A Unique Perspective On Nike, Selective Outrage, And The ‘Trade War’

Coming from the Conservative Treehouse, there’s another perspective on the whole Nike ad campaign aimed at sparking phony outrage. China wants social disruption and in turn, a way to spice up companies who profit from Chinese salve labor.

President Trump is likely, some would say predictably, about to levy a massive round of Section 301 tariffs on imported Chinese goods. Nike would be one of the U.S. manufacturing companies hardest hit by such a move. The current Trump administration objective toward renegotiated trade deals with China represents the most significant and mostly quantifiable threat to the Nike business plan.

It’s better to shore up support now through fake outrage than take the losses on the chin later. In the near term it satisfies other communist goals as well. The creation and exploitation of social fractures is an age-old communist trick, serving to weaken an enemy in their own territory. Considering the extent of just how much influence the Chinese wield inside the US, it would be absurd to overlook the potential value presented in further disruption. But Nike is not alone. Levi Strauss, which has long since outsourced labor to China, is getting in on the action:

WASHINGTON – American denim giant Levi Strauss & Co. announced Tuesday that it is launching a series of new initiatives to benefit groups working to prevent gun violence.

Levi Strauss’s CEO and President Chip Bergh wrote in Fortune on Tuesday that the company “simply cannot stand by silently when it comes to issues that threaten the very fabric of the communities where we live and work.”

“You may wonder why a company that doesn’t manufacture or sell guns is wading into this issue, but for us, it’s simple,” Bergh wrote. “Americans shouldn’t have to live in fear of gun violence. It’s an issue that affects all of us – all generations and all walks of life.”

Bergh said it was his responsibility to speak up for important issues since he leads a “values-drive company that’s known the world over as a pioneer of the American West and one of the great symbols of American freedom.”

They’re aiming for gun control. Its a two pronged effort to undermine and subvert both the will of the American people but push us further towards domestic conflict. And make no mistake, we’re well on our way. CT sums the situation up nicely;

Together the NFL, Nike and Levi Strauss stand to retain their current level of trade benefit (profit) if President Trump is blocked from instituting America-First trade and manufacturing policies. Supporting gun control (Levi Strauss) or supporting BLM/Antifa (Nike) is simply a tool to support the political opposition of the policy-maker adverse to their financial interests.

And with all that said, how long is going to be before the next step is taken? What are you doing today to get yourselves more ready for an uncertain tomorrow?

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4 Comments

  1. Anonymous September 22, 2018 at 07:18

    4.5

  2. Centurion_Cornelius September 22, 2018 at 07:34

    Spot on, NC Scout! You should have heard the flack I get trying to tell my local adjacent farmers (I am a retired corn ‘n bean sodbuster) that SOMETHING has to be done to the Chi-Coms–hellsfire, they’ve stolen about every secret we have, both civ and mil, for ages. We do the blood. sweat, and tears and they swipe it!

    “Oh, no! Don’t do anything against the Chinaman! Our subsidies will be less. Our prices we get will fall…” is their moaning. All stuck on sucking that government teat and to blazes with the country as a whole.

    Hey! Where else is China going to ship its cheap crap or go to for food imports? We are the big dog here.

    ‘Bout time for the country to buck up and face some hard challenges. Will there be sacrifices? Sure. But let’s get the ship of state back on course.

    Nike, Levi Strauss and Bloomberg–we are wise to you gun-grabbers. How’s this stick in their craw? Just ordered another few cases of 5.56mm “pills” for any future sickness you try to inflict upon this great nation.

    Your move gun grabbers. My fingers are still clinging to my guns and religion.

  3. Bryce Sharper September 22, 2018 at 10:20

    “Together the NFL, Nike and Levi Strauss stand to retain their current level of trade benefit (profit) if President Trump is blocked from instituting America-First trade and manufacturing policies. Supporting gun control (Levi Strauss) or supporting BLM/Antifa (Nike) is simply a tool to support the political opposition of the policy-maker adverse to their financial interests.”

    Get woke, go broke! Say, isn’t the NFL down another 17% in ratings this year? They just don’t seem to get it.

    There are few things more foolish for a company to do than involve itself in politics. All it does is piss-off half of your customers and the other half do not double their purchases. Further, the people who like Nike’s latest ad campaign are BLM and women who don’t buy Nike at all but shop at LuluLemon. My son likes Nike but now I get to explain to him that we don’t buy Nike because they hate us, just like I did when Dick’s flew the pink flag. So they’re losing another generation of customers. The other thing is, most of the companies listed above MOSTLY have Americans as customers. Chinese don’t wear Nike. They wear knock-off luxury brands. No one in Asia, Europe, Africa, or Latin America watches the National Felon League. Similarly, Levi Strauss is an American brand maybe popular with Germans and Russians during the period of the Soviet Union, but the rest of the world wants high-end jeans.

