Solutions Watch: Croats Protest Gov't by Boycotting Grocery Stores

Guess what, the 'sovereign consumer' has power, but for the most part, we don't exercise it--at the heart of these issues are, believe if or not, food riots in the making

In 2023, the US megacorp Budweiser (owned by Inbev) made some weird headlines as their PR staff went fully woke—and people simply stopped buying their (admittedly shitty) product. According to the Wikipedia entry of that event, sales dropped rapidly, and they did so between 11-26% within the first two weeks, reaching a negative drop of 29% in May 2023. In the end revenue in the US dropped by more than 10% in 2023, which led to lay-offs and a shift to market another brand (‘Corona’ [oh, the irony]) over the former top-performer ‘Bud Lite’.

Such is the power of the ‘sovereign consumer.

(That piece also notes—oh, what a f****** surprise—that ‘Bill Gates purchased 1.7 million shares’ in Sept. 2023.)

And now, we’ll turn to Europe, specifically Croatia, where people have been protesting gov’t ineptitude and high prices (‘inflation’, which is a tax like all others—it derives directly from the gov’t engaging in deficit-spending) by boycotting grocery and pharmacy stores.

This is a developing issue, and I suppose we’ll have to find out about the effects on the parent companies. (Translation and emphases mine, as is the [snark].)

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Angry Citizens Have Simply Stopped Shopping

Via 20Minuten.ch/Heute.at, 31 Jan. 2025 [source]

A boycott against high prices is paralysing Croatia’s retail sector: after an initial protest with a slump in sales, people are to stop shopping again.

The retail boycott launched against the backdrop of soaring consumer prices in Croatia is spreading. A week-long protest campaign began on Thursday, targeting branches of the German discounter Lidl and the drugstore chain dm as well as Eurospin supermarkets.

Consumer advocates have also called on customers to refrain from buying carbonated drinks, bottled water, and washing powder for a week. On Friday, Croatians should avoid banks, restaurants, cafés, and petrol stations and refrain from shopping online.

Sales Slump Dramatically

Last Friday, consumer advocates initiated the first nationwide boycott campaign. As a result, total sales in Croatian shops plummeted by around 50% [take that, pampered, lazy, and spoiled Westerners: could ‘we’ do anything like this?]. The protest was aimed at putting pressure on retailers, who are blamed for the persistently high inflation.

The Croatians sent a first signal last week, said Josip Kelemen from the consumer organisation ‘Halo inspektore’ [‘Hi, Inspector’]. ‘This time, the voice of consumers will be even louder.’

Above-Average Inflation in Croatia

Consumer advocates accuse retailers of being the main cause of persistently high inflation [well, that’s not exactly true: gov’t/central banks (Croatia recently adopted the Euro) are the culprits: inflation is a kind of tax to make up the difference between gov’t revenues and spending: the problem is the ECB in Frankfurt]. In December, consumer prices in Croatia rose by 4.5%, while the average in the eurozone was 2.4%. According to consumer associations, food prices in Croatia have risen by more than 30% in three years [that is why consumers are resorting to boycotts: the cost of living has shot up significantly—with the gov’t watching indecisively (to be fair, they can’t do much due to the adoption of the Euro)].

In online networks, numerous users also post photos of products that are much more expensive in Croatia than in other EU countries. Among other things, the price of a German brand of shampoo, which is more than twice as high in Croatia as in Germany, is causing displeasure. In Bulgaria, the shampoo is 20% cheaper.

Many Economic Challenges

However, economists believe [remember: ‘economics’ as taught in universities is mostly fake; they can ‘believe’ whatever they want, but as most of their models are wrong, guess how realistic their opinions are…] that unreasonable price increases by retailers are only a relatively minor factor [oh, so ‘unreasonable prices’ are but the straw that broke the camel’s back, eh?]. They point to the fact that agricultural production has been shrinking for years [that half-sentence should send shivers down your spine—for these boycotts are food riots-in-the-making], many imports, and one of the highest VAT rates in the EU (25%) [on foodstuff and other basic staples].

The economy is heavily dependent on tourism and the bureaucracy is enormously bloated. The country is also struggling with an ageing population and the decades-long emigration of young people [why would young people leave? high taxes, red tape, and few, if any, opportunities].

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Bottom Lines

In some tabloid-style outlets across German-speaking Europe, this briefly made headlines (e.g., see the ‘reporting™’ by T-Online, 30 Jan. 2025).

What do we learn from this?

Whatever the morons (deluding themselves to believing they are) ‘running™’ the EU do, before long they’ll have food riots and hunger revolts on their hands.

Croatia may be in the former Soviet bloc, yet it’s a member-state of the EU, NATO, and, moreover, of the Eurozone.

What do you think will happen if these food riots are sustained over weeks?

