Jun 7 2023

Jaw Dropping Stats – Reports of Bud Light Memorial Day Sales Dropping -60% as Brand Boycott Continues

Posted originally on the CTH on June 6, 2023 | Sundance

Memorial Day customarily kicks off summer and the beer beverage industry generally looks forward to the enhanced sales that come from summer. However, if the recently published reports of Anheuser-Busch sales are accurate, which includes a stunning 60% sales drop during the holiday, the brand position of Bud Light is in freefall.

While the impacts do have a regional trend based on consumer boycotts and patterns, when the Daily Mail reports, “numbers are suffering primarily due to a decline in Bud Light sales that reached as high as a 60 percent drop off over the week that ended on Memorial Day,” we can be certain the executive offices of A/B are watching closely. The feedback from wholesalers and distributors to the parent company must be something beyond alarm.

Worse still, the forward-looking data trend doesn’t offer any hope. Things are getting worse for the parent company.

(Daily Mail) – […] For the week ending May 20, Bud Light sales across the US fell nearly 26 percent compared to the same period last year. For the week ending May 6, in-store sales plummeted 23.6 percent. And the week before that, ending April 29, sales dropped by 23.3 percent.

This follows declines in sales for the week ending April 22, which saw a 21.4 percent decline. Seven days earlier, the dip has been 17 percent, according to NielsenIQ data provided to Dailymail.com by Bump Williams Consultancy.

The data – showing that US sales of Bud Light are dropping by as much as 20 percent each week – is being uniformly viewed by industry experts as a negative trend that may not reverse itself anytime soon.

Beer Business Daily editor Harry Schuhmacher told Fox News Digital that the ‘whole industry is in shock’. (read more)

It is safe to say the Bud Light brand is now firmly connected to the image of transgender ideology. As a result, it would appear that anyone who holds a Bud Light beverage is essentially identifying themselves as a transvestite pickle-puffer, and that could potentially draw considerable side-eyes from anyone in a public place outside the region of San Francisco, California.

As further noted by the New York Post, “Demand for Bud Light over the crucial Memorial Day weekend — the official kickoff of the summer beer buying season — was lukewarm with many store shelves still holding cases of the once mighty beer, Williams said after a spot check of local stores. At least one store was trying to unload a 24-pack of Bud Light for just $3.49, according to Beer Business Daily.”

Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Michel Doukeris reportedly addressed the ongoing boycott’s impact on delivery drivers, salespeople, and wholesalers on a recent earnings call. It is a little bit odd to see A/B positioning themselves as victims of their customers.

“This situation has impacted our people and especially our frontline workers: The delivery drivers, sales representatives, our wholesalers, Bud owners and servers,” Doukeris said, according to ABC News. “These people are the fabric of our business. They are our neighbors, family members, and friends. They are in every community in America. We’ve been doing everything we can to support our teams.”

It would appear that Anheuser-Busch the corporation, are refusing to accept or acknowledge their responsibility in creating this crisis for their brand. The brand image issue was not forced upon them. These were decisions made by the marketing division of the company, and now they place blame for the consequences on their customers.

Every time, in every story, in every print and broadcast update, as the ongoing events are told or written – every visual aide that accompanies the news includes that weird guy with the Bud Light beer in his hand. This is now a bizarre marketing self-fulfilling prophecy. The articles and news telling updates to the story are now optically affirming the Bud Light brand as a beverage exclusively for transgenders.

This level of ongoing public relations failure is something for the record books. I wonder if Target Inc is paying attention.

Jun 6 2023

Real Estate, Blackrock & Dodd-Frank

Armstrong Economics Blog/Real Estate Re-Posted Jun 6, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I have a question about Blackrock buying up all these homes. It seems that the Dodd-Frank bill empowered Blackrock to buy up all of these homes and rent them out. Was this all rigged for their benefit?

Thank you for being a rare light of truth in these dark times.

ANSWER: Dodd-Frank Title XIV establishes minimum standards for all mortgage products. It was a very clever piece of legislation that I would suspect Blackrock had a hand in creating. It prevents making a home mortgage loan unless they reasonably determine that the borrower can repay the loan based on the borrower’s credit history, current income, expected income, and other factors. The solution was to stiffen regulations to trap people into being perpetual renters and in reality shuts them down from ever owning a home. This has created the marketplace for Blackrock. It would be one hell of a coincidence that this provision came from a politician who did not understand the economy. It has the fingerprints of something much more sinister.

The Dodd-Frank Act effectively legislated that banks cannot allow a low-income person to own a home. Obama claimed that to make sure that a crisis like this never happens again, he signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law which was indeed the most far-reaching Wall Street reform in history. It was pitched that the Dodd-Frank legislation would prevent the excessive risk-taking that led to the financial crisis. Yet it did so by outlawing home ownership for the low-income and trapping them as perpetual rental clients for Blackrock. That was very convenient. Quite a few hands were in the cookie jar on this one. The wording was discriminatory for the potential home buyer rather than targeting the practices of the banks who made the mortgages and resold them. The better way would be to penalize the original mortgage lender for their lack of fiduciary duty than to codify restrictions on the consumer.

Jun 6 2023

New WOKE Advertisement

Armstrong Economics Blog/Humor Re-Posted Jun 5, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Jun 6 2023

FBI Refuses to Give Physical Document to House Investigators Outlining Biden Bribery Scheme, Now Claim “Ongoing Investigation”…

Posted originally on the CTH on June 5, 2023 | Sundance

Here we go again with the ever-familiar silo defense. The FBI is refusing to hand over the unclassified FD-1023 stating there is an ongoing investigation using the confidential human source who made allegations outlined in the document. Remember, the allegations and the statement record was created in July of 2020, almost three years ago.

