Go Woke, Go Broke

The Best of Gilder’s Daily Prophecy [Gilder's Daily Prophecy] December 28, 2022 [WEBSITE]( | [UNSUBSCRIBE]( The Truth About Our Business [From the Publisher] [Click here to learn more]( Our publisher just recorded [THIS important message](. Because we just made a huge change to our business that’s almost certain to impact you next year (and could end up making you a small fortune). I explain everything [>> here <<]( [It’s time you heard the truth – click here now for the full story](. *Editor’s Note: We are taking a break for the holidays and re-releasing some of our best issues of Gilder’s Daily Prophecy from 2022. We will resume our normal publishing schedule after the New Year. Originally published on April 20, 2022 Go Woke, Go Broke [Jeffery Tucker] JEFFREY TUCKER Dear Reader, The fight over the future of Twitter has brought to public attention a number of issues that have been mostly known only to industry insiders. It has revealed the strange way in which boards undermine stockholders. It shows how truly powerless the owners actually are, given the hegemony of the managerial class. But remarkably, it reveals how woke ideology is at war with profitability. This changes everything. Vetted by the Diversity Committee Quick story so that we understand how pervasive and pernicious, not only in corporate America but especially in academia, this is. I was invited by a university to give a talk about the economics of lockdowns and I presented it without incident. Another speaker at the same event, however, gave a more provocative talk: it was against racial preferences. He didn’t say what he was supposed to say. What followed was an explosion. Outrage. Protests. Letters. High-dudgeon all around. The school newspaper was in a frenzy. All the necessary but obviously perfunctory apologies followed: this talk does not represent the highest ideals of this institution, blah blah blah. In other words, someone challenges students to think about things differently. Somehow, it never really made the national news, and that’s fine. Probably, this stuff goes on constantly around the country, so much so that no single incident can break into the news cycle. The result at the end? The university caved and installed a new “diversity” committee to oversee all lectures on campus. Diversity sounds great, right? Lots of variety! That’s not what it means. It means that every speaker must adhere to a certain ideological outlook euphemistically called diversity. To understand, see Orwell. What it means is no more independent thought or speech, no more speeches to students that say something different. And keep in mind: all this happened due to a tiny group of activists who knew exactly what they were doing. The installation of a committee was the whole point. Everyone knows this: if you want to kill innovation, creativity, and progress, put a committee in charge. The rest takes care of itself. I’ve variously been invited to speak at prestigious universities in the last five or so years. When the person says that all of this is subject to approval by a diversity committee, I say thank you, no, goodbye. I’m not going to crawl before some woke bureaucracy and seek their approval. If they do approve, you now face an extra layer of scrutiny once you get there. Another problem I’ve noticed through the years at universities: 90% or more of students just cannot get interested in what the speaker is saying. The students stare at you with that blank look of pretend attention that they have perfected since middle school. They can no longer be bothered to think, and I don’t blame them. They have come to expect from speakers exactly what they have mostly been given: propaganda. Over 62 And Collect Social Security? Take Action Immediately! [Click here to learn more]( [If you’re over the age of 62 and currently collect Social Security, you need to prepare now](. Because Biden has given our country the worst inflation in decades – and many warn things will only get worse from here. Worse yet, the Social Security check you receive now may not keep pace with inflation… [Which is why, if you don’t act now, you could fall behind in the months ahead](. Is your retirement at immediate risk? [Click here now to get the simple, step-by-step actions to survive inflation](. The Netflix Problem Pity the holders of Netflix stock since January. It’s down 62% and the news that the company is losing subscribers provides another huge hit. Why do you suppose this is happening? There are the big excuses you will find in the mainstream press. People are going back to work and no longer have the time to binge this stuff on their laptops all day. Also, with high inflation, people are cutting subscriptions that they don’t use. In addition, the price of subscriptions is rising, to keep up with inflation, and the company has made it more difficult to share passwords, which has seriously annoyed many people. And the sector is more competitive than ever. The perception is out there that Netflix was then and this is now. There’s surely truth to these points, but the more important one was summed up by Elon Musk in a tweet: “The woke mind virus is making Netflix unwatchable” Bingo! Has this happened to you? You scroll through for something to watch and something looks interesting on