What do you think will happen if, out of sheer desperation and out of less-than-enlightened self-interest, Croatian politicos™ mull leaving the Euro and/or introducing a domestic version to escape the straitjacket dreamed up by the Eurocrats?

If you guess Greece-in-the-Eurocrisis (2012) style foreign tyranny—remember the Troika?—you’re spot-on.

As a secondary guess, pray tell why foodstuff in Germany—in particular at budget grocery chains like Lidl, Aldi, and the like is comparatively dirt-cheap?

If you ‘guessed’ that is to ensure a lower probability of Croatia-style boycotts in what remains, for the time being, the beating heart of the EU, you’re spot-on.

Finally, how much longer will the EU/Euro ‘system™’ limp on?

If your intimation is that they probably don’t have a lot of mileage left, I think you’re not mistaken.

Add to that Mr. Trump’s announcement of tariffs levelled on EU goods and services (20%, if memory serves), what do you think the remaining industries of EU member-states will do?

Coda: The Shape of Tings to Come

To me, there’s but one question that remains: what kind of shenanigans are certainly cooked up in Brussels, Frankfurt, Strasbourg, et al. to be served as ‘ad-hoc’ solutions™ to the problems invariably caused by the stupid politicking by these same people who will be serving us this kind of crap?

If I had to bet, it’ll be a ‘United Europe’, replete with a full-blown set of fiscal-military institutions, joint debts, and much more coercion (think: Green Passports).

It’ll be a kind of opt-in tyranny, which is to say that the ‘reformed™’ EU will invite everyone who’s a member of the various arrangements (Schengen, EEC, Eurozone, the EU) to sign up for a ‘closer union’ or whatever lipstick they’ll put on that particularly unappealing Frankensteinian creature while, technically, leaving everything else in place for the time being to reassure everyone.

The oft-cited ‘Europe of multiple speeds’ is already here (viz. Schengen, EEC, Eurozone, the EU), the next step will be to formalise it.

If you would like to read up on the predictive programming, see, among others, the below-linked pieces:

EU Commission: 'The European Army is NATO', Thus Revealing the Long-Held Plot

Above, more about military integration; below, the fiscal-financial underpinnings of building a ‘closer EU’ on the US model:

EU Commission to Issue ‘Sovereign EU-Bonds and EU-Bills’

If I were a betting man, the likely ‘trigger’ used will be energy shortfalls in one member-state, which permits the EU Commission to seize power:

Energy Alert: 'Leaked' EU Draft 'Emergency Planning' Docs Reveal the Commission's Power Grab

Finally, will this require a new Treaty™? The architects of the Eurozone say: nope, we can simply use Protocol 14 of the Lisbon Treaty, as the late Wolfgang Schäuble—former German Finance Minister and the grey eminence (consigliere) of both chancellors Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel related a bit over a decade ago.

Here are Mr. Schäuble’s 2011 comment (transcript and translation, as well as emphases, mine):

Those critics who believe that there must be competition between all policy areas are, in fact, assuming the regulatory monopoly of the national state. That was the old order that still underlies international law, with the concept of sovereignty, which has long since been reduced to absurdity in Europe, at long last since the two World Wars of the first half of the last century. And we in Germany have not been fully sovereign at any time since 8 May 1945…

That is why the attempt of European unification is to create a new form of governance, where there is not one level that is responsible for everything and which then, in case of doubt, confers onto others certain policy areas through international treaties. I am firmly convinced that this is a much more forward-looking approach for the 21st century than a relapse into the regulatory monopoly of the classical national state of past centuries...

I would like to make it quite clear to you that I am quite convinced that in a period of less than 24 months we will be able to change the European regulatory framework in this way. We just need to amend Protocol 14—whoever wants to read it, in general, in the Lisbon Treaty—in such a way that we create on it the broad outlines of a fiscal union for the eurozone...

Read up ‘more™’ in the below-linked piece:

Woe to the Vanquished: Germany 'hasn't been sovereign since 8 May 1945', is a full-blown satrapy of the Washington--a call for high treason proceedings

So, the ‘winners™’ are to be: the current crop of lunatics who delude themselves believing that they’re running this shitshow.

The losers are—the peoples of Europe, as well as, in all likelihood, many other ordinary people.

I don’t think that these trends can be stopped any longer, for it would require someone with the means, motives, and opportunities to call this out.

And, no, while I think that an arrangement between the US and Russia might qualify as means and opportunity for such an undertaking, I doubt that Mr. Trump’s or Mr. Putin’s motives hold much promise, although I remain open to entertaining the hope that, provided European ‘leaders™’ (sic) return to freedom and liberty, that the US might lend a hand (although at a price).

Yet, the fat years are over, and with the banquet of consequences being, well, imminent, there’s very little that should hold anyone back for considering what one is willing to pay for more freedom.