Daily Signal publishes top woke corporations

I shop at both of these. Find Out Which Companies Promote Leftism (dailysignal.com)

"#4.  CVS. The drugstore chain famed for its mile-long receipts is apparently woke on everything except wasting paper. It “advocates for the Equality Act and transgender participation in girls’ sports” and “the company signed an open letter opposing a Florida bill that would prevent teaching gender identity and sexual orientation in schools to kids in K-3rd grade.” CVS gives employees abortion travel “benefits” and “fired a Catholic nurse practitioner after she refused to prescribe or administer abortifacients, citing her religious beliefs.” In a somewhat surprising twist, though, CVS does say it protects employees’ differing viewpoints.

#7.  Kroger.  If you thought your views on gay marriage would be irrelevant in a supermarket, think again: The grocery store chain “fired two Christian employees who requested not to wear the gay pride logo on their work aprons.” Kroger also “enables community donations to Planned Parenthood” and will pay travel costs for employees to get an abortion. " 

There's a new database that rates the "wokeness" of corporations. I was very sad to see that CVS was #4 and Kroger #7. Neither are my favorite stores, but they are convenient and easy to get to. They are located in a wealthy suburban area, one that does not reflect their values, yet they are back stabbing us as they take our money. https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/02/06/find-out-which-companies-promote-leftism/? Mattel has a trans doll, and many have fired Christians for refusing to support the company's LGBTQ pins or flags or emblems. They have reeducation camps for executives and support the misnamed "Equity Act." 

This is ESG lite--a political tool to turn us all into good little globalists with China in charge. Smaller, non-compliant companies will be bought up or destroyed.  At one time, all these companies stood for merit, hard work, fair play, good service and a good return for their investors. Now, nothing matters except skin color and sex, while the CEOs laugh all the way to the bank as they play the game.

What exactly is "woke"

"When we “wake up” to the belief that everything is about the conflict of the oppressed versus the oppressor, and after we deconstruct our own inherited oppressive thinking and set out on a mission to dismantle everything in our inherently oppressive world view, then we are considered members of an elite class known as the “woke.” Everyone else, of course, is asleep."

https://edify.us/video/responding-to-a-world-gone-woke/

A lot of people using the word "woke," admit they have no idea what it means. Watch this and be informed.

Oppressed and the oppressor.  Sound familiar?  Sound like Marx? 

Deconstructing Critical Theory: Oppressed and Oppressor (holisticapologetics.com)

Woke capitalism is a sign of things to come | American Enterprise Institute - AEI

I think the TV advertising from Gillette a few years ago to Coca Cola insulting white consumers without addressing obesity and diabetes has really become ridiculous.  Now in 2021, 95% of the actors in TV commercials are black, and they appear to be wealthy, entitled, and just as addle brained as the white consumers of the 1990s. They tell a story the opposite of an oppressed minority marching for justice and reparations.  The corporations are reaching for the young, and they like to see themselves as "woke." 

"The U.S. industries most obsequious to Chinese audiences present themselves as socially, culturally, and economically progressive at home. The National Basketball Association, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and major financial institutions are exemplars of the “woke capitalism” that has transformed the business landscape in recent years. GM cannot meet the demands of 48,000 striking workers, but it wants you to know that it supports wind power and gender equity. GE suspended pension benefits, but remains a signatory to the U.N. Global Compact, is a highly rated workplace according to the Human Rights Campaign, and received a State Department award for “inclusive hiring in Saudi Arabia.” (from the AEI article above)

Make your voice heard in your investments

What can you do about the "DIE" (diversity inclusion equity) mania infecting the corporations in which you or your pension are invested? And start calling it DIE, because that's the intention. It's certainly not "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

DIE has nothing to do with good values or Biblical morality or basic fairness. And no, the poor benefit the least. And the middle class foots the bill. The purpose of a business or corporation is to make money for the investors and to allow the CEOs to make ridiculous salaries while benefitting all the employees, but if they can punish the little guy start up competition by schmoozing with the latest fad and Democrat bosses, they will. It's the capitalist way. Without government interference and over regulation (to benefit their buddies), capitalism still frees the most people and in the last 30 years has lifted millions out of poverty. Back in 1990, The World Bank reports that 1.85 billion people lived in extreme poverty, but by 2013, the figure had dropped to 767 million. Socialism didn't do that. Socialism holds people back. It killed 100,000,000 in the 20th century. Capitalism works from the bottom up. The poor who risk their lives to cross our borders know that; our politicians don't. Nevertheless, smart capitalists fight the competition by joining what appears to be the enemy (socialism).