Netflix. Within the first 30 minutes, it dawns on you: you are being lectured to. About what? The usual. The evils of capitalism, patriarchy, cis-genderism, racism, transphobia, or something else weird. It’s not entertaining. It’s like watching a corporate training video foisted on you by the Human Resources department. Unbearable. Maybe you just picked wrong. You try again. And again. At some point, you realize something. Woke ideology controls all new content. Good old content is mysteriously made to disappear. At some point, the entire platform becomes useless. So, yes, you unsubscribe because what’s the point? Woke vs. Earnings The imposition of ideology on academia and corporate culture has been a disaster. Student enrollment is down, and media companies that have embraced wokeism are reeling from consumer protest. It turns out that there is tension between making profits under capitalism and constantly attacking the bourgeois values that undergird capitalism. This is a major problem for many companies, and also for money management firms that have been hornswoggled into accepting the ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) apparatus. In many ways, it has been forced on them by regulators, so it is not always their fault. And oftentimes, companies broadcast all this blather just to stay ahead of lawsuits and the media. But it eventually comes to infect the whole enterprise. Ask anyone graduating today with hopes of a position in finance. They have to jump through all the hoops and read whole treatises about inclusion, diversity, and you know the rest of the language. Office culture is imbued with this stuff, and employees have stopped trusting each other. Stockholders are now at odds with boards. And all of this comes to a boil once the stock prices of publicly traded companies start to tank. In other words, you can get away with attacking bourgeois values and capitalism itself for a long time but when capitalism bits back, things get very real very quickly. Disney and Florida The dramas we are seeing at Netflix and Twitter have profoundly affected Disney Corp, as you undoubtedly know. What used to be everyone’s favorite American company has gone fully woke, and this is now affecting its future in profound ways. Disney in Florida announced that it would no longer support Republicans in the state. Dumb dumb dumb. The governor of the state is now pushing to take away the company's legal privileges. He can get away with this because so many people and companies have moved in over the last two years that the state is no longer as dependent on Disney as it once was. It’s a bold move but one he can afford. Almost immediately, Disney started walking back its strange Covid rules, re-allowing hugs and getting rid of masks (sometimes I wonder what a sentence like that will sound like to readers a decade from now). But it was nowhere near enough. The struggle over Disney in Florida is a microcosm. The conflict between woke ideology and the normal demands of the capitalist marketplace is intensifying by the day. Ideologues a few decades ago swore that they would politicize everything since the personal is always the political. They have made great progress for themselves but wrecked many great institutions along the way. Did you notice the remarkable collapse of CNN+? There we have it in a nutshell. Capitalism is about selling things to people that they want, not stuffing the heads of unwilling consumers with tripe and nonsense. It’s just not a good business model. As a closing note, I just rewatched the film, Oliver! (1968). This was a British musical, but it beautifully shows what’s possible in movie-making. Yes, there is always a bias in picking the best of the old and comparing it to the mainstream of the new. Still, such a movie seems impossible these days. And that’s a tragedy. Woke ideology has been sneaking around dark corridors of academia and corporate life for years. Now that it is wrecking valuations of people’s retirement income, it is suddenly under very close scrutiny. Regards, [Jeffrey Tucker] Jeffrey Tucker Lightning is striking right now… and you still have a chance to save your retirement during this new recession… [Click here to learn more]( Do you really think the worst of the stock market crash is over? … or is the real plummet still ahead? Whatever happens, there is good news… With an investment that’s different from stocks, bonds, or real estate… You can take advantage of lightning striking… … and you might pocket 8,788% gains. [Click here to discover how](. [Paradigm]( ☰ ⊗ [ARCHIVE]( [ABOUT]( [Contact Us]( © 2022 Paradigm Press, LLC. 808 Saint Paul Street, Baltimore MD 21202. By submitting your email address, you consent to Paradigm Press, LLC. delivering daily email issues and advertisements. To end your Gilder's Daily Prophecy e-mail subscription and associated external offers sent from Gilder's Daily Prophecy, feel free to [click here.]( Please note: the mailbox associated with this email address is not monitored, so do not reply to this message. We welcome comments or suggestions at feedback@gildersdailyprophecy.com. This address is for feedback only. For questions about your account or to speak with customer service, [contact us here]( or call (844)-731-0984. 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