dhall
Well-Known Member
You've posted more than 2300 messages on a discussion board devoted to an amusement park?
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
A Spirited Perfect Ten
- Thread starter WDW1974
- Start date
You've posted more than 2300 messages on a discussion board devoted to an amusement park?
GoofGoof
Premium Member
Please, it's a theme park not an amusement park
****ed straight!Please, it's a theme park not an amusement park
GoofGoof
Premium Member
If he really wanted to change the conversation he could drop some Star Wars concept art. People would forget there is even a park currently being built in China
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
But you forget the average employer up north makes the unreformed Ebeneezer Scrooge look like Bob Cratchit, vacation time is almost unknown for private employees.
the.dreamfinder
Well-Known Member
Since we have been discussing what may have made Bob want to have the HuffPo Op-Ed pulled, I thought I would contribute a primer on the United States' chief foreign anti-graft law; The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). While I am not saying that The Walt Disney Company has made illegal payments to government officials, contractors, or its state-owner partner, the Shanghai Shendi Group, I felt it would be important to discuss the consequences of such actions and the changes it could bring to the company.
Before the passage and ratification of the FCPA, American multi-national corporations had little oversight from the federal government over payments made to officials of foreign governments and no recourse for prosecution as bribes to foreign officials were not illegal. As American corporations had unrivaled control over key global industries in the wake of WW II, unscrupulous methods for obtaining business from foreign governments became a common practice. According to a congressional report from 1977, American corporations had given "$300 million to foreign government officials, politicians and political parties.”[1] Two of the biggest scandals associated with graft involved the produce and aerospace industries.
In the early seventies, the largest Central and South American banana exporting nations created a trade bloc called the Union of Banana Exporting Countries (UBEP) in an attempt to gain leverage against the North American banana exporters who grew the bananas, controlled their export to market and had lobbied hard against increasing export taxes on each box of bananas. After the government of Honduras increased export taxes on boxes of bananas from 25 cents to 50 cents, the American based exporter United Brands paid the then president of Honduras, Oswaldo López Arellano, $3 million to return the tax to 25 cents. The trade group fell into disarray and United Brands and its fellow exporters saved millions on their tax bills. At this point, the federal government could not investigate or take the company to trial for bribing a foreign official. However, it was illegal under American securities law for corporations to hide bribes from their stockholders as hiding bribes would give them an inaccurate understanding of the company’s expenses. In Honduras, news of the bribe led to the overthrow of the military government which had placed Arellano as President. [2]
The second and much more important instance of bribery involved aerospace company Lockheed. From the fifties to the seventies, the company had a well funded operation to bribe foreign governments to purchase its military and commercial products. Countries which were bribed to buy such product included Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and West Germany. The Japan case is interesting given Japanese officials were used by Lockheed to pressure non state-owned airline All Nippon Airlines into purchasing their jets. [1] Public outrage in these countries as well as the United States led to the forced resignation of Lockheed's chairman, president and other key management in December 1976.[2]
As a result of these major scandals and lingering public outrage over the Watergate scandal, The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter the following year in 1977. The FCPA defines bribery as the following
So here we have the US Federal Government’s core definition of bribery. However, the FCPA was updated in 1998 by the International Anti-Bribery Act of 1998. The most notable change to the law was that foreign businesses operating within the United States could not bribe foreign officials. However, the other big change was the law being brought into compliance with the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. After the passage of the FCPA, other rich industrialized democracies, who make up the OECD, began to work on a framework for a universal anti-bribery policy. This will be more important in a little bit, but for now the Anti-Bribery Convention laid out a universal definition for what constitutes a “foreign official".
How does the OECD define public enterprise?
So employees of a public enterprise are considered by the OECD convention, which FCPA is compliant with, to be foreign officials. For further clarification, from the Department of Justice’s guide to the FCPA.
In China, everything is owned by or to some degree controlled by the state. For foreign multinational corporations, like Disney, to operate in PRC, they must enter a joint-venture with a local state-owned corporation, like SHENDI. So if these multinational companies are doing business with state-owned corporations in a country with a graft problem, it appears it would be incredibly difficult for a multinational corporation like a Disney or a General Motors to have tripped over the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in their day to day operations. While that last statement may make it seem as though I am accusing those specific companies of bribery, I am not, it just seems implausible that a someone, either an official directly from the state or an employee from a state-owned enterprise, would not come along and demand to skim a little bit of money off the top.
