People have a bad attitude ('poisonous', as Matt put it) toward their governments all around the world, it's not just an American thing. So, I'm agreeing with you!

Corruption does exist everywhere, but to different degrees. In fact, there's even an organization that compiles a so-called Corruption Perceptions Index, giving each country a score on the scale of 1-10 (the higher the score, the 'cleaner', less corrupt the country) - you can see it here. At the top are Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore with s 9.3 score each. The US is 22nd, with a 7.1 score. Croatia is 62nd, with a 4.1 score. India is 87th. (There are 179 countries in the index.) Not to say that this index is God's own absolute truth, most definitely not, but most political scientists and economists do accept it as being more-or-less reflective of the reality of these countries.

BTW, despite what I said about Croatia, I really do still love my native country, and loved being back there both times in the past four years. It was truly wonderful. I don't judge a country or the people by how they feel about their government.

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

Last edited: Sep 30, 2011 07:45:58

echobeach wrote:

I was hoping this thread was gonna get locked after
Brian's post on page 7.

And for what reason? We are having a discussion here. I think it is interesting. "the Shallow End" supposed to be off topic.

As long as the discussion is civil there's no need to lock anything. Just keep it respectful, as you've been doing.

Danny Snyder

Latest project - Now That's What I Call SURF
_
"With great reverb comes great responsibility" - Uncle Leo

I'm back playing keys and guitar with Combo Tezeta

DannySnyder wrote:

As long as the discussion is civil there's no need to
lock anything. Just keep it respectful, as you've been
doing.

To keep it more interesing I should say that The Tomorrow Men have an excellent album! It is on heavy rotation in our band's van stereo! Almost forget about it. Did you use illegal wood while recording it?:)

Thanks, guys. I know these are sensitive and potentiallly divisive topics. I've personally strived to avoid talkiong about politics in this thread but rather to stick to the economics of it much more - and economics is not a matter of opinion. Whatever faults there are with economics as a social science (and I do acknowledge there are many), economists do actually agree on some things, and this was one of those cases. Of course, there are many issues in economics that are controversial and where there is a great deal of disagreement among economists, but that is usually for more subtle, technical reasons that non-economists don't understand, and so they'll often jump to wrong conclusions.

Anyway, I do often feel uncomfortable talking about these things on SG101, but there is SO MUCH economic ignorance out there that I can't help but try to correct it at least a bit when given a chance. I hope that I have not offended anyone in the process, and if I have, please fogive me. That was not my intent.

And yes, the TomorrowMen CD RULES!!! Something I think almost all of us on this board can easily agree on! Dalibor, you should write a few words about the CD in the review thread for the CD - give it your endorsement where more people are likely to see it.

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

IvanP wrote:

  • and
    economics is not a matter of opinion.

You can't be serious with that. It's a theory and is open to experimentation. The scientific method is used here. It's ALL about opinion. Look at what "reaganomics" have done to this country. The opinion was that it would work and "trickle-down" to lower classes. Instead, it's held up at the top and we're in the current economic condition we're in. Oh, but that may only be my opinion, and that's not allowed, is it?

Matt "tha Kat" Lentz
Skippy and the Skipjacks: 2018-
Skippyandtheskipjacks.net
https://www.facebook.com/skippyandtheskipjacks
Otto and the Ottomans: 2014-2015
The Coconauts surf band: 2009-2014
www.theamazingcoconauts.com
Group Captain and the Mandrakes 2013
http://www.gcmband.com/
The Surfside IV: 2002-2005, 2008-2009
the Del-Vamps: 1992-1999, 2006-2007
http://www.dblcrown.com/delvamps.html

It's my opinion that there's no such things as facts anymore.

Thanks Dalibor and Ivan! Here's the image for those of you who missed it.

And to answer Dalibor's question, no illegal woods were used, but there may have been a little illegal weed Cool

Danny Snyder

Latest project - Now That's What I Call SURF
_
"With great reverb comes great responsibility" - Uncle Leo

I'm back playing keys and guitar with Combo Tezeta

Matt22 wrote:

  • and economics is not a matter of opinion.

You can't be serious with that. It's a theory and is
open to experimentation. The scientific method is used
here. It's ALL about opinion. Look at what
"reaganomics" have done to this country. The opinion
was that it would work and "trickle-down" to lower
classes. Instead, it's held up at the top and we're in
the current economic condition we're in. Oh, but that
may only be my opinion, and that's not allowed, is it?

