Category: Business

Pass The Popcorn, Simon

Business, Gummint

I had to chuckle to myself when I saw this article about Amazon’s proposed new HQ in NYFC:

After months of haggling and wrangling to establish a deal involving major tax breaks and accommodations, Democrats in New York City are complaining that the deal isn’t good enough, the tax breaks are too dangerous, and Amazon’s arrival might be damaging to the social justice crowd because it could lead to further “gentrification” of the area. And that has Governor Andrew Cuomo seeing red and going to war with his own party.

It is, as the kids say nowadays, to LOL.  And needless to say, as the first sod has yet to be turned on the thing:

Online retail giant Amazon is reconsidering its plans to open a headquarters in Queens due to opposition from local lawmakers, according to a new report.
Executives at the company recently met to reassess setting up shop in Long Island City, as pols and activists continue to rail against the controversial new campus, the Washington Post reports, citing two people “familiar with the company’s thinking.”
“The question is whether it’s worth it if the politicians in New York don’t want the project, especially with how people in Virginia and Nashville have been so welcoming,” one of the sources told the paper.

Down here in the Dallas area, our proposals to Amazon were tiny compared to all the others’ offers — mostly because Texas has such a business-friendly climate, we start with a built-in advantage and don’t have to carve out all sorts of exceptions.  And New York doesn’t have a lot of stuff to give away, either:

The deal New York cut with Amazon is far beyond generous, including $2.5 billion in tax credits and $500 million in state construction subsidies. That hollows out the benefits of the new HQ in terms of municipal and state tax revenue considerably.

And of course, where’s there’s idiocy afoot, can Our Little Leninist Darling AOC be far behind?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez applauded news on Friday that Amazon is reportedly reconsidering its plans to build a second headquarters in New York City as it faces fierce opposition from some state and city officials.
“Can everyday people come together and effectively organize against creeping overreach of one of the world’s biggest corporations?” she wrote in a tweet. “Yes, they can.”
The New York Democrat, who represents the 14th Congressional District, has been a fierce critic of the e-commerce giant’s proposed second headquarters in Long Island City, a neighborhood in Queens.

It makes you wonder why Amazon chose — or even considered investing in — New York at all, despite the bribes incentives.  All I can say is that they all deserve each other.

And if Amazon now comes a-calling on Dallas to re-pitch the area, we should offer them a great big Nada.  Fuck ’em.

Banzai

Business, Food & Drink

I don’t quite know what to make of all this:

London Pride maker Fuller, Smith & Turner, better known as Fuller’s, is to sell its entire beer business to the European division of Japanese brewer Asahi.
In a deal which values the division at £250million, the London-based brewer will sell the production and distribution of its well-known beers, including its flagship drink London Pride, as well as its ale, stout, porter, craft lager and cider brands.

Considering that London Pride is my second-favorite beer (after Wadworth 6X), I can only hope that Asahi won’t look at Pride’s miniscule U.S. distribution and decide that it’s not worth it.

On the other hand, they might also think that Fuller are a bunch of morons for not getting Pride greater exposure in the U.S., with the result that I could soon buy it at Kroger.

So it’s “wait and see”, not something I typically enjoy doing.

Gah.  I hate  change.

Tragedy

Bad News, Business, Food & Drink

As Longtime Readers may know, one of my favorite stops when I’m in Britishland is Patisserie Valerie, which makes some of the best pastries I’ve ever tasted (along with outstanding croissants at breakfast time).  Apparently, quality merchandise hasn’t been enough:

Patisserie Holdings plc announces today that, as a direct result of the significant fraud referred to in previous announcements, it has been unable to renew its bank facilities, and therefore regrettably the business does not have sufficient funding to meet its liabilities as they fall due.
As a consequence, the directors have appointed partners at KPMG as administrators to the company and its various subsidiaries.
The Chairman Luke Johnson has personally extended an unsecured, interest-free loan to help ensure that the January wages are paid to all staff working in the ongoing business.
This Loan will also assist the administrators in trading as many profitable stores as possible while a sale process is undertaken.

Needless to say, stores will be closed and people will lose their jobs.

This after one of its senior executives siphoned money out of the place to support his jet-set lifestyle.  And if I could get hold of the asshole, his legal and financial problems would be the least of his problems.

Yes, I take my pastries that  seriously.

