Archive for the ‘business’ Category

Under the Fedora: Jonah Goldberg and the New Rules, Pride Month Savings on Sports, The annual Business ritual, More Utilitarian Candidates, What Bread of Life Discourses?

Posted: June 3, 2024 by datechguy in Blame Trump, business, catholic, culture, election 2024, elections, politics, Sports, under the fedora
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This weekend Jonah Goldberg noted that a lot of people on the right were comparing Trump to Christ and weren’t taking into account the idea that he cheated on his wife with a porn star.

Well there are two things I’d like to say to that. While Jonah is of course free do disagree on the merits of either verdict the fact is we compare Trump to Christ because Trump we believe both were found guilty unjustly, not of sleeping around but of a completely made up bookkeeping felony, so like Christ he was unjustly found guilty. Nobody (with the possible exception of Laura Loomer) on the right compares Trump to Christ’s divinity.

Second while I do in fact find it plausible that a really rich guy decided to bang a porn star and tried to keep it quiet (frankly I’d hate to have my performance in bed judged by a professional) folks like me who under the old rules thought such things should be disqualifying were massively outvoted on said rules so until the left decides to go back to said rules we aren’t either.

We’re in the middle of a baseball season where the Redsox have a great crop of young players and at the end of a basketball season where the Celtics are in the finals with a solid shot of winning and least we forget the Pats have a new 1st round QB and an old Brady era vet to mentor him. All these things are strong temptations to have me pony up for one of various sports packages from NESN to MLB to NBA etc etc etc…

…and then June roles around and all the professional teams go out of their way to remind me that they are not on my side in the culture wars and suddenly radio and hitting a local bar/restaurant to watch a game rather then giving these guys my money becomes an attractive alternative.

My thanks to various leagues for helping me appreciate the joy of free sports.

Oh and the annual ritual of business shoving gay pride down our throats in the west while making it a point to avoid the same in the middle east continues as always, with BMW actually admitting what we all know that it’s all about the risk and reward of the mob.

Of course in a new years the Ghastly Tom Hagan math will catch up with the west and when it does the west will drop their pride campaigns faster than the Democrats dropped Israel

Speaking of a lack of principles there are quite a few GOP candidates who had been pushing their pro-life credentials in the past who suddenly find themselves willing to compromise on life to gain higher office.

Now there are no shortage of Democrats who run as republicans in red states or republican who run as dems in blue states to get power nor is there a shortage in either party of people whose primary principle is to advance their political power. And the reality is that given the number of honest men & women in politics you likely can’t get a majority without these sorts.

So when there is no other choice by all means elect them but keep such folks away from the true levers of party power because people willing to sell out their principles or their God will have little trouble selling you.

Finally episode one of the Chosen is available free and those who expected to see the aftermath of the feeding of the 5000 and the calming of the waters which closed last season might have been shocked to see they went back to Luke Chapter 1 to the Visitation as their lead.

Granted they decided to knock off John the Baptist in episode one but if there is one thing you could always be sure of in any protestant movie about Christ skips the 6th chapter of John once it reaches verse 26 the beginning of the bread to life discourses. The only exception being word for word adaptions of Gospel.

Given that The Chosen is a TV series rather than a movie there would have been more than enough time to include them but as Catholic as Jonathan Roumie is, he does not have creative control so the bread of life discourses had to go.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a good episode and I liked the juxtaposition of the Canticle of Zachariah (the Morning Prayer of the Catholic Church) with the scenes of John’s end and the reaction to it but some things never change, and if you were expecting to see The Chosen break that mold you will be mistaken.

Oh and I’d watch it via the youtube live stream because the loading time of the app seems to be very slow likely due to the sheer number of people trying to watch it there.

USA Today Accidently Conforms the Nellie Bowles Story

Posted: May 26, 2024 by datechguy in business, culture
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Detective Gregory: Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?

Sherlock Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.

Detective Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time.

Sherlock Holmes: That was the curious incident.

Arthur Conan Doyle: The Adventure of Silverblaze 1896

At Instapundit there is a link to a pair of stories about the Nellie Bowles book about how the New York times decided to ignore reality in their reporting. This part really jumped out at me:

First, it was blunting my reporting. It was saying you can’t report on the most interesting stories of the day, which was really frustrating and crazy-making a little bit because it was like, “What do you mean we’re not supposed to cover the riots? What do you mean we’re not supposed to talk about” … you name it, hot-button issue of the day. And basically there was a media blackout for a while.