First, you'll need to start reading the documents that come with your investments. Second, you'll have to start voting. Yes, it's a pain. And I rarely read that stuff. Third, you may just have to write a letter or join/support a conservative political organization (not the GOP!).

Here's what I got from TJX today--that's formerly Zayre, and includes TJ Maxx and Marshalls. It has 4,557 stores in 9 countries, and based on the lie and line from the Left about Asians, I suspect many stores or suppliers are based in Asian countries. The DoJ tracks hate crimes (a stupid idea, I think), and this figure is so low that most cities report zero, and that which is reported is primarily black on Asian. It ignores the liberal crime of discrimination at Harvard, Yale and Stanford.

TJX annual report for 2020: "The increasing violence against the Asian and Pacific Islander communities is another stark reminder that injustice exists and that we must continue to work toward a better future for all. We are committed to listening to, and learning from, our Associates and taking actions to do better. We also broadened our charitable giving strategy to provide more direct support to Black communities, and increased our global giving to provide an incremental $10 million in grant funding over 2020 and 2021 to organizations that are actively working to support racial justice and equity. Hate has no place at TJX. In terms of environmental sustainability, we were pleased to exceed our goal to reduce our greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions per million dollars of revenue by 30% by the end of fiscal 2020, against a fiscal 2010 baseline, by achieving a 47% reduction. We also announced a new GHG goal, which is a 55% reduction in emissions from our direct operations by fiscal 2030 against a baseline year of fiscal 2017, a science-based target aligned with the United Nations’ Paris Agreement guidelines."

"Global giving" to organizations supporting racial justice is just blackmail. No black child will benefit. It's probably BLM, Inc. which has recently been in the news for the billions it's taken in from gullible white led corporations and white liberals so its Marxist founders can buy mansions and protest. It does not promote jobs or education, it exists to stir up trouble and make its founders rich (an old trick for non-profits which they probably learned from clever white people).

We all know that the Paris Agreement guidelines hold back American companies and allow Chinese factories to belch coal fired smoke and send us wind power blades that can't be recycled when they've ended their "service." When you see them filling up our prairies they are ugly as sin.
And no one even knows if reducing greenhouse gases (GHG) is a good thing--you've been told that. Science certainly doesn't agree. It's throwing billions at a future problem you can't measure and can't define, instead of improving life on the planet right now in real time.

So, you'll need to vote or write. Make your voice heard. Stop letting the Left drown you out!!!

Advice from an investment firm about Woke corporation

"As I have pointed out several times, the whole university left wing indoctrination has now permeated all of life, including large corporations who are being led to stick their nose in where it does not belong by Jeff Sonnenfeld of Yale. The best way corporations can help the poor and minorities, is to maximize profits, which leads to more hiring, which leads to wage increases, which leads to higher family incomes, and wealth creation for those willing to work hard and stay out of trouble. We saw it in 2019 when the economy was doing very well, and there were millions more job openings than people to fill them, and no government handouts to deter people from working. CEOs need to focus on building their companies to be the best profit and job producers they can, and leave the social crap to politicians, and those who make it their job. Well run companies that create jobs should hire the best people they can find, and build their talent base through apprenticeships where they can train the unskilled to be able to attain higher wages through effort, not skin color. The entire basis of “diversity and inclusion” is racist in that by hiring by skin color you are discriminating against the guy who had the wrong color, thereby undoing all that we all worked hard to overcome over the past 50 years."

What is Black Lives Matter about? Marxism.

What is BLM really about? It's not race, so stop thinking "civil rights," or even "equal rights." It's about POWER and MONEY. Simple. Clarity. No different than the Reformation, or the Crusades, or even our own 18th century revolution which wrested the power from England and enabled the richest nation in the world to develop. The little guys get hurt, and the power brokers walk off with the fat purse.

 
This video is a tiny introduction to BLM, so take 3 minutes to be informed, to see what's really going on. Then you can trash all the nonsense you see in the liberal media and social media about "white supremacy" being the problem of the unrest. A recent report on white supremacy by Washington Post couldn't locate any problems on the Left, even with cities burning all last summer and Portland having regular explosions and attacks on police and federal buildings. Do you really think all these corporations are suddenly as "woke" as the college administrators? Now there's your "white supremacy." 