However we are not talking solely about American corporations because the rules that govern bribery of foreign officials have been aligned in most of the industrialized world. Recall the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention I referred to for the definition of “public enterprise”? Every standing member of the OECD has signed that treaty and has implemented legislation in their respective countries to enforce those standards. [6] (China considers itself an “observer’ to this pact)
This brings us to the significance of the graft problem in the People’s Republic. The issue of graft tends to come up in the infamous case of the coked-out son of a senior party official who crashed a Ferrari. [7] While embarrassing given that party officials salaries on paper are quite low, much bigger problems abound. From the Central Government’s perspective there are two main issues. First, the Party sees corruption as an issue that offers domestic opponents/dissidents a platform which could give rise to strong movement against their single party rule of the country. To prevent a situation like this from getting out of hand, the party must prove to the people that it deserves to have complete control and its rule will serve the public most effectively. This is why Xi Jinping’s anti-graft campaign is so ruthless. The state isn’t just addressing a problem that is out of hand, but rather purging all the weeds to prevent an infestation. The other major issue is foreign investment into the country. If you have been following world news for the past couple years, concerns over a slowdown of economic growth in China has been one of the constant stories. China has had almost 40 years of economic growth at a rate that has never been seen before in history, but there has been a slow down over the past couple years. All economies need to have market corrections or recessions to preserve the health of the economy for the long term. In these circumstance, especially given how over extended the Central Government is, foreign investment is a very important lifeline and would be that more vital if the economy were to enter a recession. The opportunity in China for foreign corporations to do well, provided they understand the country and its people see Disney CEO Fumbles Entry To China, is so tremendous it is hard to resist. No matter how large that opportunity may be, corporations do not want to do business in a country where the risk of violating the law in their home countries is high. Those nations anti-bribery laws are very strong and these companies cannot shrug their shoulders and say graft is the price of doing business. Execs love money, but they certainly don’t want to go to jail either.
Now lets talk about the single largest foreign investment into the People’s Republic of China of all time, Shanghai Disneyland.
So how would this effect Disney?
Let's play a name association game. If I say sweatshops, you say....
Nike?
Apple?
Both companies are industry leaders who took the brunt of the public outrage over working conditions that plague their entire industries because they were highlighted by the media since they were prominent targets. They have become the so called posterchilds of sweatshop labour. IF The Walt Disney Company or Shanghai International Theme Park Company, SDR’s legal name, or the resort’s Disney controlled management company have violated the FCPA or investigate by the DOJ and SEC, the two departments who administer FCPA, or called to a congressional hearing, its actions will have tremendous consequences.
Does that sound really terrible? You betcha! Yet at the same time, I am very optimistic because a lot of good can come from it. For China, this may help them move past their graft culture making the business climate there much better for entrepreneurs and executives from home and abroad. For Disney, and by extension us fans, may get what we have wanted for so long; a good scrubbing of the company and new leadership that can take the company to infinity and beyond as the saying goes. The brouhaha over Mrs. Bob Iger’s role in the removal of the HuffPo article Disney CEO Fumbles Entry To China while serving as the head of USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism has given us our best ever shot at Iger. With the potential of graft at Shanghai Disney Resort, we can get rid of the whole d a m n bunch too. Let’s not let a good opportunity go to waste!
Sources:
[1]http://www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/history/1977/houseprt-95-640.pdf
[2]http://www.ghi-dc.org/files/publications/bulletin/bu053/bu53_007.pdf
[3]Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
http://www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/docs/fcpa-english.pdf
[4]OECD Anti-Bribery Convention
http://www.oecd.org/daf/anti-bribery/ConvCombatBribery_ENG.pdf
[5]Department of Justice Guide to The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
http://www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/guidance/guide.pdf
[6]OECD Anti-Bribery Convention Ratification Status
http://www.oecd.org/daf/anti-bribery/WGBRatificationStatus.pdf
[7]http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/03/china-scandal-fatal-ferrari-crash
Before the passage and ratification of the FCPA, American multi-national corporations had little oversight from the federal government over payments made to officials of foreign governments and no recourse for prosecution as bribes to foreign officials were not illegal. As American corporations had unrivaled control over key global industries in the wake of WW II, unscrupulous methods for obtaining business from foreign governments became a common practice. According to a congressional report from 1977, American corporations had given "$300 million to foreign government officials, politicians and political parties.”[1] Two of the biggest scandals associated with graft involved the produce and aerospace industries.
In the early seventies, the largest Central and South American banana exporting nations created a trade bloc called the Union of Banana Exporting Countries (UBEP) in an attempt to gain leverage against the North American banana exporters who grew the bananas, controlled their export to market and had lobbied hard against increasing export taxes on each box of bananas. After the government of Honduras increased export taxes on boxes of bananas from 25 cents to 50 cents, the American based exporter United Brands paid the then president of Honduras, Oswaldo López Arellano, $3 million to return the tax to 25 cents. The trade group fell into disarray and United Brands and its fellow exporters saved millions on their tax bills. At this point, the federal government could not investigate or take the company to trial for bribing a foreign official. However, it was illegal under American securities law for corporations to hide bribes from their stockholders as hiding bribes would give them an inaccurate understanding of the company’s expenses. In Honduras, news of the bribe led to the overthrow of the military government which had placed Arellano as President. [2]
The second and much more important instance of bribery involved aerospace company Lockheed. From the fifties to the seventies, the company had a well funded operation to bribe foreign governments to purchase its military and commercial products. Countries which were bribed to buy such product included Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and West Germany. The Japan case is interesting given Japanese officials were used by Lockheed to pressure non state-owned airline All Nippon Airlines into purchasing their jets. [1] Public outrage in these countries as well as the United States led to the forced resignation of Lockheed's chairman, president and other key management in December 1976.[2]
As a result of these major scandals and lingering public outrage over the Watergate scandal, The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter the following year in 1977. The FCPA defines bribery as the following
[3]
So here we have the US Federal Government’s core definition of bribery. However, the FCPA was updated in 1998 by the International Anti-Bribery Act of 1998. The most notable change to the law was that foreign businesses operating within the United States could not bribe foreign officials. However, the other big change was the law being brought into compliance with the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. After the passage of the FCPA, other rich industrialized democracies, who make up the OECD, began to work on a framework for a universal anti-bribery policy. This will be more important in a little bit, but for now the Anti-Bribery Convention laid out a universal definition for what constitutes a “foreign official".