    This is an example of companies losing on the moral and mental levels of war. Perhaps we should maintain a list of companies to boycott.

    The American Revolution began in part with economic warfare (boycotts, etc). Are we barreling down this path again?

  4. Bryce Sharper September 22, 2018 at 10:28

    Behold the infuriating hypocrisy of Levi Strauss

    Their business decisions for the past 30 years have been all bad. They’ve invested an entire year’s profits on an NFL stadium. The NFL is in free-fall.

    1990s—present

    Levi’s 506 inside

    A Levi’s outlet store in Canada
    By the 1990s, the brand was facing competition from other brands and cheaper products from overseas, and began accelerating the pace of its US factory closures and its use of offshore subcontracting agreements. In 1991, Levi Strauss faced a scandal involving pants made in the Northern Mariana Islands, where some 3% of Levi’s jeans sold annually with the Made in the USA label were shown to have been made by Chinese laborers under what the United States Department of Labor called “slavelike” conditions. Today, most Levi’s jeans are made outside the US, though a few of the higher end, more expensive styles are still made in the U.S.

    Cited for sub-minimum wages, seven-day work weeks with 12-hour shifts, poor living conditions and other indignities, Tan Holdings Corporation, Levi Strauss’ Marianas subcontractor, paid what were then the largest fines in U.S. labor history, distributing more than $9 million in restitution to some 1,200 employees.[8][9][10] Levi Strauss claimed no knowledge of the offenses, then severed ties to the Tan family and instituted labor reforms and inspection practices in its offshore facilities.

    The activist group Fuerza Unida (United Force) was formed following the January 1990 closure of a plant in San Antonio, Texas, in which 1,150 seamstresses, some of whom had worked for Levi Strauss for decades, saw their jobs exported to Costa Rica.[11] During the mid- and late-1990s, Fuerza Unida picketed the Levi Strauss headquarters in San Francisco and staged hunger strikes and sit-ins in protest of the company’s labor policies.[12][13][14]

    The company took on multibillion-dollar debt in February 1996 to help finance a series of leveraged stock buyouts among family members. Shares in Levi Strauss stock are not publicly traded; the firm is today owned almost entirely by indirect descendants and collateral relatives of Levi Strauss, whose four nephews inherited the San Francisco dry goods firm after their uncle’s death in 1902.[15] The corporation’s bonds are traded publicly, as are shares of the company’s Japanese affiliate, Levi Strauss Japan K.K.

    In June 1996, the company offered to pay its workers an unusual dividend of up to $750 million in six years’ time, having halted an employee stock plan at the time of the internal family buyout. However, the company failed to make cash flow targets, and no worker dividends were paid.[16] In 2002, Levi Strauss began a close business collaboration with Walmart, producing a special line of “Signature” jeans and other clothes for exclusive sale in Walmart stores until 2006.[17] Levi Strauss Signature jeans can now be purchased at several stores in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and Japan.

    Levi Strauss leads the apparel industry in trademark infringement cases, filing nearly 100 lawsuits against competitors since 2001.[18] Most cases center on the alleged imitation of Levi’s back pocket double arc stitching pattern (U.S. trademark #1,139,254), which Levi filed for trademark in 1978.[19] Levi’s has successfully sued Guess?, Polo Ralph Lauren, Esprit Holdings, Zegna, Zumiez and Lucky Brand Jeans, among other companies.[18]

    In 2002, the company closed its Valencia Street plant in San Francisco, which had opened the same year of the city’s April 1906 earthquake.[20][21] By the end of 2003, the closure of Levi’s last U.S. factory in San Antonio ended 150 years of its jeans being made in the USA. Production of a few higher end, more expensive styles of jeans resumed in the US several years later.[21]

    By 2007, Levi Strauss was again said to be profitable after declining sales in nine of the previous ten years.[22] Its total annual sales, of just over $4 billion, were $3 billion less than during its peak performance[21] in the mid-1990s.[23] After more than two decades of family ownership, rumors of a possible public stock offering were floated in the media in July 2007.[24] In 2009, it was noted in the media for selling Jeans on interest-free credit, due to the global recession.[25][26] In 2010, the company partnered with Filson, an outdoor goods manufacturer in Seattle, to produce a high-end line of jackets and workwear.[27]

    On May 8, 2013, the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers announced that Levi Strauss & Co. had purchased the naming rights to their new stadium in Santa Clara, California. The naming rights deal calls for Levi’s to pay $220.3 million to the city of Santa Clara and the 49ers over twenty years, with an option to extend the deal for another five years for around $75 million.[28]

    The Wikipedia page (not linked as it’s quite dishonest about Levi Strauss’ corporate social responsibility) says that they’ve partnered with Google on “wearables,” a technology in search of an application. Remember Google Glass? Everyone was creeped-out by it so it died before launch.

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