[–] 10 points 1 month ago (1 child)

That's what happens when you're owned by the capital arm of a car company and listed as a turnaround investment. Servco is going to do what it can to squeeze every last drop even though they were a pretty good steward and partner for decades. They are also forcing high minimum buys for stores, leaving a bunch of Mom and Pop shops in the cold and trying to get you to buy direct because there's more margin if you buy from fender directly instead of guitar center.

They also rebranded Studio One to try to create the whole ass fender ecosystem, launched a big ass flagship store in Japan, and are bringing Pac-Man and Godzilla to the electric guitar world (who was asking for that exactly?).

It's the PE playbook without the PE name. Eventually they'll sell the goodwill fender built, saddle it with piles of debt, bankruptcy, and someone else will pick it up. I think fender is too valuable a name to let rot but I would have said the same thing about RCA so what the hell do I know?

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  • [–] 31 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

    -LBJ

    And it doesn't matter if you're talking about different races, different sexualities, attached vs detached earlobes, whatever. Point to a group and tell everyone "They're the problem" and you're going to have an automatic following.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago

    Yep. Land where I grew up was notoriously cheap if you didn't get the mineral rights. You could be poor as fuck and have a tar paper shack on 10 acres and have zero time to produce anything useful on the land. Horses aren't expensive to buy. You can get used tack and hay and oats were inexpensive where I grew up. Maybe a hundred bucks a month to own a horse (this would have been over 30 years ago, definitely more expensive today)? This was not for racing, heavy work, or horse girl stuff, but you could take care of one for not much if your hobby was riding or if you just liked having a horse around. Or you have zero land and help your neighbor with chores and your horse lives next door.

    I do pretty well for myself but I've got an arrangement like that right now. I go help out on my buddy's small ranch every year during the summer. I help enough that there's a horse out there that's mine, on paper at least. He gets the same treatment as the rest of the horses and I own all the gear. Costs me some time, but in all honesty it's time I want to be outdoors anyway.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    The entire c suite and board has to show up when the verdict is read. If it's guilty they're immediately shot. Any who flee and don't show up, once they're picked up, get dropped off the coast of that island where the natives kill outsiders. All wealth distributed amongst workers and contractors.

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    I'm going to keep this short and spoiler free. The final main line Laundry Files novel has been out a few days now. There may be more New Management books (he mentioned an Imp book a while back) but he's got a space opera up next.

    I finished the new one and enjoyed it. Loved the reference to a couple of terrible 70s flicks. It's a pretty good wrap up to the series.

    It is back to Bob as the main character. Plenty of Mo. If you read the New Management books you'll likely recognize a minor character from there. Johnny MacTavish's family comes into play. A couple of the guns were left on the mantle but the big stuff is wrapped and we're not left wondering about the fate of anyone important.

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