Archive for the ‘business’ Category

I’m Not paying a 350% Premium Just to Tweak Hershey’s

Posted: March 5, 2023 by datechguy in business, culture
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Major Hogan: [tosses a coin to Sharpe] What’s that, Sharpe?

Richard Sharpe: A shilling, sir.

Major Hogan: The King’s Shilling, Sharpe. Our last shilling. London’s late, the Army’s broke, and we owe the lads two months’ wages… What do you do when you’re out of cash, Sharpe?

Richard Sharpe: Do without, sir.

Sharpe’s Rifles 1993

Spent a day and a half with friends crashing over for a birthday (very odd to do so without DaWife, it almost never happens) so I’ve not been close to events over the last 48 hours so I was rather surprised when I walked into DaHouse this morning just after midnight, turned on the TV and saw this ad:

It’s a very clever ad and I endorse the sentiment expressed. A lot of other people must as well since they apparently sold 100,000 bars within 12 hours so I headed over to their web site to see what they were offering.

And that’s when I saw that their base chocolate bar was $6.99

$6.99? In contrast at my local market basket a Hershey’s bar goes for about $2.

Not to worry though you can choose to order 4 bars and pay$25 or $6.25 a bar

or if that’s too much you can buy 10 bars and pay $45.99 or $4.59 a bar

but the real bargain is a 24 pack which sets you back $100. So not only are you only paying a 25% premium to tweak Hershey but you get free shipping unlike those previous orders that don’t get to the $80 free shipping threshold.

You know I’m not a fan of wokeness but most normal Americans can’t afford to spend $100 on chocolate. That’s three water bills, or 3/4 of an electric bill or 2 1/2 fill ups of my car. I’m not going to blow that amount on candy just to poke these guys in the eye.

Apparently a lot of guys can and if Jeremy’s can find people in this economy who can, more power to them that’s free enterprise.

Me I’ll just buy a different brand without the 350% premium or do without. Just as effective but without the capital outlay.

“Roald the Rotten” Dahl an unlikely hero in battle against wokeism

Posted: February 26, 2023 by John Ruberry in business, culture, media, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Deep down every wokester is weak. Just as most bullies are. You criticize a woke person and you are called a racist, a bigot, or some sort of “phobe” or another. They expect you to cower in shame afterwards.

And if you don’t?

Like the dystopia described in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the editing of books deemed offensive has begun. The endgame in Bradbury’s storyline was the banning of all books. 

Last week the publisher of Roald Dahl, Puffin, announced it was editing some of his works–which include the classics Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda–to remove language they deem offensive. Augustus Gloop, the gluttonous German boy in the first book, will no longer be “fat,” he’ll be “enormous.” In Matilda, “mothers and fathers” become “parents.” The bald witches in The Witches will come with a disclaimer about baldness. 

Next came the backlash.

But let’s talk about the author first. 

Dahl, who died in 1990, had slight misanthropic and even more direct anti-Semitic sentiments. At the very least he was a beast of a person. Dahl’s marriage to Hollywood actress Patricia Neal–one of my late mother’s favorite performers by the way–was tumultuous. Neal suffered a stroke while pregnant, and as she recovered, she couldn’t remember the words of many things. Dahl, a serial adulterer throughout their marriage, refused to give his wife things she asked for, including food, until she used the correct word. 

Neal’s nickname for her husband was “Roald the Rotten.”

Dahl’s publisher for much of his career was Alfred A. Knopf.

After asking Knopf that a person who was “competent and ravishing” should send him dozens of Dixon Ticonderoga pencils, Dahl was sent different ones, after his first request was laughed off. Dahl made more demands and then threatened to send his writings to a different publisher.

But instead, Knopf released the popular author. Employees of the publishing house cheered when they heard the news of Dahl’s dismissal. They fought back against a bully and won.

Salman Rushdie, who lost his sight in one eye after a recent attack, was one of the prominent writers who came to Dahl’s defense. “Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship,” Rushdie Tweeted. “Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.”

Even Queen Camilla voiced her support for him.

A few days later Puffin backed off. Oh, it will still publish the edited, make that censored, versions of Dahl’s books. But the original Dahl works will also be printed. Here’s my prediction: Woke Dahl, just like the New Coke debacle several decades ago, will go down as colossal failure. Vintage Dahl will win.

Heroes are hard to find in these complicated times. But the legacy of “Roald the Rotten” has been used to fight back against another bully, the woke movement, which deems itself morally correct and beyond reproach.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Lori Lightfoot proves targeting opponents over Sam Bankman-Fried contributions is effective

Posted: February 5, 2023 by John Ruberry in business, crime, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Okay, Republicans, you have an easy lay-up shot at the basket. But of course, sure things, such as Red Wave midterm blowouts, can end up as air balls. 

