Boycotts Win Again--Eyes on the Ties! Starbucks Workers!--and We Look to Target Banks, Boards, and Weapons-Makers in Our Fight for Peace
Boycott Saps Starbucks' Market Cap--$12 Billion!--and Shows How 'Individual Actions Can Lead to the Win of Great Causes.'
December 10, 2023
What can we, the people of NATO Nations, do against Corporations whose Missiles massacres civilians in the Gaza Strip and the Ukraine? How can we combat, too, Corporations that allocate Revenues into Governments that perpetuate War when offers for Ceasefire are at hand? How can we fight to bring peace to lands devasttated by bombardments that shed the blood of dozens of women and children day after day?
A combination of two articles on the ‘Eyes on the Ties’ Website, from September 7 and October 26 this year, and the Boycott-driven, 10%-and-more losses registered by Starbucks over the past four weeks, shows us the powers that consumers’ choice wield.
We may see that greater possibilities for our power are revealed in looking at the Banks and ‘Asset Management Firms’ principal to the operation of both Starbucks and the five highest-earning, weapons-making Corporations in the United States— Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), Northrop Grumman, Boeing and General Dynamics. These Big Five ‘took in an astounding $196 billion in military-related revenue in 2022.’ (1)
We can note that the same Banks are principal to both Starbucks and the Weapons-Makers. These Banks include Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co, Morgan Stanley, U.S. Bancorp, and Wells Fargo. We can note that the same Big Three of ‘Asset Management Firms’—Vanguard and BlackRock and State Street—are among the Top-Five Shareholders in both Starbucks and the United States’ five biggest Weapons-Makers. We can note that many of the Banks and Weapons-Makers are represented among the ‘Strategic Partners’ and Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum
We may see 21st-century linkages between Financial Control and Means of Mass Destruction for humanity unprecedented in history. We may be alarmed. We may be appalled. We may be disgusted and incensed when we recall corpses of women and children literally strewn by Hellfire and Tomahawk missles’ bombardments. We may see, too, that such concentrations of Partners are most vulnereable to our own powers.
Bigger Boycotts, targetting bigger Partners, can continue to more free our world.
EYES ON THE TIES and ‘The Corporate Enablers of Israel’s War on the Gaza’
Eyes on the Ties is ‘the online news site of the Public Accountability Initiative & LittleSis.’ The stated mission of Little Sis is ‘bringing more transparency to the role that corporate power plays in shaping public policy’.
Its parent ‘Little Sis’ (the ‘opposite of Big Brother’, the Sis’s site says) exposes personnel and connections among players in ‘corporate power’—between, say, Goldman Sachs and Exxon Mobil and super-sized Hedge Funds such as Bridgewater Associates and speculators such as Carl Icahn, Ray Dallo, Jared Kushner, and Stephen Schwartzman. ‘Little Sis’ and the ‘Public Accountability Initiative’ open windows into who’s doing what to our world.
‘Eyes on the Ties’ piece of October 26, 2023, ‘Corporate Enablers of Israel’s War on Gaza’, exposes executives, Banks, and ‘Asset Management Funds’ behind the world’s five largest weapons-makers.
Its summary, by Molly Gott and Derek Seidman, is dense and illuminating.
‘Five of the top six global defense corporations are based in the U.S. They are Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), Northrop Grumman, Boeing and General Dynamics. All five have long sold weapons to Israel that are used against Palestinians, and they have been mentioned in the news recently as being tied to weapons sales or potential weapons sales around the current assault on Gaza. Most of their stock prices shot up with the onset of the current war.
These five companies took in an astounding $196 billion in military-related revenue in 2022. Their five CEOs rake in huge amounts of compensation. From 2020 to 2022, these five CEOs together have taken in around $318 million in total compensation — salary, stock awards, and other forms of payment. Moreover, the CEOs own massive amounts of corporate stock, meaning they profit handsomely when stock prices go up. These CEOs are powerful figures, often also serving as company chairs and presidents, and having influential ties to the wider corporate and political world.
The top shareholders in these five defense companies largely consist of big asset managers, or big banks with asset management wings, that include BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, Capital Group, Wellington, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Newport Trust Company, Longview Asset Management, Massachusetts Financial Services Company, Geode Capital, and Bank of America.’
