Russia Will Attempt to Destroy the U.S. Dollar, Mastercard Attempts to Control Their Customers, The Bud Light Fallout Continues (The Five for 07/27/23)
Hey, welcome to The Five.
Sorry this one is a bit late in the week…see you tomorrow for the Culture & Commentary issue.
But for today, let’s dive into The News.
[one]
Well, this story just keeps going…and going…and going.
Beverage giant Anheuser-Busch InBev announced it will lay off hundreds of corporate employees as sales of its flagship lager Bud Light falter.
In a statement to CNBC on Thursday, a company spokesperson said the job cuts affect less than 2% of U.S. employees. Anheuser-Busch has about 18,000 employees nationwide. The layoffs will include about 350 of those people.
The company said it will cut positions across every corporate function. Anheuser-Busch added the changes will “simplify and reduce layers within its organization.”
The layoffs will not affect employees such as brewery and warehouse staff, drivers and field salespeople, among others, the company added.
Bud Light sales have sagged following a conservative boycott over its March Madness partnership with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney. The company faced backlash from other consumers, and Mulvaney herself, over its decision not to defend the collaboration.
Amid the uproar, shares of Anheuser-Busch have dipped more than 2% this year, versus the S&P 500′s nearly 20% gain.
In May, Bud Light lost its top spot in the U.S. beer market to Constellation Brands’ Modelo. The brand held 8.7% of overall beer sales for the four weeks ending July 1, according to data shared by consulting firm Bump Williams. Bud Light had 7% market share during that same period, the data found.
The firm also found Bud Light sales dropped 28% for the week ending June 24 when compared with the same period last year.
At this point, the Bud Light story is one of the biggest news happenings of the year, as the first real example of a Conservative boycott that’s held. Traditionally, Conservatives have been less likely to boycott products, at least since the Evangelical “Moral Majority” movement broke up in the 1980’s.
It’s all but certain the proverbial death of Bud Light is affecting whether other major brands and corporations speak out on major issues vs. remain neutral on topics that could upset consumers.
[two]
The BRICS Alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) will attempt to create a new currency for international trade, which would undermine the U.S. dollar.
Brazilian president Lula da Silva attacked the global economic order at last month’s international financing summit in Paris, criticising the dominance of the United States (US) dollar as the currency for international trade. He earlier proposed a euro-like BRICS currency as an alternative, and suggested this be discussed at next month’s BRICS summit in South Africa.
Russia seems to be the BRICS member most in favour, not surprisingly, since it has largely been cut off from dealing in the dollar by US sanctions imposed on it because of its invasion of Ukraine. But is a BRICS currency realistic?
Aly-Khan Satchu, Rich Management Chief Executive Officer, thinks so. “The catalyst for the move to find an alternative to the dollar was the sanction of Russia’s dollar forex reserves. This kneejerk response by the US signalled worldwide that dollar reserves are held at the whim and diktat of US authorities.”
He sees a need to wrestle sovereignty away from the dollar and the US towards BRICS. “We have already seen increased settlements in local currencies like [India’s] rupee, the Chinese yuan, and the United Arab Emirates dinar. We are seeing shifts away from the petrodollar architecture. Russia and India are now pricing oil via the Dubai benchmark.’
But is it feasible to create a common currency across five nations spread around the globe?
Satchu believes so. “I think the proposal is that the currency will be valued on a basket of physical commodities which is sounder than the current dollar regime where the printer is controlled by the US. I foresee the currency beginning as a currency for trade exchange, allowing local BRICS countries to retain their own currencies for purposes of monetary policy management.’
Reactions:
A. If this happens, it could alter the U.S. economy radically.
B. If we hadn’t inflated our own currency, particularly through COVID, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.
C. Far be it from me to miss a chance to throw President’s Roosavelt (source) and Nixon (source) under the bus for taking the nation off the gold standard in 1933 and 1971, respectively.
These two decisions are among the hardest hitting policies that have changed life in America…and not for the better.
[three]
North Korea is silent on returning a U.S. soldier who darted into the dictator controlled nation.