America’s worst big city mayor, Chicago’s Lori Lightfoot, is running for reelection. She has eight opponents, a couple of whom, such as Ja’Mal Green and the Chicago Teachers Union-endorsed Brandon Johnson, are extreme leftists who provide answers to the question, “Can Chicago have a worse mayor than Lori Lightfoot?

Chicago’s elections are non-partisan. In the likely scenario that no candidate achieves 50 percent of the vote in the first round of voting, which is February 28, the top two candidates face off in an April 4 runoff. As with the congressional midterms, polling has been all over the place in the mayoral race, but the top four candidates in terms of popularity appear to be Lightfoot, former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, businessman and vote-buyer Willie Wilson, and US Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia. 

The Chicago mayoral race is the first major election, unless you count December’s Georgia Senate runoff race, since the collapse of cryptocurrency firm FTX.

By most accounts Garcia, who endorsed Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign, was the early frontrunner in the contest. But then Lightfoot went on the attack. 

You see, Garcia’s congressional campaign fund accepted $2,900 from former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who was indicted last year for charges surrounding the collapse of the crypto currency firm. Worse, SBF’s PAC, Protect our Futures, spent over $150,000 on glossy mailers sent to Chuy’s remapped and gerrymandered 4th congressional district to introduce him to new voters for the 2022 Democratic primary. Only Garcia was running unopposed in that race. Chuy is a member of the House Financial Services Committee, which oversees cryptocurrency. The $2,900 Bankman-Fried contribution to Garcia has since been donated to charity.

And Lighfoot’s attack appears to be a solid blow against Garcia in a TV spot where she connects Garcia not only to SBF, but also to former Illinois Democratic Party chairman and state House speaker, Boss Michael Madigan, who was indicted last year, as well as Chicago’s deservedly unpopular red-light cameras. 

Most of the Lightfoot attack ad against Garcia begins at the 1:22 mark in this Fox Chicago video.

The upshot? In the two most recent polls, one that you should look at with suspicion comes from an internal survey from the Lightfoot campaign, and the other one from a suburban Republican pollster, Garcia has dropped to third place. Lighfoot’s poll has her on in the lead, the other poll has Vallas in the lead with Lighfoot close behind–but both surveys have the top two in a statistical tie. 

Garcia, although he did force Rahm Emanuel into a runoff in the 2015 mayoral race, is accustomed to comfortable elections, so it might be a struggle for Chuy to fight back.

Back to the GOP.  

Republicans, you know, or should know, what to do. Target every Democrat who has taken Sam Bankman-Fried cash so hard that voters will believe that these Dems have SBF as a running mate.

Even if it means following Lori Lightfoot’s lead.

John Ruberry regularly blogs just north off Chicago at Marathon Pundit.

Five #Twitterfiles thoughts Under the Fedora Paid For, Friday Dump Differences, Traffic lost to Advertisers, Now it makes sense and Consequences

Posted: December 3, 2022 by datechguy in business, election 2020, internet/free speech, News/opinion, tech, Uncategorized
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One might be amazed how many reporters on the left spent yesterday on twitter attacking Musk and Matt Taibbi for releasing these documents, at least one would if you didn’t realize that these folks paychecks depend on them objecting.

This goes to show the difference between social media and standard media. For standard media a Friday night dump would be all about burring a story. However for a story that will spread via social media a Friday night weekend dump means more regular people will be free to read and spread it around, which is the whole point.

All that Musk has done has been about raising the profile of twitter. This document dump will do the same. That’s good news for all those advertisers who didn’t heed the left’s call to leave the platform but bad news to all who played along and lost their exposure to all those eyeballs.

This combined with the under oath testimony of an FBI agent being deposed is Missouri on their attempts to use big tech to swing the last election goes a long way in explaining why they went all in on stealing that election. If they fail and Trump wins then it’s bound to have been leaked to someone in the admin which might have resulted in a special prosecutor and/or investigation that would have been damning.

It’s very much worth noting that there were Democrat members of congress worried about this but their primary worry was what it would mean to section 230 defanging the friendly tech folks elsewhere at Facebook and Google and Youtube. In other words they were worried about not the acts but the Consequences they might lead to. A real test of the new GOP congress will be how deep they investigate this. If I’m McCarthy worried about getting the speakers chair I’d put out a statement at once saying I would name a committee at once and promise to load it with fire-eaters on the right.

Then let the consequences flow.

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