I call it now time wandering, which is all of the most interesting issues. You’re allowed to talk about it in the world of all the Substacks, the conservative media covers it, and the liberal media waits about two or three years and then they’re allowed to touch it.

On the same day that Glenn Reynolds posted this I saw a link in Don Surber’s Highlights of the News to this story at USA today:

Cracker Barrel’s stock has taken a beating since the restaurant chain held an investor call in which its new CEO admitted the Southern country restaurant chain isn’t as “relevant” as it once was.

Julie Felss Masino, who became Cracker Barrel’s CEO nine months ago, told investors during the May 16 call that the 54-year-old eatery “was not delivering the financial results that shareholders deserve.”

“Cracker Barrel is a great concept and a great company,” Masino said. “… But to ignite growth, we must revitalize the brand.”

Before Masino and Cracker Barrel’s leadership held the meeting, the company’s stock hovered around $60 per share, but a day after the call, it dropped almost 20%, to about $48 per share, according to NASDAQ.

The stock closed Thursday at $45.75 per share.

Now why would a CEO saying the chain isn’t “relevant” cause the stock to drop 20%?

Well, maybe it’s because it means the CEO is not addressing the reason why the stock had dropped TO $60 a share from the $102 it was at a year ago. To find the answer to that question you have to ignore the USA story and search instead at Ace of Spades HQ:

In June of 2023 Cracker Barrel went woke, deciding that it could bring in new customers and investors by sexualizing the front porch with rainbow-striped rocking chairs. As it turned out, that was not a good marketing strategy, and it had the effect of repulsing existing customers who don’t want country cooking to be sexualized, be it gay, straight, or otherwise.

Image via Ace of Spades HQ

The fallout was immediate, with consumers announcing boycotts and the stock price taking an initial hit. Despite a lack of headlines or buzz since then, the boycott has continued and has been devastating to Cracker Barrel. The restaurant chain permanently ran off a great many loyal customers, and the persistently “unexpected” decline in traffic is taking a serious financial toll on the company.

It was just announced this week that Cracker barrel is slashing its dividend by 81%. Cracker Barrel stock has fallen from $102 per share at the start of “Pride Month” 2023 to $49 per share now, a 52% decline.

Now one might think that this would be an important part of the story of the drop in Cracker Barrel’s share price. Particularly when there were stories as far back as September that this was a “marketing” issue:

In a rare downbeat financial accounting, Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores acknowledged that its marketing and media efforts likely worsened a traffic drop-off during the quarter ended July 28.

We had expected the traffic would improve in June and July with the onset of the summer travel season,” said [CEO] Cochran. “Unfortunately, this didn’t materialize, and our restaurants and retail sales performance came in below our expectations.

Note that a “downbeat financial accounting” was “rare” for Cracker Barrel until they went work, but even in that story they pointed to “marketing” rather then going all in on the gay agenda. Of course Don Surber didn’t shy from the actual cause of the Cracker Barrel crack-up

ITEM 27: A year ago, Bao Ong of the Houston Chronicle reported, “Cracker Barrel faces calls for boycott after announcing support for Pride month.”

Oh those nutty social conservatives.

On Friday, USA Today reported, “Cracker Barrel stock plummets after CEO says chain isn’t as relevant, must revitalize.”

It turns out, the rainbow people don’t like rocking chairs. Maybe Cracker Barrel can become relative by offering Bud Light and holding Drag Queen Sleepovers for children.

Of course the rainbow folks don’t like Cracker Barrell, in fact back in the days when Pintastic NE was in Sturbridge my son and I would go for breakfast at Cracker Barrell at least once during the event we would play a game which I called the “woke offense game” where pretended to be woke leftists and too turns pointed to items on the wall and explained why we were offended by them. The last person who couldn’t find something to be offended by lost. Usually we could not reach that point by the time breakfast was over.

This is all a question of people not knowing who their customer base is. Buck Throckmorton has a solution:

the first thing Cracker Barrel needs to do is apologize for insulting its loyal customers by sexualizing the restaurant and for effectively smearing its loyal customers as being “unwelcoming” people.