The King Is Dead

Business, Men & Women, Modernism

One wonders what King Gillette would think of his company’s current manifestation of anti-masculinity:

A new short film released by the shaving brand dedicates itself to tackling toxic masculinity in a video that relies more on berating men for not living up to the standards of feminists than selling razors.

Knowing but a little of what King Gillette was like, and knowing how many years of toil and financial hardship he endured to get his disposable razor blade to the market, I think he’d probably burn the whole fucking thing to the ground, and I’d be handing him the cans of gasoline.

In the grand scheme of things, I’d be one of the men refusing to buy Gillette products in protest at their foolishness.  But the truth of the matter is that I haven’t used a Gillette product in well over a quarter of a century, simply because I refuse to spend about $5 for a blade which lasts me less than a week*.  (Good old safety singles or bargain-priced Trac II blades for me;  and if I run out, I use a straight, or “cutthroat” razor without a qualm.)

As for Gillette’s parent company, Proctor & Gamble:  I have suffered untold toiletry privations at their hands, the miserable Cincinnati MFCS bastards:  brand “extensions” which end up replacing much-loved products, only to see said extensions later withdrawn, meaning that I have to find replacements for products I’ve used sometimes for decades.  Try to find, in supermarkets or drugstores anywhere, Old Spice Original Fresh Stick deodorant with the the light blue label — not the anti-perspirant variant, which smells like cat piss.  I’ve been using Old Spice Fresh sticks for well over fifty years, and now I’m forced to buy them online in packs of 24 because they are nowhere to be found otherwise.  And if that supply dries up, I’ll stop using deodorant altogether, because every other male deodorant on the market nowadays smells like an attractant for homosexual prostitutes during Fleet Week.)

To use Gillette’s line on P&G:  50 years of unswerving loyalty is “the best a man can get”, you incompetent fuckers.  Too bad it means nothing to you.

A pox on all of them.  I can’t wait for “woke” to become “choke”, and may they burn in the fires of toiletry hell.

*En passant:  I once tried one of those 5-blade things — a disposable — just for the hell of it, and it felt like someone was dragging the hair out of my face with sandpaper.

Comings And Goings

Business, Technology

This story pissed me off, for all the usual reasons:

“For years, TWC has deceptively used its Weather Channel App to amass its users’ private, personal geolocation data — tracking minute details about its users’ locations throughout the day and night, all the while leading users to believe that their data will only be used to provide them with ‘personalized local weather data, alerts and forecasts,’” the complaint reads.
The data serves no weather-related purpose, but was only collected in order to allow TWC to turn a profit, the complaint reads. The data was sold to at least 12 third party websites over the past 19 months.
The Weather Channel app has about 45 million users, according to the complaint.
TWC intentionally obscures this information” in a 10,000-word privacy policy “because it recognizes that many users would not permit the Weather Channel App to track their geolocation if they knew the true uses of that data,” the complaint goes on to say.
The lawsuit is seeking an injunction prohibiting TWC from continuing to collect and sell the data, along with civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation.

Just this week, I went through a store (Forever 21) instead of using a mall entrance because my car was parked closer to the former than the latter.  And on leaving the mall, I went back out the same way.

Needless to say, when I got home I had one of those “personalized”, annoying little requests:  “Tell us about your shopping experience at Forever 21” with a link attached.  Being annoyed, I went there and wrote the following:

“I walked around your store TWICE today, and not once did anyone from your staff offer to help me.  In fact, given that the people I THINK were employees were dressed like customers, it was hard to tell whether there were in fact any employees in the store at all.  Certainly, most people in the store were standing around chatting to their friends and ignoring everyone else completely, so there was no way of telling.  It will be a long time, if ever, before I visit Forever 21 again.”

And every single word of that is true.  Yeah, it’s possible the wrong people will get punished.  I don’t fucking care.  If enough people turn this data snooping around and use it against these “marketing” bastards, maybe they’ll stop using it.  If not… did I mention I don’t fucking care?

And to return to my original gripe:  I deleted the Weather Channel app off my phone, just in case and just because.

A spokesperson for The Weather Company — which operates the Weather Channel – provided CBS2 with the following statement:
“The Weather Company has always been transparent with use of location data; the disclosures are fully appropriate, and we will defend them vigorously.”

Fuck them and their transparency.  I hope the lawsuit costs them many millions, and they go out of business.  And I wish I knew which dozen organizations bought TWC’s tracking data so that I could boycott them too.  If anyone knows who they are, please share that information in Comments.