Thanks once more for the nice comment, Andre! I wonder what would happen if I'd go all the way up for more grain. Perhaps a second guitar series! ;-) And as I am completely depending on the availability of energy for my guitar too, I can only thank heavens for such companies! ;-)
But about being like vultures, well Andre, I think that the companies that produce something, be it power line connectors or anything else, they are all in the same bad situation. It is not the companies themselves, I think. It is more the fact that those who don't produce but only finance production get more and more insatiable with time. I know that there are many too many banks out there that really are able to dictate: "Either more profit or we eat you up and we shut you down". So what else can a company do? If the only thing that counts is just revenue and there are people that would let you fall down if you don't give them more profits, then you really sit between the hammer and the amboss.
As an example, I still have the good old HP41 by Hewlett Packard and it just works like a charm after more than 25 years. At those times profit was also important, but not only. The value of a company was also measured by quality and good craftmanship. Of course if one only counts dollars then this is a bad product since it sells not as many pieces because it was made for half an eternity. But I guess that it is way better to balance all these factors and also say at some point that enough profit is enough. I think that this makes a company also more lasting, but unfortunately even the CEO of a company has nowadays less options than some real vulture at Wall Street. They can be so... clever - in the negative sense.
Hi Nick, I agree there is some sort of textured look to this one caused by the grain.
On another note. I work for a company that among other things manufactures those huge power line connectors. The head office guys all get together and pray for hurricanes, storms and tornadoes. We are like vultures profiting on disaster in that respect. Well, somebody has to provide the parts to get all the energy flowing again. :) Andre
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