The Truth of 'Woke'
The Market Ticker - Commentary on The Capital Markets
Login or register to improve your experience
Main Navigation
Sarah's Resources You Should See
Full-Text Search & Archives
Leverage, the book
Legal Disclaimer

The content on this site is provided without any warranty, express or implied. All opinions expressed on this site are those of the author and may contain errors or omissions. For investment, legal or other professional advice specific to your situation contact a licensed professional in your jurisdiction.

NO MATERIAL HERE CONSTITUTES "INVESTMENT ADVICE" NOR IS IT A RECOMMENDATION TO BUY OR SELL ANY FINANCIAL INSTRUMENT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO STOCKS, OPTIONS, BONDS OR FUTURES.

Actions you undertake as a consequence of any analysis, opinion or advertisement on this site are your sole responsibility; author(s) may have positions in securities or firms mentioned and have no duty to disclose same.

Market charts, when present, used with permission of TD Ameritrade/ThinkOrSwim Inc. Neither TD Ameritrade or ThinkOrSwim have reviewed, approved or disapproved any content herein.

The Market Ticker content may be sent unmodified to lawmakers via print or electronic means or excerpted online for non-commercial purposes provided full attribution is given and the original article source is linked to. Please contact Karl Denninger for reprint permission in other media, to republish full articles, or for any commercial use (which includes any site where advertising is displayed.)

Submissions or tips on matters of economic or political interest may be sent "over the transom" to The Editor at any time. To be considered for publication your submission must be complete (NOT a "pitch"), include full and correct contact information and be related to an economic or political matter of the day. Pitch emails missing the above will be silently deleted. All submissions become the property of The Market Ticker.

Considering sending spam? Read this first.

2023-05-21 07:00 by Karl Denninger
in Macro Factors , 630 references Ignore this thread
The Truth of 'Woke'
[Comments enabled]

It's a scam.

But not the sort you think it is.

Rather, it has appeared to be "ok" and even "what people want."

It isn't, it never was, it was always a chimera and a lie.

People are jumping on Disney's revelation that they are not going to move a cadre of "imagineers" (their term for the groups that come up with new idea for their parks and such) to the Orlando area from California.  This, people say, is a reaction to DeSantis' feud with Disney, and some form of "corporate payback."

I can't get into the Board's head but this much I can tell you: Either they're about to make a make a mistake that will cost them billions and might cut the company's value in half or more, or that's not what's going on.

I'll take "that's not what's going on" for $1,000, Alex.

Disney, like virtually every other corporation in the United States and indeed worldwide has feasted on negative real interest rates now for more than a decade, and artificially suppressed rates for more than two decades.  So did Universities, Governments, think tanks, lobbyists and myriad others -- along with ordinary Americans.

You probably think that a 3% mortgage is reasonable.  It is not, except in a world where there is zero inflation -- that is, your $50,000 a year salary buys exactly the same amount food, fuel, electricity, insurance, bundles of shingles and cords of word 30 years from now -- or 30 years ago -- as it does today. You've never lived in that world and in fact nobody has since the turn of the last century.

The people from the founding of America to roughly 1913 more-or-less did, however.  There were fits and starts of inflation and deflation, but neither held sway.  People point at fiat currency as an inherent evil but if it is, and is uncontrolled, then so is a metallic (or any other) standard because all can be corrupted and over time all have been corrupted.  Those arguing for a return to that, or a new one (e.g. "digital encrypted currencies") have been and in every case are scammers; they hold it or some interest in it and want to use to abuse you up your rear-most exit.

In a world of 2% inflation -- true 2% -- the price of everything doubles in about 35 years.  The reasonable price of money over 30 years in a world of true 2% inflation is about 5%.  2% for the inflation, 3% for the risk that something terrible will happen to you over those 30 years and you won't be able to pay, and this assumes that when you take the loan you are both young and healthy.  That's right: If you're older than your 20s, obese, have some chronic condition or simply were born with some sort of disability your loan should be more expensive -- by a lot -- because the odds rise precipitously that something bad will happen before the 30 years is up.