• Coke, MLB, Delta trying to destroy millions of jobs in black Georgia and taking the power and money to white Colorado. 
• If there weren't a pot of gold at the end of the trans/gay/black rainbow do you think they would give a flying fig? 
• Do you really believe that 3 white teenagers with rifles driving around in a pick up are destroying thousands of small businesses and the livelihoods of their employees? 
• Why do you think the SC story of a black former athlete killing 6 whites, including 2 children, disappeared overnight, yet the Columbus story of a policeman saving the lives of two black girls when he shot a third continues to make the rounds of the news? One story doesn't sell, doesn't meet the narrative, and the other does. 

Stop believing a pack of lies by WaPo, NYT, LAT or the Columbus Dispatch; unhook from CNN and MSNBC. You've got the evidence; you have a brain. Find the independent journalist or reporter with a camera and a voice and dig in or lose your country.

https://youtu.be/8J68p5l-gjQ

So why didn't everything collapse in 1999?

In this morning's WSJ front page article about corporate default rates on high yield bonds I noticed something very peculiar in the chart. In 1999 the default rate was above 5%; in 2008 it was 4.5%. The projection--a big bold red dotted line--was for 13.9% in 2009, but we aren't yet where we were in 1999. So after the Obama Pork and Plunder (O-PAP) bill, we're still to expect defaults of businesses to continue? You mean bashing business, capitalism, free markets, nationalizing health care and parading high earners before Congress for public tongue lashing doesn't help the economy? Whudathunkit?

"A growing wave of souring corporate debt claimed another victim on Thursday as Charter Communications Inc., the nation's fourth-largest cable-TV company, said it would seek bankruptcy-court protection by April 1." Sorry, this is subscriber only

I thought it was a cheap shot lie

Those right wing talk show hosts--at it again, misreading or misquoting, I thought. No woman with an Ivy League college degree and big bucks income would be advising other women to go into "the helping professions," not with feminists and progressives whining about the lack of women in the board rooms of America! But there it was, in Byron York's column. Michelle Obama speaking to my fellow Ohioans, telling them not to strive, not to be proud, not to struggle, not to become wealthy or even middle class, but to become--government workers. Weeee! Then you can qualify for SCHIP and EITC--if you're really lucky, maybe you can sign up for free lunches and breakfasts for your kids! Oh, for shame, Michelle.

"A former attorney with the white-shoe Chicago firm of Sidley & Austin, Obama explains that she and her husband made the choice to give up lucrative jobs in favor of community service. “We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do,” she tells the women. “Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.” Faced with that reality, she adds, “many of our bright stars are going into corporate law or hedge-fund management.”

What she doesn’t mention is that the helping industry has treated her pretty well. In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Obama’s compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just after he took office. And that does not count the money Mrs. Obama receives from serving on corporate boards. She would have been O.K. even without Jack’s magic beans.

This was apparently a carefully worded slam at Hillary's daughter, near as I can tell, because the Obamain couple certainly aren't poorly paid government workers, unless being a Senator and a veep at a hospital count.

If you want to make your life count, get that top flight job--make the 6 figure income, then take a buy out or retire at 55. Then do the service opportunity you've always dreamed of, or set up a foundation. Don't spend your best years tied up with government red tape, driving druggies to the food pantries supported by the USDA so farmers can over produce, cleaning up feces in the parks inhabited by homeless who've been turned out of their safe institutions by earlier do-gooder theories, don't put your life in danger with vile students that the school administrators have decided are safe to transfer to your classroom from an even worse school, don't become a paper shuffler with tenure and civil service protection. Work someplace that has competition and standards, that will demand the best of you, challenge your mind. Earn a decent living and if you want to live modestly, donate to a program that is entirely out of bounds for the government--like saving abandoned animals or babies about to be aborted or become a safety net for your parents.

Don't ever, ever listen to a rich woman saying you shouldn't be rich like her!

The inequality myth

Wall Street Journal's Carol Hymowitz again trots out the old saw that women with the same level of education earn 20-25% less than a man and the glass ceiling is turning to steel. Here. I know from our stock annual reports that there are darn few women on the boards of major corporations. But ask yourself, is it diversity if they are just smaller or darker versions of the good old boys who are already on the board? When they get to that point in power, prestige and income, just what would they be bringing to the table that would benefit women and minorities on their way up--people who went to college with a GED or after military service or who attended a junior college and lived at home before transferring? Now that would be true diversity. If they aren't representing me, the investor, then why would they be on the board? What did an expensive Ivy League education get Mama Obama? She's raising her kids and supporting her husband's career! What woman in her right mind would give up that to sell plastics or mine coal from the office board room?

