Corporate America
September 27, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The UAW is striking the Big Three American auto companies. On behalf of its members, the union is fighting the Man for substantially higher pay and substantially less work. One doesn’t read about it much, but one of the big reasons why the UAW is fighting right now is the shift to electric vehicles. See, for example, the Yahoo! Finance backgrounder here explaining “why the shift to EVs is such
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September 20, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Attending first grade at Park School in Moorhead, Minnesota, I walked to school. My parents gave me an allowance of $.50 a week to buy snacks at the tiny store across the street from school. The snacks I favored cost $.10 a piece but for Hostess CupCakes and Twinkies, which threw my budget off. They cost $.12 for a package of two. The store owner had to help me figure
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June 19, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The Axios graphic below depicts the stock price of Target, Anheuser-Busch, and Kohl’s over the period April 3 to June 14. The top line represents the S&P 500. Axios computes the total loss in value of the three stocks at $28 billion. Axios attributes the loss to “right-wing backlash” on “social issues.” I take it that Axios supports the trans madness. At Issues & Insights, Terry Jones reports on the
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June 11, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The Wall Street Journal published Dr. David Shaywitz’s May 29 review of Charles Barber’s In the Blood: How Two Outsiders Solved a Centuries-Old Medical Mystery and Took On the US Army. Offhand, I can’t imagine a less inviting or more boring headline than the one the Journal slapped on the review: “How to Improve a First-Aid Kit.” It took me a while to get around to it, but I couldn’t
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April 22, 2023 — Elizabeth Stauffer
Ad Age reports there’s been a shakeup among leadership in the marketing department at Bud Light. Anheuser-Busch, the brand’s parent company, has confirmed that Alissa Heinerscheid, the woman behind the disastrous decision to partner with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in their latest marketing campaign, has taken a leave of absence and “will be replaced by Todd Allen, who was most recently global marketing VP for Budweiser.” In a statement first
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April 17, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Anheuser-Busch has released a feel-good ad seeking to undo the damage its association with Dylan Mulvaney has done. The ad made me laugh because it has the feel of an outtake from Mr. Ed. It should be titled The Return of Mr. Ed. Looking around online for a video of the ad I came across the parody below. The parody video includes a second or two of the original with
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April 15, 2023 — Elizabeth Stauffer
Citing losses of “tens of millions of dollars a year,” Walmart announced they will be closing four stores in Chicago. Four other Walmart stores will remain open in the city. The company issued a statement on Tuesday which said: The simplest explanation is that collectively our Chicago stores have not been profitable since we opened the first one nearly 17 years ago – these stores lose tens of millions of
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April 13, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin is an alumnus of Harvard who is grateful for his education. He has given millions to Harvard. Most recently, he gave an unrestricted gift of $300 million to Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is to be renamed in his honor. It’s hard to believe he couldn’t resist the temptation, find a worthier object of his charity, or
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April 10, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Steve posted the heavy thoughts of Bud Light VP of Marketing Alissa Heinerscheid here yesterday. I love the condescending sing-song she brings to her “explanation” of the current Bud Light marketing campaign. “We need to evolve and elevate this incredibly iconic brand….What does evolve and elevate mean?” Heavy thought: “It means inclusivity. It means shifting the tone. It means having a campaign that’s truly inclusive and feels lighter and brighter
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April 7, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The trans movement may not be the culmination of the culture war. It probably isn’t. I just lack the imagination to discern what out next stop might be. If we haven’t reached peak madness, we have at least hit bingo on the trans insanity card. Happily ignorant of Dylan Mulvaney — the New York Post has a useful backgrounder here — I now learn that he has secured a deal
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March 2, 2023 — Elizabeth Stauffer
United Airlines took to Twitter this week to proclaim that an all-LGBTQ+ crew had just completed a flight from San Francisco to Sydney. A video inside the tweet showed two employees unveiling the image of a koala bear – wearing heart-shaped sunglasses – waving an enormous LGBTQ flag on the side of the aircraft. The airline may have been surprised to learn that for many passengers, safety trumps diversity. Although
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November 4, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Elon Musk is said to be laying off half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees. This doesn’t come as a surprise: Twitter’s head count seems absurdly high, and expenses will need to be cut to have any hope of generating a profit commensurate with Musk’s purchase price. But Elon says there is more to it than that. He says Twitter’s revenue has dropped dramatically because leftists have pressured companies not to advertise
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November 3, 2022 — John Hinderaker
The slogan “Get woke, go broke” is appealing, but unfortunately it often is not true. Wokeness has turned out all too well–so far, at least–for too many businesses. But injecting left-wing politics into contexts where they don’t belong can have consequences. As Jimmy Kimmel proudly tells us: ABC’s late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel has made Trump bashing a central part of his TV persona. Now he has publicly admitted that his
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October 29, 2022 — Scott Johnson
It turns out that the purportedly fired Twitter employees featured in the news yesterday were hoaxers with a good sense of humor. CNBC’s story on them now comes with an editor’s note: “After CNBC published details of an interview with people who claimed to be fired employees of Twitter, several reports emerged suggesting it was a hoax. CNBC could not confirm the identities of the individuals.” The New York Post
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October 28, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The imminent midterm elections have instigated a flurry of public appearances and statements by President Biden. He denies, deflects, and minimizes the seriousness of the historic inflation he has inflicted on us. This week he took after “junk fees” in what I see in a pathetic exhibition of fighting inflation for those who don’t understand what inflation is. In this case he added a racial element that I don’t purport
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July 29, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Kim Strassel observes in her weekly Wall Street Journal column that the $270 billion so-called CHIPS and Science Act served as the predicate of the Schumer/Manchin $750 billion Bummer Beyond Belief light that is now to be moved via the reconciliation process. CNBC drily observes that Senator McConnell had “previously warned that Republicans would not back the China competition bill [i.e., the CHIPS bill] if Democrats continued to pursue an
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July 27, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The ginormous CHIPS Act has grown like Topsy into a $250 billion bill with a little help from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Touted as a benefit to American national security, not just another case of corporate welfare or crony capitalism, the Act is slated to pass the Senate this week. The Free Beacon’s Joe Simonson reports on developments that might affect this assessment: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.,
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