There have been no new communications between the United Nations and North Korea since Pvt. Travis King first bolted across the border to the secretive state, U.S. officials said Monday, contradicting an earlier statement by the U.N.
Pvt. 2nd Class Travis King, 23, was about to fly back to the United States from South Korea for possible disciplinary action after refusing to pay a fine for allegedly damaging public property. He slipped away from the airport in Seoul last Tuesday and managed to join a guided tour to the joint security area, a piece of land between the North and the South that’s managed by the U.N. From there, he sprinted across the border and appeared to be detained by North Korean guards.
Though there was no public word from the North Koreans about King, the U.N. force that manages negotiations between the two Koreas appeared to suggest it was in talks with the North about the runaway soldier.
I certainly feel for Pvt. King and his family…but I must stand against utilizing many U.S. resources to get this soldier returned.
We aren’t even pushing hard to get journalist and Marine Austin Tice or Psychotherapist Majd Kamalamaz back from Syria, or Marine Paul Whelan or journalist Evan Gershkovich back from Russia.
In fact, there are dozens of Americans being held in hostile nations…that the U.S. has abandoned, despite these people being innocent.
North Korea kills American prisoners, full stop.
I mourn for Private King’s family…but he chose his (very stupid) fate. Our efforts should go to bringing innocents, not idiots, home.
[four]
In my opinion…this is the one of the most important stories of the year.
Mastercard has told financial institutions to stop allowing marijuana transactions on its debit cards, dealing a blow to an industry already on the fringes of the financial system in the United States.
Most banks in the country do not service cannabis companies as marijuana remains illegal at the federal level despite several states legalizing its medicinal and recreational use.
"As we were made aware of this matter, we quickly investigated it. In accordance with our policies, we instructed the financial institutions that offer payment services to cannabis merchants and connects them to Mastercard to terminate the activity," a spokesperson for the company said on Wednesday.
"The federal government considers cannabis sales illegal, so these purchases are not allowed on our systems," the spokesperson added.
Your first reaction may be “but I don’t purchase marijuana, why would this effect me?”
Because a financial institution is now trying to control consumer behavior. If they can stop transactions around this…what else can Mastercard shut off in the future? The sale of books they don’t like? Movies? Restaurants that allow indoor seating in a future pandemic?
As a reminder to Mastercard, the 10th Amendment of the United States reads:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Marijuana, whether you and I like it or not, is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution…and is therefore a state issue. If you don’t like your local laws (making weed legal…or illegal), I suggest you get involved in local politics.
But we should not tolerate the federal government jumping in and granting themselves more power…and Mastercard shouldn’t use non-existent federal power as an excuse to impose the corporate will on their customer base..
I may move banks over this issue in the future.
[five]
And finally, two female-to-male teenage transitioners, who detransitioned as adults, have filed a lawsuit for $1 million in damages.
Prisha Mosley and Soren Aldaco, two young women who were medically transitioned as teenagers and have since detransitioned, are suing their doctors, alleging that the defendants’ medical interventions caused irreversible damage to their bodies.
North Carolina woman Prisha Mosley, who was just 16 years old when she was first put on a path to medically transition to male, says in a lawsuit that healthcare professionals lied to her, both by telling her she could become a boy and “grow a penis,” and by withholding critical information about permanent damage from such treatments.
Mosley, now 25, was given testosterone injections and underwent a double mastectomy as part of her transition when she was a teenager. She now has a deep voice, facial hair, a damaged vagina and chest, and doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to have children.
Mosley’s doctors “lied to and misled her into these treatments and procedures for the purpose of making money off of her and bolstering their credentials in the emerging field of so-called gender-affirming care,” the lawsuit claims, naming her plastic surgeon Eric Emerson, counselor Brie Klein-Fowler, Shana Gordon, and Dr. Martha Perry as defendants.
According to CNN, transgender surgeries cost in excess of $100,000. Last year, a leaked video from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville showed an administrator seemingly bragging about the profitability of lifetime care for transgender individuals…calling into question whether the medical community is caring, or just greedy, when it comes to the Trans issue.
Until the next one,
-sth