The ‘Corporate Enablers’ piece usefully presents the thumbnail faces and Board memberships of the five CEOs for these five weapons-makers that made “196 billion in military-related revenue in 2022’ (War in Ukraine, you may remember).
Their names are Jim Taiclet (Lockheed Martin); Gregory J. Hayes (RTX, formerly Raytheon); Kathy J. Warden (Northrop Grumman), David L. Calhoun (Boeing), and Phebe Novakovic (General Dynamics). Three men, two women. 21st-century “Masters of War” (“You. that build the big guns / You that build the death planes / ...”.), Chiefs of more of “Many Fine Years Of Bombing” (“Flames in sewers, frying children / …) .
With ties, you can see above, to: the Council on Foreign Relations and Phillips 66 and the Business Roundtable and Caterpillar and Virginia Tech and the Center for Strategic and Internaitonal Studies and JP Morgan Chase.
With ‘around $318 million in total compensation — salary, stock awards, and other forms of payment’ over the three years 2020-2022. Confident unto smiling, expensively dressed, neatly trim CEOs … who are up to their eyeballs and elbows in civilian women’s and children’s blood.
Jim Tacilet and Lockheed Martin sells to the U.S. and Israel Governments F-16 and F-35 fighter jets, attack helipcopers, and Hellfire missiles. Gregory J. Hayes and RTX supply ‘5,000-pound GBU-28 "bunker buster" and laser-guided Paveway bombs, as well as AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missiles, AIM-9X missiles, AIM-120 Sidewinder missiles, [ … ]’ (2) Kathy J. Warden and Northrop Grumman partner often with Lockheed Martin. ‘For Israel's main combat aircraft, Lockheed Martin's F-16, Northrop Grumman manufactures the ALQ-131 warfare system and the AN/APG-68(V)9 fire-control radar [….] Through a joint venture with Lockheed Martin, Nothrop Grumman manufactures the AN/APG-78 Longbow fire-control radar system. The system is designed specifically for Apache attack helicopters for use with AGM-114L Longbow Hellfire laser-guided missiles. Apache helicopters equipped with Longbow radar systems and Hellfire missiles have been used extensively in Israel's major assaults on Gaza. During Israel's 50-day attack on Gaza in 2014, for example, Apache-fired Hellfire missiles killed at least 51 people, including 24 children, and injured at least 66 others, including 36 children, in incidents that the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights identified as "a direct attack against civilian objects or civilians, a war crime under international criminal law." (3) David L. Calhoun and Boeing have sold to Israel’s Government his past October ‘small, 250-pound guided bombs (the New York Times, October 17, 2023) and gear to make older bombs more ‘Smart’. Phebe Nokakovic and General Dynamics:: ‘BLU-113 5,000–pound "bunker buster" bombs, BLU-109 "hardened penetration" bombs, and MK- 82 and 84 "general-purpose" bombs.’ And: ‘General Dynamics provides weapon systems, components, and maintenance services to Israel's fleet of F-15, F-16, and F-35 fighter jets. The company manufactures the 20mm guns for F-15E fighter jets; 25mm guns for F-15, F-16, and F-35 aircraft; and 30mm "gun pods" for F-15 and F-16 aircraft. Its 20mm ammunition loading system is also installed on F-15 and F-16 aircraft. General Dynamics designed the F-16 and sold it to Israel until 1993. Today, the aircraft is manufactured by Lockheed Martin.’ (4)
The above particulars about the five Big Weapons-Makers are courtesy the Investigate Website of Quakers’ American Friends Serivce Committee. (Bless you for decades!)
The ‘Corporate Enablers’ piece in Eyes on the Times moves to bigger money.
Molly Gott and Derek Seidman write.
‘The top shareholders in these five defense companies largely consist of big asset managers, or big banks with asset management wings, that include BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, Capital Group, Wellington, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Newport Trust Company, Longview Asset Management, Massachusetts Financial Services Company, Geode Capital, and Bank of America.’
Here the concentrations of power are … even more like malignant nuclei.