Houses are not "assets"; they are in fact durable consumer goods much like a washing machine, car, lawn mower or similar.  They are constructed out of things that require continual input or they turn to dust.  Drive through rural America and you will see plenty of them in the process of being reclaimed by entropy as nobody is continually adding energy-based input to it anymore, a reality that nothing can escape -- including you personally.

Of course that's not what you were sold.

"Easy money" politics is like that.  It allows all manner of uneconomic, stupid things to be done, for a while.  It causes the cost of said uneconomic, stupid things to be paid by other people rather than those who did the stupid thing.  The shifting of said costs is usually (but not always) diffuse, but in every case it happens.  Stock prices go up not because of actual innovation but because there is no limit other than fear on deployed leverage; nobody has to actually make the numbers on a profit basis in real terms so long as the policy lasts.

But in point of fact there is never a free lunch.  As I've pointed out since beginning this column the laws of thermodynamics are not suggestions and they apply to economics -- not only on a large-scale level but personally too.  You can simplify those laws down to three sentences.

  • You can't win.  If you believe you can get out more than you put in you're delusional. If you run this trope on someone else you're committing criminal fraud and should be rotting in prison.  There is loss in all endeavors.

  • You can't break even either.  See the first point and it applies to the belief you can get 100% back on whatever you put in.  You can't.  Again, there is always loss.

  • You can't avoid playing, irrespective of knowing you will lose.  You can only choose to lose less or more, and if you do nothing entropy eats all and you wind up as dust.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people will try to argue that there is some exception to this -- especially those with a bunch of letters after their name working in think tanks and unversities.  There is not.  The end of "free money" has led firms like Disney to face reality: There is always loss in all endeavors but you must play or cease to exist and as a result doing things that make losses on top of the inevitable is stupid.

Disney is shutting down their "Star Wars Experience" which was dreamed up by their "Imagineers."  Why?  Because a couple of days in that "experience" for a family of four costs roughly $5,000 and there simply aren't enough wealthy people when you actually must expend effort and pay for same out of your personal surplus after expenses to fork up the money and keep the place open.  In short it is grandiose, kitchy and the market of available people willing and able to pay is too small given the price as soon as "free money" disappears, and it has.

The entirety of "Woke" is utterly dependent on the capacity to shift cost from where it actually resides to someone else and make them pay it.  The reason is simple: If you hire based on anything other than competence you get something less than 100% of what you could get in output.  You are intentionally crippling yourself in order to score political tribal points.

Absent coercion if you do this someone else will destroy you because they will refuse -- and outcompete you.  The firm that produces 98% of its capacity for every dollar put in will lose, every time, to the one that produces 100% of its capacity for every dollar put in.  It will take time before the first firm runs out of both customers and money but it will happen and as a result what inevitably comes with this sort of activity is the attempt to force everyone else down to that same production level.

Contemplate the push for so-called "green energy."  It is not cheaper and more-efficient.  It is always more-expensive and less-reliable.  If it wasn't everyone would choose it voluntarily for obvious reasons.  Is there a trade-off between ecological sanity and maximum output?  Sure!  Dead humans don't buy things, do they?  Poisoning your customers eventually leads to your extinction, so nobody will do that for very long unless of course you can force the customer to take the poison!

Oh, we didn't do any of that in recent memory, did we?

None of this nonsense happens except in a world where you pretend you can violate the laws of thermodynamics.  Societies have often fell into this sort of nonsense and paid for it with their literal lives; Rome did, and ultimately collapsed.  So have many others; Argentina is blessed with some of the richest natural resource deposits on the planet and yet they went from an incredibly vibrant and productive economy to a third-world hellhole with inflation rates approaching and in some cases exceeding 100% a year yet despite screwing basically everyone they have refused to abandon their delusions.