If it doesn’t, Cracker Barrel might as well go full woke. Perhaps it could hire Dylan Mulvaney away from Bud Light and have him cross-dress in Daisy Dukes while drinking an old-time pop from a rainbow-colored rocking chair. Alissa Heinersheid has experience using for Mr. Mulvaney for such promotions, and I believe she is available. Or maybe Cracker Barrel could run a Gillette-style ad accusing its legacy customers of being loathsome bigots and sexual predators.

June is only a week away and we will find out if Cracker Barrell’s new CEO is interested in serving the shareholders or serving the agenda. She can

  • Take Buck’s advice, apologize for last year and promise customers their only agenda will be good food served in a country motif. (Plan A)
  • Say nothing but make it a point not to go near the June “pride” agenda and hope the offended customers notice they decided to give it a miss this year (Plan B)
  • Decide to go all in on the rainbow agenda let the gay flag & rockers fly and damn the stock price! (Plan C)

Whatever the choice and result is we can be sure that the MSM in general and USA Today in particular will not report on the actually cause of the initial fall of Cracker Barrel, after all, it might discourage others from falling into line.

Update: CBS did a story on Cracker Barrel and they didn’t find the boycott relevant either.

Unexpectedly of course

“I don’t know if I’m going to vote this year, but if I do vote it will be for Donald Trump.” (Plus 36 years ago today)

Posted: April 9, 2024 by datechguy in Blame Biden Administration, business, economy
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The Biden economy has not been good for the work force at the place I’ve been working at for 6 plus years.

During the Trump years we were booming, three warehouses at full tilt with a huge workforce including temps that we regularly recruited full time employees from. Since the dawn of the Biden years we had, the shrinking then disappearing peak season, followed by the closing of two of our warehouses, we had the laying off and buying out of a bunch of management and salary people, then we had the elimination of our 2nd shift and the buying out of hourly workers.

Yesterday just before lunch hour there was a meeting and we were told that because there is so little work at this time my shift (Sun-Wed 7-5:30) is going to have Wednesday off unpaid, although if we wish to use a vacation day. and the Monday – Friday shift is leaving 2 hours early the rest of the week.

We are told this is only for this week but they can’t promise it won’t happen again.

Now oddly enough I had planned to take the entire week off starting today because of this event of 36 years ago today:

April 9th 1988

and the beginning of PINTASTIC NE 2024 on Thursday (and it amazes me that I’m only now getting to mention it on the blog as it’s only 2 days away!) but as DaWife couldn’t get today off I decided to give it a miss. Now with the prospect of being short 25% of a week’s pay and taxes due I’ll burn the vacation day after all.

As you might guess yesterday’s announcement caused a lot of buzz but as English is the 2nd or 3rd language to Spanish & French at my place I didn’t hear most of it but there is a fellow there who speaks English that I had a chance to talk to a bit. He’s the oldest worker at the place 74 years old, naturalized citizen, used to be a teacher in the Boston schools. A Haitian gentleman who is as socialist as they come and who expresses the opinion that Haiti would be better off with China’s influence than the US in the country.

We were working the same area and expressed dismay at the situation. I commented on this being one of the costs of a stolen election and this black Haitian socialist said this:

“I don’t know if I’m going to vote this year, but if I do vote it will be for Donald Trump.”

If we’ve reached the point we’re the best case scenario for the Democrats in the Biden economy is black socialists from Massachusetts staying home then this election might be really something.

Chicago’s mayor Brandon Johnson asks, “Who expected me to defeat white supremacy in one year?”

Posted: April 7, 2024 by John Ruberry in business, crime, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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Brandon Johnson

By John Ruberry

Chicago has a nasty mess on its hands with Brandon Johnson as mayor.

Crime rates remain high compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2019.

It’s common for big city mayors to claim that crime is declining, but they usually look back only a year for comparison numbers and then declare, “You see!” However, in March, the murder total in Chicago exceeded the killings in March of last year–by 28 percent. 

