President Obama strongly urges US public against drinking bleach. Analysts have placed Clorox stock at a “strong buy” recommendation.

13 November 2014 06:00 CEST

By Steve Vale

Washington DC / Oakland, CA / New York, NY (WITZeitung) – President Barack Obama presented his case on Wednesday to protect Americans from drinking bleach. “It pains me to have to express my concerns today about bleach drinking Americans, but I want to ensure that government regulations are strengthened to prevent the needless deaths and poisonings of Americans drinking bleach. I strongly urge Americans to ensure that they have updated safety lids on their bleach bottles and to not drink bleach from the bottle.”

Republican response was immediate and denounced President Obama for insisting that the government regulate the safety of bleach bottles. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) issued a statement through his Capitol Hill office. “The fact that President Obama would insist that government regulate American bleach bottles goes against the very free market that America stands for. Americans have stood up to oppressive regimes around the world, and a market driven solution will better serve consumers in effectively resolving the bleach drinking concerns.”

Oscar D. Javel, a spokesman for Clorox (NYSE: CLX) – one of the largest bleach manufacturers in the US – stated that while he believed the chlorine bleach marketplace could arrive at solutions quickly and effectively, they would work with the Presidential directive on preventing bleach drinking amongst the American public.

Wall Street started the day with mixed ratings for Clorox as it was unclear if the presidential directive would harm financial results. However, as the day progressed, stock ratings shifted to a “strong buy” among many Wall Street firms.

Thomas Witzensprach of Deutsche Bank Securities (NYSE: DB) stated that due to the very strong rejection of President Obama in the recent November mid-term elections, it was quite likely that large swaths of America would reject Obama’s plea to not drink bleach. “There are segments of the population in the American Deep South and Midwest that have rejected Obama’s message repeatedly since 2009. Now that he is entering his lame duck term, these population segments will likely ignore his plea not to drink bleach. We believe that a larger segment of the population will make an effort to buy and drink bleach to spite the President, as opposed to those who will respect his request and not drink bleach.”

Washington pundits are split on the President’s request not to drink bleach and how it will impact the 2016 primary season and donors. “Frankly it surprises me that there has not been more cases of bleach drinking in red states since 2008,” stated one Democratic insider who requested anonymity. “There is a large cross-section of America that would wish that their fecal matter be whiter than it actually is, and they’ve already used most of their bleach making sure their bedsheets are white.”

(Steve Vale in Washington; Fred Engle in Oakland and Joelle Haggelund in New York also contributed to this article)

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