Nothing -- other than a belief in getting something for nothing -- prevents Argentina from returning to a prosperous, productive society.  Their damage is entirely self-inflicted and it has occurred over the last hundred years, despite the fact that the four out of ten citizens are in abject poverty and most of them have never known anything else.  The refusal to stop deficit spending has led to one blow-up after another because the laws of thermodynamics are not suggestions and are not subject to modification, repeal or escape.  You either conform to reality or you suffer the consequences, and suffer they have.

For more than three generations, none of which have learned a single thing.

DeSantis isn't "winning" on Woke, in short, nor is anyone else.  Witness InBev which tried to play a game by bringing in a "marketing executive" who pronounced that their core constituency for Bud Light was "too fratty."

Oh really?  The last time I checked frat houses tend to buy beer by the keg and not one at a time either.

Exactly how many of those customers can you afford to piss off?  Zero, unless you live in a free money world.

Well, we did -- we lived in a large-scale delusion for the last few decades.

Its over.

There are two choices: Either the deficit spending stops or we become Argentina, and by the way unlike Argentina we both have more guns per-capita (and not by a little either) and nuclear weapons.

There never was an argument for "woke" anything.  It was always predicated on intentional damage to score political points.  That's stupid.  It has always been stupid and will always be stupid.

Now it is existential: Either it stops at all levels or our nation fails.

Go to responses (registration required to post)
 



 
Comments on The Truth of 'Woke'
Login Register Top Blog Top Blog Topics FAQ
Page 1 of 3  First123Last
Prof_dilligaf 507 posts, incept 2021-09-02
2023-05-21 07:36:14

The crash of the Halcyon, for that is the name of that fake Star Wars "cruise ship experience", is a perfect example of modern corporate Murica: a lame idea poorly executed at great expense, yet it still comes across as incredibly cheap and lazy and derivative, and because the people in charge previously fucked over the "little" people they needed, nobody wanted anything to do with it, so a bunch of low-priced, inexperienced, and even incompetent diversity hires make a bad experience into a truly horrible one.

A solid breakdown of the situation: https://arkhavencomics.com/2023/05/18/th....
Killersdad 2k posts, incept 2008-03-27
2023-05-21 07:41:38

My son took his family with 3 young girls to disney for 4 days.

It cost 9 grand.

He said never again and they have turned into a money stealing regime.

$60 dollars a head for a lunch buffet and 8 years and up charged as an adult and the food sucked!

----------
What Americans see as an abject catastrophe, Biden cheers on as a stunning and planned success.

Dont you ever wonder why they have to sell us on tofu but bacon sells itself?
Cmoledor 2k posts, incept 2021-04-13
2023-05-21 08:00:12

Huh. I never looked at woke through an economic lens. Great breakdown again Karl. As usual. Thanks for teaching us. Cheers man.

----------
The whole world is one big fucking scam
Full throttle till the end. Ocdawg
Take the stick you tried to beat me with and go fuck your own face. Ishmael
Blanca 558 posts, incept 2020-07-25
2023-05-21 08:00:27

Great Ticker. Thanks!

Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller gave a sobering keynote speech at USC Marshall (California) this month to a graduating class of MBAs. Basically he said that if you are young you are screwed. You will not live as well as your parents, particularly in retirement. 40% of US spending is for seniors and that is set to climb to 60% if nothing changes. Add to that interest on the debt and basically the entire budget will be spent on old people in the coming years. Of course, that won't happen because it can't. But the point is - why aren't the young raising you know what about that? Though Stanley didn't say this I wonder why the young are focused on woke and "green energy" when they are presently being screwed out of everything.

Let's consider this regarding the 3% mortgage rates. If you have one of these and you still owe principal, you must stay put. You can't move for a job to anywhere else because if you want to buy a house you must sell yours to someone who will accept a 6% rate and you must buy a replacement with a 6% rate. Most can't afford this (they buy a monthly payment) unless home prices decline. But then if home prices decline, you might not be able to sell your home for what you paid for it and you are forced to take a loss. Can you afford the loss? Good times for housing prices are ahead!