Johnson suffered a major political loss last month. His Bring Chicago Home referendum, which would have raised the real estate on high-end property transactions, was defeated. Funds from that tax hike would have been used to battle homelessness, although Johnson and other key supporters of BCH provided no details on how that money would be spent.  Supporters of BCH, utilizing a class warfare tactics, dubbed it a “mansion tax.”

When commenting on the defeat of Bring Chicago Home, Johnson all but blamed supporters of former president Donald Trump. But in the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden won all 50 Chicago wards, with Trump collecting a meager 15 percent of the vote in Chicago. Sorry, Jussie Smollett, but Chicago is not MAGA Country.

Last week, to mark the anniversary of his narrow victory over moderate Democrat Paul Vallas, Johnson, a progressive Democrat who is a former Chicago Teachers Union organizer, granted two exclusive interviews, both with leftist news sources, Block Club Chicago and the Triibe. 

As for the former, Johnson queried reporter Quinn Myers, “Name one thing that I said I was gonna do that I haven’t done. You won’t be able to.”

Well, here is one item: Johnson made a campaign promise to hire 200 police detectives. The current municipal budget calls for adding only 100. 

Johnson sees himself as a “movement politician,” and this political species tends to be fond of using hyperbole. Not surprisingly, the mayor used a troubling verb, “assassinate,” when he discussed his movement in the Block Club interview.

“That’s why they worked hard to disrupt it and destroy it, and have gone as far to assassinate it,” Johnson told Myers. “And so whether it’s literally or figuratively, the work to assassinate character or to assassinate our movement, we’re not going to allow that type of fear to disrupt what ultimately the people of Chicago wanted. And that’s why they voted for me.” 

That’s not correct. There are many opinions on why Johnson won. For certain, his former employer and his chief financial backer, the far-left Chicago Teachers Union, outhustled the old-school campaign of Vallas. In my opinion, Chicagoans just wanted a less acidic version of his unpopular predecessor, Lori Lightfoot. So, voters chose the Lightfoot-esque candidate–but without the venomous fangs.

Let’s move on to the second interview, with the Triibe, which was conducted by Tonia Hill.

Wikipedia describes the Triibe as “an African-American online news and digital media company based in Chicago, Illinois.” Until last week I hadn’t heard of it.

Johnson let loose a missile with Hill. “Who expected me to defeat white supremacy in one year?” the mayor said. “There were individuals who did not know the full value of what I brought to the mayor’s office, and there were forces working to disrupt that.”

Whooah.

Johnson wasn’t elected to defeat white supremacy. Voters chose him to run America’s third-largest city, and his primary duty as mayor is to protect its residents–not to peddle far-left talking points.

This is not the first time Johnson has used the racism canard as mayor. He has not handled the migrant crisis well. In response to well-earned criticism of his response to the arrival of arrivals in Chicago, Johnson counter attacked. “Everyone knows that the right-wing extremism in this country has targeted democratically-run cities,” the mayor said. “It is abysmal, and it is an affront for everything that is good about this country for the extremism in this country to use people as political tools to settle political scores for something that happened over 400 years ago.”

Johnson concluded that Republicans are “still mad that a black man is free in this country.”

No, they are not.

The media in Chicago leans left as it does just about every place else in America. But Johnson expects hero worship from reporters, not objective criticism. Consequently, Johnson’s relationship with Chicago’s mainstream media has been rocky, because newspaper and television reporters have been mildly critical of him.

They need to be tougher. A good place for journalists to start is to ask Johnson what he meant when he said, “Who expected me to defeat white supremacy in one year?” In short journos–do your job.

Business leaders, and by the way, not all of them are white, dislike “us versus them” rhetoric. Because they are the “them,” the perceived enemy. But these “enemies” are the job providers. Corporate Chicago largely opposed Bring Home Chicago. After its defeat, Johnson called the opponents of the referendum “wicked.”

Chicago needs as many businesses as it can get. Downtown Chicago’s office vacancy rate is a record 25.1 percent. The downtown retail vacancy rate is 30 percent. Both are records. Downtown is the financial engine that powers Chicago. Kill it, and the city dies. The Detroit dystopia is not a farfetched future for Chicago.

While they had obvious weaknesses in their combined 30 years as mayor, Lightfoot’s predecessors, Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel, were tremendous salespeople for Chicago. Lightfoot, and even more so Johnson, not so much.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

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