That is, the Big Three of ‘Asset Management Firms’, Vanguard and BlackRock and State Street, are ALL among the top-five Shareholders in EACH of four of the Big Five Weapons-Makers.
LOCKHEED MARTIN
RTX (formerly RAYTHEON)
NORTHROP GRUMMAN
BOEING
General Dynamics has lacks only State Street among its Top Five to complete a Sweep for the Big Three of Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street among billions-dollar profiteers from real Weapons of Mass Destruction.
GENERAL. DYNAMICS
EYES ON THE TIES and ‘The Starbucks Power Network is on Your Campus’
Then there’s Starbucks. Starbucks is targeted for Boycotts by protestors who perceive double faults.
On September 7, 2023, one month before the attacks that triggered Israel’s invasion of Gaza, ‘Eyes on the Ties’ published a piece about Cornell University’s ending its hosting of Starbucks on-campus due to the coffee-seller’s union-busting. Derek Seidman saw massive ripples, across Universities, ensuing.
‘Big news came in mid-August when Cornell University, one of the most prestigious universities in the U.S., announced that it would not renew its contract with Starbucks after it expires at the end of June 2025 and will stop serving Starbucks at its dining facilities.
Cornell’s decision came in the face of escalating student pressure to ditch Starbucks because of its egregious anti-union activity against Starbucks workers who have built a nationwide unionization campaign at the retail coffee megachain. Cornell is in Ithaca, New York, where Starbucks shut down all of its corporate-operated stores after they unionized. Cornell students, some of whom worked at the shuttered stores, demanded that their school stop doing business with union busters.
Cornell’s move grabbed news headlines, in part, because it signaled a potential new opening and point of leverage for the union drive: campus allies of the union could begin to build campaigns to dislodge Starbucks from their campus. This would not only impact the company’s bottom line, but also represent a PR headache and open the floodgates for campus communities across the nation to concretely support the union campaign. Indeed, similar efforts are underway at other schools, and Starbucks Workers United is helping to facilitate these efforts.’ (5)
Starbucks compounded opposition to it the next month. It sued Starbucks Workers United when the 9000+ members’ group posted a statement on X, formerly Twitter, in solidarity with Palestine.
The Starbucks Workers United statement has received more than 48.000 Likes from its 3.8 million Views. (6)
Starbucks itself, across the United States and round the world, has lost relatively huge amounts of revenue over the past four weeks.
The Mint continued: ‘Within a span of 19 calendar-days, since its November 16 Red Cup Day promotion, shares of Starbucks have plummeted 8.96 per cent, which equates to a nearly USD11 billion loss, amid analysts' reports of slowing sales and a subdued response to the holiday season's offerings.’
The online publication The Mary Sue—’the geek girl’s guide to the univserse’—assented. It quoted the Times of India. It celebrated ‘proof that individual actions can lead to the win of great causes.’
‘Boycotts are happening around the world for Starbucks, and not just in North America. In Malaysia alone, investors were advised to sell shares of Starbucks’ franchise owner in the country, Berjaya Food. More than a month of boycotting during the busiest season of the year, and it turns out that the boycott did work, and it took international effort to get here. Starbucks lost roughly $11B in shares amidst holiday promotions, which is proof that individual actions can lead to the win of great causes.’ (8)
We return to Eyes on the Ties piece of three months ago’—’The Starbucks Power Network Is On Your Campus.’
Writer Derek Seidman gets into Banks’ crucial role. These Banks operate throughout the Untied States. They’re open targets … for leaving them behind.
Seidman writes. ‘Banks are a somewhat hidden actor within the Starbucks power network, but they play a crucial supporting role in the company’s day-to-day operations and its practice of showering billions in stock buybacks and dividends on investors.
Here’s one way this works. Corporations like Starbucks raise billions of dollars in cash by selling off corporate bonds. Basically, when an investor buys corporate bonds from Starbucks, it is lending Starbucks money, and Starbucks promises to pay that money back in a certain number of years, with interest added.