Regarding Disney - I smell a rat. They just wanted to bash DeSantis, and blamed him for their decision to not move $1B worth of jobs from California to Florida. I doubt many Floridians care. Has anyone tried to drive through Orlando on I-4? A few less people there won't bother anyone. I've said this before on the forum, but the Disney experience is a joke. The theme parks need billions in upgrades - they are clearly dated and in disrepair. Where's that money going to come from? Staying at a "Star Wars" hotel for $2.5K a night? Who thought up that brilliant idea? Besides, how much more mileage can be drawn out of a movie that debuted 45 years ago?

Reason: Incorrect figure
Quantum 840 posts, incept 2021-05-18
2023-05-21 08:33:14

In my econ classes, the example of racial discrimination was held up as an example of self-correction: refuse to sell to or hire people based on race and the market would punish. The analogies to wokeism seem pretty clear. However, then as now a social and economic order enforces the current orthodoxy. In the woke case, it's because Blackrock, et. al. push for all kinds of ESG nonsense and they get listened to.
"That which cannot continue, won't," but sometimes the end takes much longer than expected to arrive. I'm surprised it has held together this long.

----------
Our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this great multitude that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. --2 Chron. 20:12
Bzelbob 474 posts, incept 2021-09-12
2023-05-21 10:04:05

@Blanca
Quote:
Regarding Disney - I smell a rat. They just wanted to bash DeSantis, and blamed him for their decision to not move $1B worth of jobs from California to Florida. I doubt many Floridians care. Has anyone tried to drive through Orlando on I-4? A few less people there won't bother anyone. I've said this before on the forum, but the Disney experience is a joke. The theme parks need billions in upgrades - they are clearly dated and in disrepair. Where's that money going to come from? Staying at a "Star Wars" hotel for $5K a night? Who thought up that brilliant idea? Besides, how much more mileage can be drawn out of a movie that debuted 45 years ago?


Bingo! Much Truth here!

As a Floridian for quite a while now, you cannot imagine the true magnitude of how much I don't care anymore about Disney.
It started a long, long time ago but by 2015 when they laid off their software people it was clear what the companies prioritie$$$ were.

A once respected company making movies for children has not only chosen to blow their own corporate brains out, they have reloaded the chamber again and again and kept firing.
The only way they've stayed alive is through coasting on momentum, and the "force" of that momentum is finally fading.

So the "force" is no longer with them.

But the "farce" (Woke) still is.


"The greatest teacher, failure is." - Yoda

----------
"Threats are illogical. And payment is usually expensive." - Sarek of Vulcan
Greenacr 804 posts, incept 2016-03-15
2023-05-21 10:04:39

@ Tickerguy "Houses are not "assets"; they are in fact durable consumer goods much like a washing machine, car, lawn mower or similar. They are constructed out of things that require continual input or they turn to dust. Drive through rural America and you will see plenty of them in the process of being reclaimed by entropy as nobody is continually adding energy-based input to it anymore, a reality that nothing can escape -- including you personally."

I am seeing/experiencing this first hand and because of a home renovation and work I have been posting a lot less.

Finally, I have a contractor on site after almost 3 years of looking, waiting, etc. trying to line someone up with a reasonable estimate. Right now I am in the midst of the demolition phase and have been shocked at the decay that we have found behind the siding of our 24 year old home. Rot, Hornets nests, mud wasp nests, shoddy workmanship (that I did not catch during the original build) are now being addressed. Likely going to add another $10K to my spend.

I generally take pride on how current I am on keeping things up to snuff on my house, property, cars, etc. Doesn't matter, Thermodynamics is a BITCH!
Bluebird 2k posts, incept 2008-05-02
2023-05-21 10:05:19

Cmoledor said in his signature "The whole world is one big fucking scam"

Think about it, what is not a scam?
Radiosity 1k posts, incept 2009-03-05
2023-05-21 10:05:27

@Blanca "Though Stanley didn't say this I wonder why the young are focused on woke and "green energy" when they are presently being screwed out of everything."

