Wokeism is Doomed

[grarpamp]

> GET WOKE GO BROKE !!!

Planned Thought = Planned Society = Planned Economics = Economic Ruin.

Bankrupt AnBu InBev SA/NV, it's piss anyway.


Bud Light's Sales Implosion, Explained (By Mises)

https://www.aier.org/article/bud-lights-sales-implosion-explained-by-mises/

https://amzn.to/45co5cN
https://nypost.com/2023/05/17/bud-light-mocked-for-20-rebate-on-19-98-case-of-beer/
https://twitter.com/DJcalligraphy/status/1643342339392389120
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12090131/Bud-Light-sales-falling-20-WEEK-new-norm-Dylan-Mulvaney-debacle.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_6:24

Authored by John Miltimore via The American Institute for Economic Research,

I stopped drinking Bud Light decades ago, so when the Dylan Mulvaney
controversy exploded last month, I didn’t need to consider if I’d stop
drinking Anheuser-Busch’s most popular product.

What’s clear is that many others have decided to quit the beer over
the brand’s decision to wade into transgender politics. According to
figures reported in The St. Louis Dispatch, based on data from a
Connecticut-based consulting group that focuses on the alcoholic
beverage industry, Bud Light’s in-store sales fell 11 percent in the
week that ended April 8 from the same period the previous year.
Year-over-year sales fell even faster over the next two weeks,
dropping 26 percent in mid April. The decline continued into May
despite ad blitzes and marketing gimmicks that included $20 rebates—on
a $19.98 case of beer. Oof.

Endless ink has been spilled over the controversy, which was fueled by
celebrities like Travis Tritt and Kid Rock, who shot up several cases
of Bud Light after the Mulvaney ads began to go viral.

Many public figures seemed genuinely stunned by what they saw as a
massive overreaction to a single March Madness ad featuring Mulvaney,
who drank from a Bud Light while talking cluelessly about the NCAA
tournament.

“I thought there must be a piece of the story that I’m missing,” shock
jock Howard Stern said on his show.

Writing at Vox, Emily Stewart poo-pooed the Bud Light controversy and
predicted it would blow over, pointing out that similar campaigns
directed at other major brands quickly fizzled out.

“In terms of hurting sales, boycotts tend not to be super effective as
most people don’t respond, let alone stick to them,” wrote Stewart.
“Remember the Great Keurig Boycott of 2017? Or Frito-Lay in 2021? Or,
more recently, when people were mad because M&Ms were girls?”

Stewart might be correct that Bud Light’s problems will blow over,
though I have doubts. Still, critics scratching their heads over the
controversy have a point that there’s something fickle and
disproportionate about it. After all, Jack Daniels, a brand with a
consumer base similar to Bud Light, recently ran its own LGBTQ+ ad
campaign featuring American drag queen Ru Paul, and it generated a
fraction of the scrutiny. Miller Lite, meanwhile, ran its own “woke”
ad that was ignored for months.

In a way, I feel sorry for Bud Light. The company is being singled out
for doing the same thing other publicly traded companies are doing:
catering to the ESG (environmental, social, and governance) puppeteers
who are scoring them on “social responsibility.”

ESG scoring is notoriously opaque, but the costs of not playing the
game are quite real. ESG funds managed some $40 trillion in assets as
of 2022, according to Bloomberg, and a poor score can get a publicly
traded company booted from a fund just that fast, as Tesla found out
that same year when it was kicked off the S&P 500 ESG index despite
its sparkling sustainability score.

“While Tesla may be playing its part in eliminating fuel-powered cars,
it has fallen behind its peers when examined through a broader ESG
lens,” said Margaret Dorn, the executive in charge of ESG scoring for
North America. Dorn didn’t feel it necessary to elaborate further.

Unsurprisingly, companies are not thrilled about having to do this ESG
dance. While they pay lip service to ESG publicly, a 2022 CNBC survey
showed most CFOs supported efforts to prohibit pension funds from
using ESG scoring to determine how they invest.

One can see why corporate executives chafe under the ESG framework.
Instead of focusing on creating value and serving consumers, companies
are forced to dance to the ESG piper’s tune and perform whatever
social initiatives a tiny cabal of people regard as important.

This was always the danger in “stakeholder capitalism,” the
decades-old attempt to nudge corporations into serving interests other
than their own shareholders and consumers. It subordinates consumers,
the very people who should be in charge.

“The real bosses, in the capitalist system of market economy, are the
consumers,” the economist Ludwig von Mises famously wrote in his book
Bureaucracy. “They, by their buying and by their abstention from
buying, decide who should own the capital and run the plants. They
determine what should be produced and in what quantity and quality.”

This is the true lesson of “Bud-lash.” Bud Light forgot who its bosses
really were. It wasn’t just that Bud Light was serving the ESG
puppeteers—who award companies points for diversity and inclusion
initiatives as well as environmental ones—and ignoring its own
consumer base. The company was openly insulting its consumer base,
describing Bud Light as a “fratty” beer and “out of touch” brand “in
decline.” It’s one thing to disregard your boss. It’s another thing to
openly insult her.

Many see Bud-lash as “anti-trans,” but the response is more about
reminding corporations who their boss really is: consumers. These are
the true masters in a free market economy; they decide who wins and
loses, who becomes rich and who becomes poor. And yes, consumers are
fickle.

“They are no easy bosses,” Mises reminds us. “They are full of whims
and fancies, changeable and unpredictable. They do not care a whit for
past merit. As soon as something is offered to them that they like
better or that is cheaper, they desert their old purveyors. With them
nothing counts more than their own satisfaction.”

Bud Light was serving a boss other than its consumers, and it really
shouldn’t have to. “ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony
social justice warriors,” Elon Musk wrote on Twitter after Tesla was
given the boot from the S&P 500 ESG index.

Musk is not wrong. ESG is a scam, and a dangerous one. It is embraced
by anti-capitalists precisely because it undermines the consumer
sovereignty Mises described, and empowers the financial class,
bureaucrats, and money printers central bankers by enabling them to
manage society as they desire while further enriching themselves.

A famous ancient text says, “No one can serve two masters.”
Corporations like Bud Light need to remember who their true bosses
are, and it’s past time consumers reminded them.