(ConservativeInsider.org) – The phrase “go woke, go broke” has been used a great deal in recent weeks to describe the effects on an increasing number of large corporations who have decided to prioritize a woke agenda over the sensibilities of their customers, resulting in huge losses.
For example, Anheuser-Busch has now lost about $27 billion in market capitalization since they put the face of Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender activist, on their cans of Bud Light. The resulting backlash saw the market share of Bud Light decline by 12 per cent and Anheuser-Busch was forced to virtually give away the product in an attempt to reverse what was widely seen as a catastrophe.
Similarly, the national retailer Target, which decided to promote LGBTQIA+ products and engaged with a British transgender designer who promoted products based on Satanism, lost around 14 per cent of its market capitalisation.
However, a former president of the sales division of Anheuser-Busch, Anson Frericks, has shed some light on why large companies have been forced to act in such an apparently self-destructive way. He says that all one has to do is “follow the money”.
Dominant investment firms like Vanguard, State Street and Blackrock have been leaning on large corporations in order to promote progressive values and in particular the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) agenda – which is a set of standards that determines the effect that a company has on society.
Investment firms, which between them control trillions of dollars’ worth of capital, are insisting that large corporations either give in to their demands or suffer severe long-term consequences. In many cases the investment firms control pension funds and directors’ bonuses through shareholders who sit on corporate boards to ensure compliance.
Frericks says that he left Anheuser-Busch because the company started to prioritize the advancement of progressive politics over the duty to make a profit for its shareholders and obligation to meet the needs of its customers.
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