Matt, I don't want to get into that, but 'reagonomics' is NOT an economic theory. Open any textbook and try to find a single word about reagonomics - you will not. This is NOT an economic theory, it's a bastardization of an economic theory for political purposes You are conflating economics with politicization of economics, and of course it's very common to do so, since economics does matter so much for what govt does. What I mean when I say that it's not a matter of opinion is that you have to understand the theory behind particular policy prescriptions, and of course the vast majority of non-economists do not. As all scientists, economists are always arguing about different theories, but this is also not a matter of opinion, but a matter of logical analysis and support by data. Though it's very complex, economists are grappling with reality to determine what actually works and what doesn't - that's why it's not a matter of opinion.

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

OK, thanks for the clarification. Too often politics and economics go hand in hand. I still say logical analysis supported by data is open up to interpretation and, therefore, opinionated. As Danny states above, the very notion of something being a "fact" is indeed tainted. Anything is open to interpretation, and opinion is injected here. If there were a way of looking at things completely objectively, that would be ideal. However, we are human and completely fallible.

Matt "tha Kat" Lentz
Skippy and the Skipjacks: 2018-
Skippyandtheskipjacks.net
https://www.facebook.com/skippyandtheskipjacks
Otto and the Ottomans: 2014-2015
The Coconauts surf band: 2009-2014
www.theamazingcoconauts.com
Group Captain and the Mandrakes 2013
http://www.gcmband.com/
The Surfside IV: 2002-2005, 2008-2009
the Del-Vamps: 1992-1999, 2006-2007
http://www.dblcrown.com/delvamps.html

Argh! (IMO)

http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2011/09/28/feds-to-gibson-give-us-more-wood.html?ana=e_pft

This is Noel. Reverb's at maximum an' I'm givin' 'er all she's got.

Matt22 wrote:

OK, thanks for the clarification. Too often politics
and economics go hand in hand. I still say logical
analysis supported by data is open up to interpretation
and, therefore, opinionated. As Danny states above,
the very notion of something being a "fact" is indeed
tainted. Anything is open to interpretation, and
opinion is injected here. If there were a way of
looking at things completely objectively, that would be
ideal. However, we are human and completely fallible.

Matt, I'm actually much more sympathetic to this view than I've let on so far. But what's important to recognize, I think, is though we as human beings are highly fallible and limited in our ability to understand the reality, that doesn't mean that the reality doesn't exist. The entire science of economics is predicated on the assumption that there is such thing as 'the reality', and that we can learn more about it and explain it, even when it comes to human action. I think all economists share this view. We reject the view that the economic world is chaotic and inexplicable. But it is very complex, and understanding it requires a lot. This is where the scientific method comes in, and also where the profession as a whole plays an important role. Data are often limited in economics, and tainted to some degree. Obviously it's very difficult to run controlled experiments in economics the way they do in physics (though there is an emerging area of experimental economics, which is becoming a fairly big deal). So, economists are often frustrated by our ability to rely on data. That being the case, we often have to rely on logical consistencies of theories, and observe how closely those theories are able to explain reality. If they are fairly successful at this, then the majority of economists will become convinced by these theories and they will be embraced as part of the orthodoxy. If they are not, they won't. Not to say that this system is fool-proof, as we have many examples where entire professions thought they knew something that was later completely overturned. That's always a possibility.

But I want to emphasize this: just because all economic knowledge is therefore tentative and conditional (just as ALL scientific knowledge is), that doesn't mean that any layperson's opinion is just as good as any economist's or worth as much. Economists will usually understand a lot more about a particular economic situation, and can understand the limitations of the theory or even possible challenges which will give them a deeper understanding than any non-economist could possibly have. This is again why I said that economics is not a matter of opinion. There are good reasons why economists believe what we do, and even when we disagree amongst ourselves, it's for well defined and specific reasons, not b/c of ideology. And scientific consensus, though certainly not an indication of the TRUTH, does count for something.

Oh, and just because it's difficult for humans to discern 'facts,' it of course doesn't mean that facts do not exist. There is a reality out there that counts for something, and therefore it's not a matter of 'anything goes'.

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

Noel wrote:

Argh! (IMO)

http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2011/09/28/feds-to-gibson-give-us-more-wood.html?ana=e_pft

“It is clear that Gibson understands the purpose of the Lacey Act, and understands that … fingerboard blanks are not finished fingerboards and thus Gibson is aware that its order for fingerboard blanks was an order for contraband ebony wood or ebony wood which is illegal to possess," Seiler wrote.

This states the government's case rather clearly.

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