What does Starbucks do with all this cash it raises from selling corporate bonds? S&P Global reported in 2022 that the company intended to use $1.5 billion in bond offerings for “general corporate purposes,” which may include things like “the repurchase of common stock under its ongoing share repurchase program” and “payment of cash dividends on its common stock,” both references to stock buybacks and dividend payouts to investors [ …. ]
In order to sell corporate bonds, companies need banks to serve as middle men that buy their bonds, package them, and sell them off to investors, making a profit through fees and underwriting spreads along the way.
So, who are the banks that are facilitating and profiting from Starbucks corporate operations?
Let’s go back to Starbucks’ recent $1.5 billion corporate bond issuance. Seventeen banks are named as underwriting Starbucks’ bonds. Four of these banks — Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo — are underwriting the greatest amounts and are listed as “representatives” of the larger group. The 13 other banks helping Starbucks bring in cash include other prominent consumer-facing banks like Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and as well as other less recognizable and non-U.S. banks.’ (9)
So: Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, U.S. Bancorp, and Wells Fargo … with Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, and Goldman Sachs also making up seven among the Top 8 of Banks that profit from keeping Starbucks afloat through Traffic in Corporate Bonds. Isn’t it a Neat Club? A Smart Club! One that funds Starbucks’ putting local Coffee Shops out-of-business while also making more money for the supranational Banks that have put hundreds of local Banks and Credit Unions out-of-business since the Bush/Obama Bail-Outs from 2008 onward…. Such a Neat, Smart Club!
You may know that Citi and Morgan Stanley and Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are among the World Economic Forum’s 100 or so ‘Strategic Partners’
Then there are the ‘Asset Management Firms.’
You may guess what a Big Three show up as 1, 2, and 3 among the 10 largest share-holders of Starbucks..
Derek Seidman writes.
‘While figures like Howard Schultz are huge individual shareholders of Starbucks and remain extremely influential in the company, many of the biggest owners of Starbucks stock are asset management firms and banks, some whom you might recognize and even bank or invest with.
These are massive shareholders of Starbucks who help keep the company afloat by holding onto huge amounts of its stock. They have the power and access to push Starbucks to halt its union-busting, if they chose to use it. Here are the current top ten institutional shareholders of Starbucks common stock according to the business data website Whalewisdom:’ (11)
The Vanguard Group holds a little more than 9% of Starbucks’ Stock among institutional investors. BlackRock holds nearly 7% and State Street nearly 4%. The total, nominal value of the Big Three’s Shares is a little more than $23 billion. Starbucks now has 35,711 outlets, or Stores, in 84 Nations worldwide, and 15,873 in the U.S. We may judge, then, how much effect a Boycott driven by support for Ceasefire in the Palestine has accomplished. 11% loss in Starbucks’ Market-Cap means more than $2.3 billion lost to the Big Three … and the myriad investors that Vanguard and BlackRock and State Street are pledged to serve.
The Power of Multiples—Possibilities Are Endless
Imagine what may happen through a Boycott of CHASE Banks across the United States. CHASE and its parent, JP Morgan Chase & Co, make up the famously most moneyed and incriminated Bank (seven Felonies for billions of Dollars from Fraud and theft since 2014) in the U.S. (12)
Wikipedia is useful here in giving numbers and reach. ‘Chase offers more than 5,100 branches and 17,000 ATMs nationwide and has 18.5 million checking accounts and 25 million debit card users as of 2023.[5] JPMorgan Chase & Co. has 250,355 employees (as of 2016) and operates in more than 100 countries. JPMorgan Chase & Co. had assets of $3.31 trillion in 2022 which makes it the largest bank in the United States[6] as well as the bank with the most branches in the United States[7] and the only bank with a presence in all of the contiguous United States.[8] JPMorgan Chase, through its Chase subsidiary, is one of the Big Four banks of the United States.[9][10] (13)
How does CHASE relate to Starbucks? Derek Seidman in his Eyes on the Ties piece about ‘The Starbucks Power Network’ communicates these essences.
‘Let’s just take one of the most prominent banks here that helps prop up Starbucks: J.P. Morgan, the biggest bank in the U.S.
J.P. Morgan is represented on many university boards. For example, merely searching “J.P. Morgan” with terms like “university,” “college,” and “trustees” shows that executives of this bank are trustees at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Boston College, Smith College, Wells College, and Augustana College, just to name a few.
