Karma Smiles

Two headlines that had me chuckling, when seen one after the other:

…and then:

So their lesbians beat our lesbians.  (I know, this whole Lesbo World Cup is of little interest over in this corner of Teh Intarwebz, being a) soccer and b) womyns’ sports, but stay with me here.)

This whole non-singing of the national anthem — when you have been chosen to represent your country — has stuck in my craw since Day One.  By not singing the anthem, what you’re saying is that this is not a momentous privilege but just another thing you have to do before signing that lucrative endorsement deal.

And then kvetching when you don’t get that lucrative endorsement deal.

I know, I know:  it’s their First Amendment right and all that, but people need to understand that sometimes there are consequences to actions, and this would be one of those times.

I’m no longer an executive in this business but if I were, there is absolutely no way I would sign up one of these unpatriotic and ungrateful assholes and pay them some large sum of money, because in all good faith I couldn’t show them wearing the Team USA shirt (on the Wheaties packet, for example) when they’ve basically indicated that wearing said shirt is anathema to them.

Enjoy your stay in Oblivion City, shitbirds.

Working Towards Extinction

In this post at Insty’s  which discusses how San Francisco retailing is going down the rat-infested tubes, Stephen Green opines:

The future of shopping in America’s Democrat-run cities will eventually evolve into the Soviet model of paying a clerk first at one counter, then waiting for your goods to be delivered at the next counter. Shoppers won’t be allowed near any of the merchandise. But that’s what happens when you elect Soviet-minded politicians.

Our remaining advantage over the Soviet model is that enough of America still works that there are goods behind the counter.

So far.  But the Communists in the Democratic Socialist party are working hard to create the other reality — you know, the one where the State ends up owning the means of production and pretends to pay people while people pretend to work. [/Stalinism]

Sucker Bet

I recently received an email from GlobalBankingMegaCorp congratulating me on my “new” credit limit increase — said increase no doubt being fueled by the fact that I haven’t charged anything on their poxy card for over six months and have instead been paying down the balance.

Then, lower down, there was this lovely little incentive to spend more with them (note the sting in the tail):

LOL they must think I was born yesterday.

Clear Alternative

It’s all very well to boycott foul companies like Anheuser-Busch and Target, but what are the alternatives available?  Reader JC_in_PA writes about one such organization:

“Kim,

“I heard the founder of this company on Mornings with Maria (Bartiromo) radio show, she’s a legit conservative in business broadcasting.  To counter the ESG nazis driving American companies to adopt insane Global Cooling Climate Warming Change postions, and kowtowing to the LBGTQRSTUVWXYZ fanatics, he created a business network for businesses called Public Square, to proclaim their opposition to this nonsense by proclaiming a set of principles that guide their business practices and connect them with like-minded consumers.  I’ll relay my experience with them shortly, but this is their statement of principles.

“Our Values

    • Pro-Life, Pro-Family, Pro-Freedom.
    • We are united in our commitment to freedom and truth — that’s what makes us Americans.
    • We will always protect the family unit and celebrate the sanctity of every life.
    • We believe small businesses and the communities who support them are the backbone of our economy.
    • We believe in the greatness of this Nation and will always fight to defend it.
    • Our Constitution is non-negotiable — government isn’t the source of our rights, so it can’t take them away.
    • When a business signs up with PublicSq, they agree to respect the values above.

“I heard that interview a month or so ago and never checked out their website. But I needed new blue jeans and I’ll be damned if I’ll buy from Levi Strauss or Wrangler with their anti 2A stance. So I started emailing American jean manufacturers (there are a surprising number of them) with something like the following. ‘I need new jeans and while I don’t need you to make a positive statement of support for 2A, I need to know you have not made any public statements which are anti-2A, I just need to know you are at least neutral.’  Needless to say, crickets, all around.

“So I went to Public Square’s website and found L.C. King Manufacturing, a 115 year old American company making quality work wear at reasonable prices, and got a 25% discount from them for a Public Square promo code! The site is fairly new, but they have a number of clothing companies, housewares, skin care… all sorts of stuff, and the network is growing. I find it fascinating. Much as I love the travails Bud Light and Target are going through right now, I think this is better than boycotts. Spend our money with firms that actually RESPECT their customers. What a concept!

“Anyway, I don’t do this often, but I thought you might find this blog-worthy, and I’d sure like to get the word out about this group.”

And now you know.  I especially like the links just under the masthead:

That’s some good-looking stuff right there.

Give them a shot, and let’s do our bit for the America we want, as opposed to the fucking shit we’re having shoved in our face every day.

Not So Sure

Here’s an interesting take on the whole Bud Light debacle:

“When the company was bought over by InBev, a lot of things changed [from] when it was owned by Anheuser-Busch. You know, it’s an American brand,” the whistleblower remarked.

He explained that the company previously offered many benefits prior to its purchase by InBev. Through the fall in sales for the Bud Light brand, the former employee stated, the corporation could restructure both employee benefits and its company standards through layoffs and renegotiating contracts.

“Bud Light has been failing for many years. We’ve talked about that for many years. The numbers of just, you know, little by little deteriorated. And it feels like they said, ‘Let’s put this nail in the coffin,’” he said. “Now we have a lot of layoffs, a lot of loss in production. It would be easy for them to restructure, let’s say, pay or contracts.”

“It’s too obvious that they wouldn’t just mistakenly do this and not expect these repercussions. Anybody could tell you what was going to happen,” he commented.

Um, maybe.  Okay, I’m not so sure about that.  In the first place, when it comes to giant corporations, never ascribe to malice what can also be ascribed to stupidity.  Sometimes it happens, but that ain’t the way to bet.

The most telling rebuttal to this assertion is quite simple.  Regardless of whether Bud Light was in decline, or not, it was still the best-selling beer brand in the United States.  And yes, while A-B might have stood to gain from restructuring salary scales or employment contracts, I hardly think that those savings would equate to anything like the amount of money that’s been lost (and will continue to be lost) from their plummeting sales and the equally-dismal drop in their share price.  If some toad in Finance suggested this, he needs to be castrated, in the corporate sense, because if even someone like me can see this, then he’s truly stupid.

Regardless of everything else, you just don’t willfully destroy your #1 brand, especially when it’s as large a brand as Bud Light.  The sums of money are just too vast, the possible repercussions too dreadful because they’re unknown — the ramifications could see A-B split up as a company into separate operating companies (Michelob, Busch, etc.) and the loss of economies which stem from shared brands would cripple all of them.  They’d become no different from a bunch of craft brands — and regardless of what anyone thinks, A-B brands are about as far from craft beers, in both quality and consumer regard, as one could get.

No, the whole thing is just way too Machiavellian and too complex — and trust me, it’s not like InBev is staffed with people of the strategic vision of, say, the German General Staff of WWII, even.  They’re a bunch of Belgian and American bureaucrats, a breed not known for their perspicacity.  And let’s be honest, the Belgies are among the wokest people on the planet, so I’m more likely to ascribe all this bullshit to simple corporate vanity.

Of course, if I’m wrong and this really was just part of some diabolical Master Plan, I hope it all falls apart and the whole A-B/InBev house comes crashing down.  The world will survive and who knows, we might just end up with a few decent beers out of the wreckage.