Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

Well, if DSL thinks the Baker should be compelled to bake cakes and/or wasn't a total victim of an organized state-assisted attack, then I'll call bullshit on his faux concerns. If he acknowledges the fuckery and wrongdoing behind that particular case then we can keep going.

[Hannibal]

He's got a lot more to disown than that.

[Dr. Strangelove]

A bakery is a small business whose owner or owners only answer to themselves. And in the case of the gay wedding cakes, they likely aren't turning away or offending their existing clientele. And I am guessing that there are no bakeries actively engaged in anti-bakery activism in an attempt to destroy their own businesses, analogous to what just about every fossil fuel corporation is doing nowadays.

Big banks, Twitter and Google are hugely publicly held corporations whose management has a fiduciary duty to their investors. That means all of their investors, and not just the activist 10% from Left Wing institutions like Black Rock who might be the largest shareholder, but don't form anything near a majority. But they ultimately wield power as if they were a majority because of how corporate governance works.

Corporations have a responsibility to do whatever the majority of shareholders choose. I reject your claim that a mere 10% is forcing these big corporations to be "woke". The remaining 90% would revolt and put a new management team in place if they were genuinely unwilling to lose any profit to principle. The truth is a majority of shareholders tend to be satisfied with losing a bit of profit on what they think is principle. That turns into unhappiness if be "woke" actually comes with a significant cost.

And that's a big difference between you and me. I think you wildly exaggerate just how much it costs most of these companies to be "woke".

Anyways, if you're a minority stakeholder in any of these big corporations and you don't like how it's being run, no one's forcing you to keep your money there. Sell your shares and find an organization that better reflects your personal values. There's no incentive for any company to reverse course if conservatives don't actually boycott or sell their shares. There's all kinds of companies out there. Why not Tesla? Elon can be anti-woke from time to time.

[iam416]

I think you probably underestimate the difficulty in speaking out against certain issues.

[iam416]

For example, you and I both know how fucking bullshit "Jim Crow on Steroids" or just "Jim Crow" was. We both know it. But, THAT was the message. And who is going to stand up against "Jim Crow" other than Republicans being smeared?

I'm sure a majority of shareholders in every major corporation are against Jim Crow. But, are they against more or less middling voting reforms? Or are they cowed by the LIE?

Additionally, why are white liberal democrats so wrong about, e.g., police violence re AAs and the dangers of Covid?

So, it may be that the majority of stockholders do agree with the position, but it can also be true that the position is fueled by, ummmm, a less than fair narrative which is, in fact, driven by a smaller minority.

I don't know man -- I'd really think about these things instead and, if you disagree, fine -- but have a sound basis as to why you disagree.

[Hannibal]

Corporations have a responsibility to do whatever the majority of shareholders choose. I reject your claim that a mere 10% is forcing these big corporations to be "woke". The remaining 90% would revolt and put a new management team in place if they were genuinely unwilling to lose any profit to principle. The truth is a majority of shareholders tend to be satisfied with losing a bit of profit on what they think is principle. That turns into unhappiness if be "woke" actually comes with a significant cost.

And that's a big difference between you and me. I think you wildly exaggerate just how much it costs most of these companies to be "woke".

Anyways, if you're a minority stakeholder in any of these big corporations and you don't like how it's being run, no one's forcing you to keep your money there. Sell your shares and find an organization that better reflects your personal values. There's no incentive for any company to reverse course if conservatives don't actually boycott or sell their shares. There's all kinds of companies out there. Why not Tesla? Elon can be anti-woke from time to time.

Corporate governance doesn't work like government elections. Shareholders' meetings are strictly controlled and large institutional shareholders wield highly disproportionate amounts of power compared to highly dispersed groups of small shareholders. Many times, these small shareholders are employees who would be committing career suicide by speaking out against their bosses. At any rate, they have no way of mobilizing organized opposition to any particular agenda item and most corporate policies aren't directly voted on. This means that if you don't like a policy that one large institutional shareholder is pushing, you have to organize a coup of the board of directors that they have installed. I might be exaggerating when I say that you can take over a company's agenda if you own 10% of it, but you can do it for significantly less than 50%.

I have never said that Google or Twitter are on the verge of bankruptcy because they have banned people like Alex Jones or Donald Trump, but I know from observing the nickel and diming that these types of corporations do everywhere else that they have very high barriers for principles over money. Outside of Chick Fil-A staying closed on Sundays, I can't think of any cases where major corporations have actively sacrificed the type of income that Google and Twitter have likely sacrificed for woke politics.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Well, if DSL thinks the Baker should be compelled to bake cakes and/or wasn't a total victim of an organized state-assisted attack, then I'll call bullshit on his faux concerns. If he acknowledges the fuckery and wrongdoing behind that particular case then we can keep going.

Hannibal keeps predicting doom and gloom on...well, on everything...but specifically doom and gloom on corporate bottom lines when it comes to de-platforming the Alt Right or releasing generic woke statements.

That's why I turn again to YouTube's last quarter. Kicking off Alex Jones and a bunch of other Far Right goons was supposed to devastate YouTube financially. And they fucking crushed it. I mean, just delivered a massive, ridiculously good quarter. Somehow.