But Hymowitz's statistics (supplied I think by Catalyst) lie anyway, the value of diversity aside. They are not adjusting for the right variables. Thirty five years ago claiming "same education" might have made sense; today it doesn't. They need to be looking at women who

first and foremost are married, because most top male executives are--today marriage is the big divider between getting by and doing well

have a spouse who manages the home, the nanny and the housekeeper

have a spouse willing to chauffer the children to sports and activities, take the pets to the vet, serve on the school committees, meet with the teachers, make all the appointments for doctor, dentist and hair cuts, hire and supervise the lawn service, oversee the nutritional needs of the household, and help out mom and dad at the retirement home

who are willing to work 60-80 hours a week

who spend hundreds of hours a year on the Bluetooth while sitting in airports, sleeping in first class on airplanes

who are willing to have no personal relationships with other women, or maybe occasional casual sex with lower ranked male colleagues

who are willing to endure the long commute from the fashionable suburban McMansion

who can, and this is critical, show that they have never bumped anyone better qualified out of line because of affirmative action or need for diversity in the company (which brings huge resentment with networking colleagues whether or not they admit it)

Church of the Best Buy

Sometimes I arrange my poetry into shapes. My best efforts were a Christmas tree, a tornado, and a side profile of a man's face. So when I see information in an ad arranged to give two messages--one verbal, one graphic, I stop to read it. In yesterday's paper there was a small ad for the Best Buy Scholarship fund. I don't think I own BB stock, but I shop at Best Buy once a year for my son-in-law--it sells "consumer electronics, home-office products, entertainment software, appliances and related services through more than 1,200 retail stores across the United States, throughout Canada and in China." Volunteerism figures prominently at its corporate website. 1500 of the scholarships (non-renewable) are $1,500, but 51 are for $10,000--well worth taking the time to apply.

The ad I saw was all words, but shaped like a human, and it listed all the volunteer activities high school students might be doing which would qualify them for a Best Buy college scholarship. It was really quite clever and well done. Here's the list, and notice #14. (I added the numbers.)

1. Worked at the local food pantry.
2. Mentor
3. Picked up garbage off the freeway
4. Delivered meals on wheels.
5. Tutored a 2nd grader.
6. Walked the neighbor's 2 dogs.
7. Visited residents at a nursing home.
8. Rang the ------ (unreadable) for a total of --??--- hours.
9. Raked leaves for elderly people.
10. Mentor for a 3rd grader,.
11. Mowed the lawn for a handicapped neighbor for the past 4 summers.
12. Shoveled snow for Mrs. Jones.
13. Volunteered at a book drive to raise money for children's literacy.
14. Got a B+ on my chemistry test.
15. Organized a school blood drive,.
16. Basketball coach for 5th grade boys.
17. Read to toddlers at the local bookstore.
18. Children's summer program assistant.
19. Wildlife nursery volunteer.
20. Cooked for homeless teens on the week-end.

The only academic item on this list is a B+ in chemistry, and it is so different than the others, (it was the left arm of the figure), it almost looks like an error. The scholarship does have a grade point requirement, and obviously, the selectors are not looking for a teen who did all of this. In fact, a B+ in chemistry won't get you far in academic competitions--perhaps that's why it was included, to encourage the less than stellar students to apply.

What I like about this list is, 1) specificity, and 2) age appropriateness. They are not asking 15 year olds to go out and organize farm workers, picket abortion clinics, sleep on the streets with the homeless, or build homes for low income people. The list just by appearing in the paper shows that everyone, no matter how young, can do something close to home (and close to a Best Buy store, which is part of the FAQ). Only #20 seems out of place, considering the logistics and exclusivity of the idea (a pizza party with other teens sounds like a better idea to me rather than let-me-help you-feel-inadequate).

I think it is nice that Best Buy is a good corporate citizen, that it helps the communities from which it earns its income, and that its employees have opportunities to volunteer. However, I also believe its first commitment has to be to its real mission, to make money honestly in an ethical manner for its investors, which will in turn be good for its employees, the U.S. economy and the global economy.

This is a good lesson for youth staff of churches--as long as they keep in mind their real mission, which is to preach and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ--his life, death and resurrection--discipling their youth to move out into the community, and not just compiling to-do lists to keep their young, affluent members busy with feel-good projects.