If you’d like to read this issue on my website, click here! If you’d like to sign-up, and receive this in your inbox each week, click here! Read past issues here.
Good Friday Morning! And extra congratulations are in store for the Toronto Maple Leafs for managing to win a first-round playoff series for the first time since 2004. Although, that joy may be short-lived since they’re now down two games to none against the Florida Panthers. But that’s one the most positive things you could say about Canadian Hockey in a while. And as an American, you have to enjoy digging into Canada on these points.
This week, I will hit Bud Light, Jeffery Epstein, and the failing banks. It’ll make sense as we go through it – links to follow.
Quick hit:
- Quote of the week goes to J.D. Haltigan, Ph.D. on Twitter: “It’s worth pointing out that telling the truth is salubrious for mental health. Perhaps this is one reason young people are undergoing a crisis of mental ill-health: Woke ideologues are compelling them to accept lies as truths & are penalized for articulating the truths they instinctively know.”
Where you can find me this week
Please subscribe, rate, and review my podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or Google Play — the reviews help listeners, and readers like you find me in the algorithms. Make sure to sign up for the Conservative Institute’s daily newsletter and become a subscriber at The Dispatch, where I’m a contributor.
[05/1/2023] Jeffrey Epstein’s Ruinous Empire Continues Getting Exposed – Conservative Institute
[05/5/2023] The Fake Hysterical Attacks on the Supreme Court – Conservative Institute
On Bud Light, Jeffery Epstein, failing banks, and fire.
I was reading through some coverage of the latest on Anheuser-Busch’s ongoing efforts to destroy one of the top brands in America. It’s earnings season on Wall Street, which means the latest sales reports were released for Anheuser-Busch, owner of the Bud Light brand.
CEO Michel Doukeris is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. On the one hand, he’s downplaying the effects of any boycott. He told investors, “the drop in Bud Light sales represented only 1% of the company’s global sales volume.” In other words, if you look at sales of all products across Anheuser-Busch, this is nothing. That’s the large view, though.
If you focus on Bud Light, the story changes. The Wall Street Journal reported: “For the week ended April 22, Bud Light’s U.S. retail-store sales fell roughly 21% compared with a year earlier, according to an analysis of Nielsen data by Bump Williams Consulting. Meanwhile, sales of rival brands Coors Light and Miller Lite each rose about 21%.”
There was another nugget on the earnings call from Doukeris: Anheuser-Busch is paying frontline workers impacted by the boycott:
The CEO said Anheuser-Busch is “providing direct financial support” to the frontline workers impacted by the boycott, naming delivery drivers, sales representatives, wholesalers, bar owners and servers. Doukeris said the brewing giant will triple media spending on advertising for Bud Light over the summer, confirming reports that the company is planning a major marketing push to recover its brand.
What does that look like? Well, for all the talk that this is a conservative boycott, there was a viral video this past week on TikTok. In the clip, a guy walks around Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. There’s a line at vendors to get beer everywhere, except those selling Bud Light. If you look closely at the clip, it’s more than just that no one is in the line; the beer refrigerators behind the cash registers are full. No one is getting in line for a Bud Light at a baseball game in Boston. Anheuser-Busch has to pay those people to deal with the economic fallout.
I feel the need to point out here that Boston, Massachusetts, is not precisely the conservative capital of the world. That’s Elizabeth Warren territory. This ain’t Bama.
So, it’s only 1% of global sales. But Anheuser-Busch effectively has to issue internal bailouts to one of its star brands to keep that ecosystem alive. “Bud Light’s delivery drivers, sales representatives and independent distributors have been confronted by angry people on the streets, in bars and in stores. The brewer is paying a $500 bonus to each of those workers, Mr. Doukeris said.”
I have no dog in this fight. I don’t drink and have only enjoyed the jokes and memes.
But I get the impulse here. People are switching because they’re mad and in a burn-it-all-down mood.
I get that because I have a similar one regarding finance. My Monday column covered some of the latest in-depth stories in the Wall Street Journal on Jeffrey Epstein. They got their hands on Epstein’s calendar and have spent the last few weeks writing story after story of all the rich and famous people who lined up to meet with Epstein.
Here’s the first paragraph of the latest story:
On Monday, Sept. 8, 2014, Jeffrey Epstein had a full calendar. He was scheduled to meet that day with Bill Gates, Thomas Pritzker, Leon Black and Mortimer Zuckerman, four of the richest men in the country, according to schedules and emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The WSJ ain’t lying, either. The schedule showed Epstein booked solid from 10 am past 6 pm that evening. That’s one day. Epstein was having these kinds of meetings every day, along with being one of the most prolific and horrific sex traffickers in the country.
When you dig into the excuses offered by every person, if they say anything at all, it’s the same song and dance. “I made regrettable choices befriending Mr. Epstein.” Or they’ll claim they knew nothing. But also, no one can tell you precisely what Epstein did for a living, nor do they ever know anything about what he did with underage girls. It’s all hard to believe, taken together.
Here’s an anecdote related by one of the people on Epstein’s calendar:
Several people who visited Epstein during this time period said they noticed young women at his townhouse. One of the visitors, Helen Fisher, an anthropologist who studies romantic love and attachment, had lunch with Epstein in January 2016 to discuss her work.