Because they've been propagandised from a young age into thinking they're 'saving the planet'.

"Besides, how much more mileage can be drawn out of a movie that debuted 45 years ago?"

The Expanded Universe proved that there's a great deal of mileage in it. Disney's first act upon buying the IP was to throw all of that out the window and then hire Bad Reboot for the first sequel movie instead of someone competent. That's how we got MaRey Sue and the Diversity Hires of Mediocrity.

----------
So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Mrbobo 154 posts, incept 2021-12-01
2023-05-21 10:05:41

Its stupidity is right there in the name, an illiterate jive affectation of awake. I do remember a time when the imagineers were highly regarded, however given my age, I assume that was when the mouse still had competent PR. They did at least install 1 wedway people mover in the Houston airport.
Nickdanger 1k posts, incept 2011-06-12
2023-05-21 10:05:59

I know several folks who have spent thousands of dollars for their families to have a "Disney experience". What a waste of money. I also wonder how many of them regret throwing money away on a fleeting moment? Just like with the recent medical experimentation, I will not ask.

Interestingly, my inlaws in Texas said that Disney purchased a large chunk of land in central Texas recently. I wonder what they are planning to do with it.

If the parks need upgrading and repairing now, I wonder how they will accomplish this with the decline in available fun money and the rising interest rates.

----------
-- I'm in the control group

-- In life, it's important to know when to stop arguing with people and simply let them be wrong.
Tickerguy 195k posts, incept 2007-06-26
2023-05-21 10:06:45

@Nickdanger -
Quote:
Interestingly, my inlaws in Texas said that Disney purchased a large chunk of land in central Texas recently. I wonder what they are planning to do with it.

I hope they like paying property taxes. Texas sure as hell does like assessing them.

----------
The difference between "kill" and "murder" is that murder, as a subset of kill, is undeserved by the deceased.
Dbigkahunna 699 posts, incept 2010-01-10
2023-05-21 10:33:58

To do what needs to be done requires
statesmen who have integrity willing to speak the truth and a desire to effect change.
Name six.
Name three.
Name one.
Thermodynamics wins.

----------
Blessed, Grateful and Living a Dream

Dev96 20 posts, incept 2021-09-13
2023-05-21 10:34:18

As a native I've seen Disney from its earlier beginnings and grow into what it is today. It's always been the target of someone for something and usually always the progressive religious factions.

I doubt it changes it's ways and I would contend that most of the current ramblings are nothing more than WWE styled politics benefitting both sides of the so-called morale chasm.

Desantis is nothing more that a Trojan for the Republican progressives and Disney is nothing more than a marketing gimmick. If this is a war they won it back then they laid off all of their IT and replaced them with illegal subcontractors with expired visas.

Nickdanger 1k posts, incept 2011-06-12
2023-05-21 10:35:20

@Tickerguy,

I'll bet that they have worked some kind of tax deal with the state based on expected travel dollars bring brought to the state when/if they develop the land. It seems like large entities can coerce state governments to give tax abatement provisions based on some future economic benefits to the area. Amazon is a prime example of this tactic.

----------
-- I'm in the control group

-- In life, it's important to know when to stop arguing with people and simply let them be wrong.
Augeries 389 posts, incept 2019-09-26
2023-05-21 10:35:58

I visited Epcot a couple years back, right after the parks started giving up on the Rona. It was honestly an embarrassment. I expected to appreciate the exploration of the countries now that I'm an adult, but there really wasn't much to see, it's built for the lowest common denominator type of human. The food all sucked, it was too hot to get drunk, and the only attractions that were any good were the greenhouse and the Starship Earth (the oldest thing there!) Never again.