I'm leaving the free speech aspect aside because I think Hannibal's "bad business practice" argument is largely nonsense and want to address that first. And from a business perspective I don't see a difference in taking a stand and being willing to suffer harm to your business because of a Christian value or a Woke value.

Now as for the free speech of the baker...I might be contradicting posts from 5 or 6 years ago (whenever that case was decided), but if the couple was demanding he write something specific on the cake (I seem to recall this detail) then his rights take priority over the customer, similar to if I refused to make a cake for someone that was to read "Fuck you, mom". It wasn't a blanket policy of not serving gays...just not doing specific work for a gay wedding. He was being asked to literally endorse the marriage in some way, from what I vaguely remember, and that's where it goes over the top into an abuse of his rights.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I'm busy today fending off stupid at a cruise forum that's in heated discussion of FL's law suit v. the CDC. It went to federal court last Wednesday and the presiding judge punted on the law and sent it to mediation yesterday. All of this is an attempt to get cruise lines re-started from US ports. The CDC's orders for cruise lines have prevented the entire cruise industry from sailing from it's most profitable ports .... in the US. Meanwhile, their sailing from ports outside the US and not under the jurisdiction of CDC imposed BS, quite safely, but the revenue being generated from that is miniscule. They need US ports to be open to return to making money.

What the CDC has done is imposed excessive regulation on the cruise industry. It seems to me to be a subjective, not so much one bounded by the law. As I've been following the case, what the CDC has done is lawful (with some exceptions - they can regulate to the water's edge, then it becomes a joint federal/state regulatory environment). The question has become, did the CDC have alternatives, less burdensome, that could have accomplished their PH goals without creating the economic disaster they created for the cruise industry and by extension the state of FL (TX and AK, joined as intervenors and a Travel Agent's Association filed an Amicus Brief).

That should from the starting point for mediation. I believe the CDC will use mediation as a public forum to assert their authority to do what they did by shutting down the cruise industry for PH benefits arguing what is the price of saving lives? Hard question. I've seen Cost/Benefit analysis like this. It's unpleasant to read as it attempts to put a dollar value on life. That never works.

[iam416]

Now as for the free speech of the baker...I might be contradicting posts from 5 or 6 years ago (whenever that case was decided), but if the couple was demanding he write something specific on the cake (I seem to recall this detail) then his rights take priority over the customer, similar to if I refused to make a cake for someone that was to read "Fuck you, mom". It wasn't a blanket policy of not serving gays...just not doing specific work for a gay wedding. He was being asked to literally endorse the marriage in some way, from what I vaguely remember, and that's where it goes over the top into an abuse of his rights.

Correct. He made cakes for anyone and everyone. He refused to do so on very specific issues. And he was crucified for it (and, incidentally, is still fighting legal battles).

[Dr. Strangelove]

The General Counsel of Coca-Cola literally just got shoved out and he was widely regarded as the key player in making Coke go "woke". I am deeply skeptical that all these major corporations are being held hostage by a tiny minority of shareholders and there's nothing the cowed majority can do. The truth is more likely to be that the majority at most of these places are fine with losing a little business over wokeism and that many see more downside to upsetting the Woke crowd than the MAGA crowd. If something's reflected in the actual bottom line that conflicts with that belief, as what maybe happened at Coke, then reversing course is easier than what Hannibal is claiming. Cuz that GC got dumped pretty fucking fast.

[iam416]

Right. I think Coke is an encouraging example. I wish there were more. I suspect there will be if certain companies continue their course.

This is the problem they have if they really interject themselves into political debates. I mean, again, we all know "Jim Crow on Steroids" was utter fucking bullshit. Still, they lined up to to boycott/punish Georgia. But, there was a recoil as more people actually learned the facts. At some point Corporations should understand that The Left will be forever and implacably hostile to them and that going Woke makes them ginormous targets or more conservative populism. You can't piss everyone off. And, again, that's the problem that, e.g., Michael Jordan (and almost all corporations) have appreciated for decades.

I hope Coke isn't a blip or exception.

[Dr. Strangelove]

On a more light-hearted topic, in what I'm sure is another cancel culture war salvo, Maryland has repealed "Maryland, My Maryland!" as the official state song.

I don't I've ever actually read the lyrics before, lol...it's basically a Confederate war song that urges Marylanders to resist Lincoln (a "despot", a "tyrant", and a "vandal") and defeat the "northern scum". They never quite make it to the "northern scum" verse when they sing it at the Preakness, haha

https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/05/18/marylands-racist-pro-confederate-state-song-has-been-repealed/

https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/01glance/html/symbols/lyricsco.html

[Hannibal]

When has the free market ever punished a company for pissing off the woke crowd?

[lineygoblue]

BTW, Hobby Lobby is another Christian owned company that gives all of its employees Sundays off. And as of 2019, they started new hires off at $15.00 per hour.

those bastards ....

[Hannibal]

Coca Cola firing one VP over their anti-white training materials isn't much of an example. That employee was likely taking directives from above and woke politics has likely at least metastasized throughout the organization. but especially HR and their hiring practices.