With numerous major banks helping to finance Starbucks, there’s a very good chance you’ll find at least one of their representatives on your own college’s governing board.
Sticking with J.P. Morgan as an example, you can also scan the biographies of the bank’s executives and board members on the company’s website to find university trustee positions. For example, J.P. Morgan director Alex Gorsky’s bio shows that he’s on the Board of Advisors at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
And here’s a fun fact: remember Mellody Hobson, mentioned above as the independent lead director Starbucks board? Hobson is also on the board of J.P. Morgan. She’s not only personally benefiting from governing Starbucks itself, but also from governing a major bank that profits from helping finance Starbucks.’ (14)
Earlier in his piece, Seidman relates connections specific to Mellody Hobson, lead Director for Starbucks.
‘Mellody Hobson, who chairs the Starbucks board, sits on the advisory council at Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI. Princeton University is also building a college named after Hobson.’
‘And here’s a fun fact: remember Mellody Hobson, mentioned above as the independent lead director Starbucks board? Hobson is also on the board of J.P. Morgan. She’s not only personally benefiting from governing Starbucks itself, but also from governing a major bank that profits from helping finance Starbucks.’ (15)
We can note that Mellody (what a wonderful first name) Hobson, born in Chicago 1969, the youngest child of six, graduate of Princeton, wife of film-director George Lucas, also has multiple connections to the World Economic Forum’s Global Leaders’ program (2001 and 2005) and to the Bilderberg Group (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022). (16) We may wonder if Mellody, with her shining eyes and straight smile of sincerity, attends such gatherings because she just wants to do good.
What isn’t speculation, however, is that Mellody Hobson and others of the Starbucks’ and the JP Morgan Chase Boards possess powers to STOP THE MASS MURDER of civilians in the Palestine. They all can see what and who ravage mothers and children inthe Palestine daily.
They, too, like Jim Taiclet (Lockheed Martin); Gregory J. Hayes (RTX, formerly Raytheon); Kathy J. Warden (Northrop Grumman), David L. Calhoun (Boeing), and Phebe Novakovic (General Dynamics) are MORE RESPONSIBLE for ongoing carnage than ALL of the millions civilians suffering in the Palestine. These Few on their Boards have inestimably more of individual capacities to compel a Ceasefire than all the billions of We Masses who watch as ‘the death-count gets higher.’
Our power is, however, greater, Our power is, well, in our Masses. We are in our hundreds and thousand and millions and billions can do and compel WHATEVER we want to do and compel. We, for instance, can look to our local CHASE Bank for recourse against the horrors before us.
Remember: We win as much as want to win. And: We are winning.
URLS
1, https://news.littlesis.org/2023/10/26/corporate-enablers-of-israels-war-on-gaza/
2. https://investigate.afsc.org/company/rtx
3, https://investigate.afsc.org/company/northrop-grumman
4. https://investigate.afsc.org/company/general-dynamics
5. https://news.littlesis.org/2023/09/07/the-starbucks-power-network-is-on-your-campus
6.
https://twitter.com/SBWorkersUnited/status/1715423948308189402
7. https://www.livemint.com/news/starbucks-faces-11-billion-value-loss-due-to-poor-sales-boycotts-amid-global-political-tensions-11701910146052.html#:~:text=The%20boycotts%20at%20the%20Seattle,baristas%2C%20expressing%20solidarity%20with%20Palestinians.
8.https://www.themarysue.com/is-the-starbucks-boycott-working-explained/
9. https://news.littlesis.org/2023/09/07/the-starbucks-power-network-is-on-your-campus
10. https://donpaul.substack.com/p/get-the-wef-out-get-the-world-economic
11. https://news.littlesis.org/2023/09/07/the-starbucks-power-network-is-on-your-campus
12. https://donpaul.substack.com/p/the-run-on-chase-customers-abandon
13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPMorgan_Chase
14. https://news.littlesis.org/2023/09/07/the-starbucks-power-network-is-on-your-campus
15. Ibid.
16. https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Mellody_Hobson
17. 12. https://donpaul.substack.com/p/the-run-on-chase-customers-abandon