Dr. Fisher said that after the lunch, Epstein invited her to speak with his staff. “And then, in filed, I would say, six young women,” she said. “All of them good looking. All of them young.”
Dr. Fisher said Epstein never funded her work, they weren’t friends and they didn’t stay in touch. “I didn’t have anything to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” she said. “But I remembered it because of his spectacular house and because of the six young women.”
Epstein was a convicted sex predator by this point. That conviction happened in 2008. No one knew anything, but somehow things were strange enough for people to notice.
And it’s not tiny people. We’re talking about the wealthiest people in the world – aka the people losing the most during the current economic downturn. The Richcession is living up to its name.
So as I sit here, watching four American banks go under (Silicon Valley, Silvergate, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank) and on the verge of losing two others (PacWest Bancorp and Western Alliance Bank [keep an eye on SoFi too]), I’m asking myself what is there to save here? Why would we want to save a system that’s aided and abetted not only Epstein but others like him?
I don’t mean this in a nihilistic way; I get how that can come across.
I mean it more like this: consider an old forest. The trees are tall in an old, mature forest, creating a canopy that blocks light from reaching the forest floor. We enjoy walking through them, but these areas are deserts for wildlife below. It’s just dirt, dead leaves, and minimal greenery to eat. Over time, too, you get dead trees on the forest floor and a lot of burnable junk.
If no forestry management plan is in place, you end up with what we’ve seen in California and elsewhere: wildfires that burn with wild abandon. Wildfires have a place in nature: they burn out the old, the dead, and the garbage that litters the floor, which allows new life to explode through the ashes.
Looking at all the corruption involved with Epstein, part of me sees a recession as necessary to burn through some of these institutions. Why save them? I see some of the same with all the zombie corporations that exist because the Fed created an easy money environment that allows terrible companies to continue.
Speaking of the banking sector, it remains in a poor spot. The calmness of April after the explosion in March has given way to rough seas in May. Here’s WSJ’s summary of PacWest, a bank likely headed for the exits this weekend:
[I]n the heap of dry tinder that is regional banking right now, the slightest spark seems able to trigger a dangerous blaze. PacWest shares lost half their value on Thursday.
Normally the possibility of a merger might reassure the market. But a problem for PacWest, as was the case for First Republic, is that while finding a buyer might protect customer deposits, it isn’t necessarily the optimal solution for shareholders. That is because the sale price of a bank would in part reflect the current market price of its assets. And PacWest, like others, has loans made at fixed rates on its books whose market value has declined.
Any bank that acquires PacWest would have to mark those loans down, which depresses the price the buyer would be willing to pay. At the end of last year, this gap between the carrying value and fair value of its loans came to $1.78 billion. Plus, when banks are under stress, investors also prefer to use tangible common equity, a measure that removes intangible assets and preferred shares.
Time is on no one’s side in the banking sector. After PacWest, the next bank in line is Western Alliance. After that, Metropolitan Bank is also waiting in the wings after dropping hard. It’s not a given these banks will fail or get bought out, but it’s not a given they survive either.
We’re in the credit crunch now, and every bank forced off the map creates tighter credit for everyone else. It’s a dangerous spiral that the Treasury, FDIC, and Fed do not have a handle on right now.
But again, part of this may be needed too. The economic forest floor is full because the Fed prevented a hard burn after 2008. That sounds crazy with how bad the Great Financial Crisis/Great Recession was, but it’s true. Quantitative Easing bolstered the financial sector at a time when it was at a halt.
In 2008, they didn’t have an inflation problem. Inflation was low, and you could dump money on the economy without fear of inflation. That’s not true right now.
It’s a real pickle. And I look for ways to solve it daily when I read or watch the coverage. But then I read another Epstein story, and I question myself. Sometimes you need a good fire. Is this one of those occasions? Read another Epstein story and let me know how you feel about it. Although, if you’re purposely not drinking Bud Light, I already know the answer.
Links of the week
About Half in U.S. Worry About Their Money’s Safety in Banks – Gallup
Send in the troops! Biden’s border theater – Byron York, Washington Examiner
“Good riddance”: GOP lawmakers’ private glee at Tucker Carlson firing – Axios
Hunter Biden laptop letter recruitment email wanted to give Joe Biden a debate ‘talking point’ – Washington Examiner
TikTok Suspends Libertarian Think Tank That Posted about Hong Kong and Jimmy Lai – National Review
‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ & ‘We’re Here’s Shangela Accused In Lawsuit Of Raping Production Assistant At Wrap Party; Star Denies Allegations – Erik Pedersen, Deadline
Twitter Thread(s) of the week
The historian that predicted WWII in 1920.
Satire of the week
Man’s Life Spent Occasionally Eating Barbecue In Between Doing Things He Hates – The Onion
Putin Retaliates For Assassination Attempt By Misgendering Admiral Levine – Babylon Bee
Chinese spy balloon made mostly out of classified US documents: They are common building material now. – Duffel Blog
How to Open Up to Someone Even Though They Aren’t Drew Barrymore – Reductress
Disappointment As Man Arrested Outside Buckingham Palace Not Prince Andrew – Waterford Whispers News
“Ah, So That’s What ‘Variable’ Means” Mortgage Holders Realise After 7th Rate Rise – Waterford Whispers News
Thanks for reading!