On the other hand, Universal Studios impressed the hell out of me. I guess the leadership there WANTS to win, good on them.

----------
The World is Quiet Here.
Cmoledor 2k posts, incept 2021-04-13
2023-05-21 10:36:40

Right @Bluebird. And thanks to this forum, Ive learned that the answer to that question is ...not much.

----------
The whole world is one big fucking scam
Full throttle till the end. Ocdawg
Take the stick you tried to beat me with and go fuck your own face. Ishmael
Tonythetiger 855 posts, incept 2019-01-27
2023-05-21 10:36:57


Tickerguy wrote..
Now it is existential: Either it stops at all levels or our nation fails.

Failure it is then. smiley






----------
"War is when the Government tells you who the bad guy is. Revolution is when you decide that for yourself." - Benjamin Franklin
Lewfalo 54 posts, incept 2023-03-09
2023-05-21 10:42:15

So true, imaginary money creates a lot of imaginary other stuff. Fake money runs out, fake stuff eventually does too.

Sucks to be living through it, but the cancer has to be removed for the patient to improve.

"The regional banks are failing!! Fed rate hikes are destroying them." Shouldn't the ones that have been funding this crap fail?
Abelardlindsey 2k posts, incept 2021-03-26
2023-05-21 10:49:39

I think the cheap money policy started in the mid to late 90's when Greenspan pushed the BLM into redefining inflation several times starting in 1993. The bubble took off in fall of 1995. Another thing that happened in fall of '95 is that Netscape was the first start-up to do an IPO while running at a loss, with no pathway to profitability. I think this is when the "fake it till you make it" era started in Silicon Valley. It is also worth noting that Silicon Valley no longer produced semiconductors (hard manufacturing) by that time.

----------
Its all in the mitochondria
Abelardlindsey 2k posts, incept 2021-03-26
2023-05-21 10:49:50

1995 was an inflection point when a lot of this stuff started. I think we're going to pay the piper over that now.

----------
Its all in the mitochondria
Mrbobo 154 posts, incept 2021-12-01
2023-05-21 10:54:56

It's all a preverse form of suicide, so many businesses that could run on autopilot have pilots pulling back on the shaking stick while stalling. I don't think it's specifically part of the woke agenda, but staffing, specifically in media, is largely at the heart of it. Maybe it's just part of our degenerative condition. We keep pushing people who lack aptitude or worse enthusiasm for a given subject. Car journalists who have never used a clutch or don't know the difference between gas and diesel. Taylor Lorenz as a tech reporter for one of the biggest papers in the world. Disney puts Star Wars in the hands of people who don't like Star Wars. I was certainly an easy mark for at least 100 bucks a year in some form of media or licensed junk; it was a big cultural item for me but in no way something I took seriously. After I walked out of 'The Last Jedi', I've never consumed anything Star Wars since. I stopped caring at that instant. I'd think the aggregate effect of people like me, must be bigger than that of those who it is a religion for. I wasn't mad at all, it's just dead to me.
The only exception to the embargo was countless hours playing Star Wars Squadrons; in VR it was breathtaking.
Jack_crabb 16k posts, incept 2010-06-25
2023-05-21 11:19:34

Quote:
I don't think it's specifically part of the woke agenda, but staffing, specifically in media, is largely at the heart of it.


Perhaps, @Mrbobo, but that doesn't even begin to explain why so many CEOs are pulling this shit. (Yeah, I'm looking at you fuckface Dimon.)

----------
Molon Labe
Where is Henry Bowman when you need him?
How many are willing to pledge this? We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor
Abelardlindsey 2k posts, incept 2021-03-26
2023-05-21 12:26:31

The return to positive rates of return will be a test of my theory that the "woke" think is a luxury indulgence of corporations that have been living on cheap money too long. Will the "woke" remain once these companies have to start making money again?

----------
Its all in the mitochondria
Login Register Top Blog Top Blog Topics FAQ
Page 1 of 3  First123Last