Category: Business

Gummint Meddling

Business, Gummint

Just as they’ve been doing with the gun industry and other such activities they don’t approve of, banks (aided and abetted by the usual assholes e.g. John Fuckface Kerry) have turned their fevered gaze towards the eeeevil energy companies.

Climate envoy John Kerry is prodding major U.S. banks privately to announce commitments for climate-friendly finance as part of the administration’s climate change policy rollout at President Joe Biden’s Earth Day summit next month.

…and of course because banks are in business purely at the behest of government, they will no doubt hasten to do what he tells them.

This Green bullshit has to stop, and I’m glad to see that some states are fighting back.

Fifteen state treasurers told Climate Envoy John Kerry to stop pressuring banks and financial institutions to drop the states because if they do then the states will drop them.  The states include Texas, Oklahoma, and coal-heavy West Virginia.

Don’t mess with Texas, assholes.

Reversing Course

Business

Finally, a Woke Corporation looks at the nonsense it’s been doing, and cancels it.  Here’s an example:

3. No more committees. For nearly all of our 21 year existence, we were proudly committee-free. No big working groups making big decisions, or putting forward formalized, groupthink recommendations. No bureaucracy. But recently, a few sprung up. No longer. We’re turning things back over to the person (or people) who were distinctly hired to make those decisions.

“Management by Committee” is another of those Marxist-collectivist mantras which have two sources: from old Karl himself, as taught in schools;  and from women, for whom “participative management” (i.e. by committee) has long been touted as a Good Thing when, in fact, it’s nothing of the kind.  Camels emerging from committees (from a brief to create horses) is so old a joke that it’s actually become a truism.  Of course, it makes people feel better when they’ve had input (the disgusting modern term “stakeholders” should have a stake driven right through its fucking ethos);  but then again, “feeling better” seldom has any place in a corporate workplace except when Alka-Seltzer is freely dispensed from the vending machines.

So yes, Basecamp has done well by trimming back the weeds [sic], and best of all:

Who’s responsible for these changes?  David and I are.  Who made the changes?  David and I did. These are our calls, and the outcomes and impacts land at our doorstep.

That’s called leadership.  And it’s damn time some of it came back into corporate life, at the expense of Wokism and collectivism.

Just What We Needed

Entertainment, Marketing / Advertising, Two-Minute Hate

This is going to end well:

A UK technology company is inserting customised product placement into films and TV shows – even those that were originally released decades ago.
London-based firm Mirriad inserts products or signage, like a branded beer bottle on a table to a clothing advert on a giant billboard, into streaming content.

I know what you’re thinking.  But:

The company used its experience to make inserted ads look as realistic as possible – so viewers would never know they weren’t present in the original shoot.

Uh huh.  I can see it now:

Not to mention:

or:

And even in our favorite classics, like The Devil In Miss Jones :

Is nothing sacred anymore?

Filthy Rich

Business, Sports

I often wondered where the above expression came from.  Now I know.

The background to all this is that a bunch of mega-rich football club owners have decided to create a “super league” of some of Europe’s top soccer teams, to operate in a “midweek” time slot.  The actual story and the mechanics thereof can wait for another time.  What caught my attention was this little profile of some of these owners.

Holy shit.

Now let me state at the outset that I’m not one of those socialist wealth-envious types, and nothing in this post should be interpreted as such.  But if the goal of these clubs’ owners is to make still more money out of their franchises’ so-called “brand” and the cachet attached thereto, my only question is… why?

I’m never going to be the one who says “You’ve made enough money” (because ex-POTUS Urkel already said that), but what these rich bastards are doing is ripping the heart out of the world’s largest sport, spitting in the fans’ faces and turning beloved and storied institutions into cash cows, just so as to further expand their already-gargantuan fortunes.  And that is disgusting.

England’s Big Six of City, Chelsea, United, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool had earlier sparked outrage among much of the footballing world by announcing plans to team up with Spanish giants Atletico, Barcelona, and Real Madrid, and top Italian sides AC and Inter Milan for the new European Super League.

I hope this thing falls on its ass.  I hope the sport’s governing bodies toss these clubs out of their respective leagues, and ban the players from playing anywhere outside this new monster league (which may happen).

In a case of extreme irony, a sport that was created by and for poor working men is being turned into a rich man’s little toy.

Update:  It seems this might have gone a league too far:  all six English clubs intend to pull out (and the Euro clubs have followed), and the awful exec-V.P. of Manchester United has resigned — maybe the first of many such to follow soon.  (It’s all happening very quickly;  I’ve updated this part of the post three times already, in just a few hours.)

The players aren’t happy about it, either.  Here’s Liverpool’s captain:

This says it all:

Have a little sauce with that humble pie.

Past Sins

Business

This one will resonate especially with my Brit and Colonial Readers.

It appears that the Rowntree company has discovered that O Woe their company depended on The Evil Slavery back in the days before steamships were built, and therefore they are prostrating themselves before the Gods Of Wokedom, rending their clothes, wearing hairshirts and putting out their corporate eyes in orgies of  self-abasement and atonement [some slight hyperbole there] :

Trusts created by British chocolate maker Rowntree have apologised after research into its own history revealed ‘shameful’ links to the slave trade.
The investigation into the company’s history was party prompted by the Black Lives Matter movement and revealed evidence that the famously philanthropic family business may have profited from the slave trade.