Prior to last week, the FBI refused to say the 6-page unclassified document existed. After House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told FBI Director Chris Wray he had already seen the unclassified document via a whistleblower, then Comey admitted the FBI indeed had it. Today, the FBI is refusing to release the document, stating it is now captive as part of an “ongoing investigation.” The claimed investigation began July 2020 – the investigation is “ongoing”. Go figure.

James Comer said he will begin the process, this Thursday, to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress. WATCH:

Jun 6 2023

Recusal and Conflicts

Posted originally on the CTH on June 5, 2023 | Sundance

~ The Background is HERE ~

A brief post just to emphasize a point about DC and how the power centers protect themselves. You might remember when Attorney Jeff Sessions was told he needed to recuse himself from anything to do with the Trump-Russia investigation. We know from FOIA requests of schedules, the participants in the meeting on the date of those discussions:

Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself at the conclusion of a meeting involving Jody Hunt, Dana Boente, Jim Crowell, Tashina Guahar and Scott Schools; an apparent conflict of interest. Now consider….

Mary McCord was Acting Asst. Attorney General for the National Security Division, when she submitted the fraudulently constructed FISA application used against Carter Page. Mary McCord, knowingly and with specific intent, defrauded the court and broke the law. Mary McCord then went on to join Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler in the construction of the articles of impeachment. She did not recuse herself.

At the time the Carter Page application was filed (October 21, 2016), Mary McCord’s chief legal counsel inside the office was a DOJ-NSD lawyer named Michael Atkinson. In his role as the legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD, it was Atkinson’s job to review and audit all FISA applications submitted from inside the DOJ. Essentially, Atkinson was the DOJ internal compliance officer in charge of making sure all FISA applications were correctly assembled and documented. McCord and Atkinson knowingly submitted a fraudulent FISA application.

Atkinson then went on to become Intelligence Community Inspector General where he changed the rules for CIA whistleblowers to allow the accusation against President Trump to surface which resulted in an impeachment investigation. When ICIG Michael Atkinson turned over the newly authorized anonymous whistleblower complaint to the joint House Intelligence and Judiciary Committee (Schiff and Nadler chairs), who did Michael Atkinson give the complaint to? Mary McCord.

Consider the conflicts within the Supreme Court. Mary McCord, knowingly and with specific intent, lied to the FISA court to support the FBI targeting of Trump. Mary McCord’s husband, Sheldon L Snook, was running the office of the counselor to Chief Justice John Roberts; the office which would intercept any communication from the FISA court to the Chief Justice if the FISA court had any concerns about the false FBI application. No one from the office, or the Chief Justice counselor recused themselves.

Conflicts of interest only surface to create personnel changes when those changes meet the interests of the DC administrative state. When those conflicts exist but they are useful to the interests of the DC administrative state, they are ignored.

Jun 5 2023

Why Men Excel in Sports

Armstrong Economics Blog/WOKE Re-Posted Jun 5, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Women are being forced out of athletics. Facts over feelings, but biological males are athletically superior to women. Numerous successful female athletes have been forced into early retirement due to men competing as women. The men who compete against women would be considered mediocre in the men’s categories but are breaking records as women.

Men have 10X the testosterone of women. Those who are taking estrogen still have an advantage. A male athlete has more muscle mass than a female athlete, allowing them to have a higher capacity for hypertrophy. Men have a higher basal metabolic rate as well, allowing them to lose weight quicker and that muscle mass to body weight ratio enables them to be faster on their feet. Male athletes have 4% to 12% body fat, compared to female athletes, who have 12% to 23%. Women have smaller hearts (physically) than men, and their hearts must pump faster during exercise. Women also have fewer red blood cells than men, enabling them to absorb oxygen at a higher rate. Men are larger overall, with wider chests and longer limbs. Male athletes clearly have an advantage, which is why no one expected women to compete against men until the trans agenda exploded in our faces.

Duke compared top athletes in their field and found that men clearly have the advantage. “Just in the single year 2017, Olympic, World, and U.S. Champion Tori Bowie’s 100 meters lifetime best of 10.78 was beaten 15,000 times by men and boys. (Yes, that’s the right number of zeros.) The same is true of Olympic, World, and U.S. Champion Allyson Felix’s 400 meters lifetime best of 49.26. Just in the single year 2017, men and boys around the world outperformed her more than 15,000 times.” The researchers noted that the difference has nothing to do with training. Men are superior at sports because they have an androgenized body. Women will always come second to biological males in strength, endurance, and speed.

Biological men are destroying women’s sports. We all know of the case of Lia Thomas who beat 12-time All-American champion Riley Gaines. Lia is 6’1 and towers over her teammates who do not even feel comfortable sharing a locker room with a biological male. Thomas ranked in the mid 500s while competing as man, and then began to shatter records after switching to the female category. These trans athletes are creating new records that women physically cannot beat, diminishing the achievements of women in sports.

The Democrats fully support men competing with women. The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act passed in a 219-203 vote in April, with all Republicans voting “yes” and all Democrats voting “no.” “We should rename it the ‘cancel kids trans hate’ bill,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash) stated. Why are the Democrats attempting to turn this into a social issue? Facts over feelings – men excel at sports and should not be permitted to compete as women.