Why Do Companies Go Woke?
The answer is simple enough, there is money in it for them. But how they get that money is more complicated, and so is the reason they need it.
Let’s say you are the CEO of HugeCo Consolidated, a Fortune 500 company. HugeCo is worth $5 billion. Which might seem like a lot of money but that is only because it is. But here’s the thing, that number is kind of made up bullshit. HugeCo doesn’t actually have that kind of money sitting around in its Scrooge McDuck treasure vault. It doesn’t work that way.
HugeCo does have enormous streams of revenue coming in, but it has huge floods of money pouring out at the same time. This is why wealth becomes largely theoretical if you are playing in the big leagues or even in the small leagues, because from day to day you honestly don’t know precisely how much money you have. Ball parking it is the best you can do.
Although, you do know (roughly) how much money you will bring in and how much you spend every month. But here’s the problem, you might need to spend a ton of money (payroll, raw materials, bills in general) BEFORE revenue arrives at the end of the month.
This is called a cash flow problem and it’s headache for every business in existence, truthfully, it’s the usual reason most small businesses fail.
How do you solve a cash flow problem? Simple, you get a loan. How do you get a loan? Well the rule use to be, just have a track record for being good for it.
Here’s where the Woke comes in, “just have a track record for being good for it,” ain’t enough anymore. HugeCo will have to be a good PROGRESSIVE company to get that line of credit it needs. That means doing all the stuff that Black Rock and Vanguard like to see companies do, (donate to the right causes, employ the right kind of people, adopt CRT training courses, try to force other companies to be Woke too), and if you don’t, no money for you.*
Let’s say HugeCo is actually Nike shoes, well then going Woke is no problem. It’s the path of least resistance.
But let’s say 50% of HugeCo’s customers are the Red People. Now you’ve got a problem. Actually, you don’t since you’re an American business you never plan anything beyond the next quarterly earnings call. You don’t care if you lose a few customers this month so long as you are still in business next quarter. The constant bleeding of customers is acceptable but a losing the lines of credit isn’t. If worse comes to worse, you get a job at another company before things get really bad.
But let’s say HugeCo is a company that makes redneck beer. You are still going to need those lines of credit so you do things that SEG commands you to do but try to keep it hidden as best you can. The problem is the resentment of your Red People customer base is already pretty high because everybody else is doing the Woke stuff too and your customers are looking for an outlet for that anger.
Up until now, it was always just a drip loss of customers with a few spikes that blow over here and there. But if the Red People still aren’t drinking Bud Light by Memorial Day Weekend then the black swans have finally started to land.
*Or at least the interest rate will be back breaking.