But it gets worse:

Research by the Rowntree Society, which promotes the history of the company, also uncovered allegations of racial discrimination and anti-union tactics at the firm’s South African subsidiary Wilson Rowntree during the apartheid era as recently as the early 1980s.

O noes!  Not the Evil Boers! 

Now I don’t wanna sound all uncaring and indifferent and stuff, but lest we forget, said horrors also enabled the following items of pure deliciousness to tickle our palates.

An aside:  alert Readers will note that many of the items below are labeled “Nestlé” because yea did Rowntree sell their chocolate business to the foul Swiss;  but thankfully, the cuckoo clockmakers have never used their own disgusting chocolate recipe, but stuck to the original Rowntree formulation (much like Hershey has done with Cadbury products Over Here).

Here they are:

Still one of the nicest chocolate bars ever made, the “bubbly” Aero is an automatic basket-filler when I go to World Market.

This is a staple in 7-11 and other convenience stores, and for good reason.  (The white-chocolate KitKat is even better.)

Beloved by small children (and by their parents, as bribe material), the tiny sugar-coated gelatin pellets are not only delicious, but addictive.  Not as addictive, however, as Rowntree’s

The Son&Heir is not a big candy consumer;  he doesn’t eat chocolate and hardly ever uses sugar with anything.  However, give him a tube (or large bag, it doesn’t seem to matter) of Fruit Pastilles when he comes a-calling, and the delicious things will have disappeared before he gets home.

These chocolate-filled sugar candies are what M&Ms are supposed to taste like, but don’t.  Unlike said Hershey horribles, Smarties give you a choice in the eating thereof:  you can crunch them up in your mouth and chew the thin candy slivers with the chocolate, or you can do what I do:  suck them slowly until the candy disintegrates, then be left with warm, melted chocolate that will coat the inside of your mouth with absolute indulgent pleasure.  (Yes, they do melt in your pocket;  which is why Smarties are typically sold in stiff cardboard tubes [see pic] so that they don’t.)

And then we come to the piéce-de-resistance (brace yourselves, this is going to cause mass convulsions among the Wokistas):

This cornucopia of delight was a staple among young men of my generation, serving as a fail-safe present for Mom on Mother’s Day / her birthday, and Valentine’s Day for the beloved girlfriend / wife.  (Yes, children, back in the day women actually ate chocolate without suffering agonies of conscience, and giving chocolate as a present did not engender [sic]  howls of accusation.)  You can get an idea from this wonderful launch ad:

Even better was that the inside of the lid gave a map to the contents:

Now I know that calling it “Black Magic” would nowadays be considered the Ultimate Rayyycism, but in those days — and yes, this is going to sound weird to the Youngins — black packaging gave products an air of class (see:  limousine colors, tuxedo suits, “black tie” dress etc.), so the brand name was that, and also gave the product a slightly “wicked” feel.  Because even back then, we knew that chocolate was an indulgence, and fattening, and so on.  (I know, I know:  we Whiteys appropriated Black people’s skin color for our own ends.  Talk about wicked.)

Delicious.

So, to return to my original thesis (after wiping the drool from my chin):  yes, the Rowntree company has behaved abominably in the past, etc. etc.

But I think I can safely say that out of the suffering of slaves did come some of the greatest snack candies of all time, and that should count for something.

Afterthought:  it’s probably a good thing I don’t do social media, as one can hardly imagine the response to a humorous post like the above on Twatter or Faecesbook.

Walking Back-Pedaling

Marketing / Advertising, Resistance

It appears that Coca-Cola has been somewhat stung by the criticism leveled at it by their silly support of bad practices, criticism such as:

…created by Yours Truly.

So now they’ve started reversing / backpedaling / retreating:

Coca-Cola, whose CEO denounced the Georgia voting bill, is now striking a conciliatory tone after coming under pressure from conservatives.
The soda giant, which is based in Atlanta, was absent from a list of more than 500 corporations and individuals that signed a statement condemning any election legislation that would “restrict” voters from having “an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot.” The missive was placed as a two-page Wednesday ad in the New York Times and Washington Post, with the effort being organized by the Black Economic Alliance.
Coca-Cola said in a statement to the Washington Examiner on Wednesday that the company “had not seen the letter” initiated by the alliance but is “certainly open to hearing their perspective.” It said it has supported the right to vote and that it will assess how to support voting rights.
“We believe the best way to make progress now is for everyone to come together to listen, respectfully share concerns and collaborate on a path forward. We remain open to productive conversations with advocacy groups and lawmakers who may have differing views,” the company said. “It’s time to find common ground. In the end, we all want the same thing – free and fair elections, the cornerstone of our democracy.”
Coca-Cola’s Wednesday remarks are notably less confrontational than its previous statements on the Georgia voting law.

Translated from corporate weaselspeak:

“Even after the New Coke fiasco, it appears that we still haven’t figured out that our primary market is conservative people, who seem to have a problem with a law which allows their own votes to be negated by a truckload of fraudulent votes.  Who knew?  Anyway, we’ll mark time on this one because we depend on these assholes to maintain our market share in the super-sweet battery-acid drink business.”

Message to all the other giant corporations who are diving into the Sea Of Wokedom, from conservatives like myself:

We may only be about 75 million in number, but we can still do damage to your company by using your products less and less, or else withholding our business altogether.