[4]
How does the OECD define public enterprise?
[4]
So employees of a public enterprise are considered by the OECD convention, which FCPA is compliant with, to be foreign officials. For further clarification, from the Department of Justice’s guide to the FCPA.
In China, everything is owned by or to some degree controlled by the state. For foreign multinational corporations, like Disney, to operate in PRC, they must enter a joint-venture with a local state-owned corporation, like SHENDI. So if these multinational companies are doing business with state-owned corporations in a country with a graft problem, it appears it would be incredibly difficult for a multinational corporation like a Disney or a General Motors to have tripped over the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in their day to day operations. While that last statement may make it seem as though I am accusing those specific companies of bribery, I am not, it just seems implausible that a someone, either an official directly from the state or an employee from a state-owned enterprise, would not come along and demand to skim a little bit of money off the top.
However we are not talking solely about American corporations because the rules that govern bribery of foreign officials have been aligned in most of the industrialized world. Recall the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention I referred to for the definition of “public enterprise”? Every standing member of the OECD has signed that treaty and has implemented legislation in their respective countries to enforce those standards. [6] (China considers itself an “observer’ to this pact)
This brings us to the significance of the graft problem in the People’s Republic. The issue of graft tends to come up in the infamous case of the coked-out son of a senior party official who crashed a Ferrari. [7] While embarrassing given that party officials salaries on paper are quite low, much bigger problems abound. From the Central Government’s perspective there are two main issues. First, the Party sees corruption as an issue that offers domestic opponents/dissidents a platform which could give rise to strong movement against their single party rule of the country. To prevent a situation like this from getting out of hand, the party must prove to the people that it deserves to have complete control and its rule will serve the public most effectively. This is why Xi Jinping’s anti-graft campaign is so ruthless. The state isn’t just addressing a problem that is out of hand, but rather purging all the weeds to prevent an infestation. The other major issue is foreign investment into the country. If you have been following world news for the past couple years, concerns over a slowdown of economic growth in China has been one of the constant stories. China has had almost 40 years of economic growth at a rate that has never been seen before in history, but there has been a slow down over the past couple years. All economies need to have market corrections or recessions to preserve the health of the economy for the long term. In these circumstance, especially given how over extended the Central Government is, foreign investment is a very important lifeline and would be that more vital if the economy were to enter a recession. The opportunity in China for foreign corporations to do well, provided they understand the country and its people see Disney CEO Fumbles Entry To China, is so tremendous it is hard to resist. No matter how large that opportunity may be, corporations do not want to do business in a country where the risk of violating the law in their home countries is high. Those nations anti-bribery laws are very strong and these companies cannot shrug their shoulders and say graft is the price of doing business. Execs love money, but they certainly don’t want to go to jail either.
Now lets talk about the single largest foreign investment into the People’s Republic of China of all time, Shanghai Disneyland.
So how would this effect Disney?
Let's play a name association game. If I say sweatshops, you say....
Nike?
Apple?
Both companies are industry leaders who took the brunt of the public outrage over working conditions that plague their entire industries because they were highlighted by the media since they were prominent targets. They have become the so called posterchilds of sweatshop labour. IF The Walt Disney Company or Shanghai International Theme Park Company, SDR’s legal name, or the resort’s Disney controlled management company have violated the FCPA or investigate by the DOJ and SEC, the two departments who administer FCPA, or called to a congressional hearing, its actions will have tremendous consequences.
- Iger and Company would be gone.
- Central Government would begin an aggressive purge of the state-owned corporations involved with SDR.
- Most importantly, Disney is permanently associated with bribery, much in the way Nike and Apple have been with sweatshop labor. This leads to a permanent scar on the company and the BRAND from which they may never fully recover from.
Does that sound really terrible? You betcha! Yet at the same time, I am very optimistic because a lot of good can come from it. For China, this may help them move past their graft culture making the business climate there much better for entrepreneurs and executives from home and abroad. For Disney, and by extension us fans, may get what we have wanted for so long; a good scrubbing of the company and new leadership that can take the company to infinity and beyond as the saying goes. The brouhaha over Mrs. Bob Iger’s role in the removal of the HuffPo article Disney CEO Fumbles Entry To China while serving as the head of USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism has given us our best ever shot at Iger. With the potential of graft at Shanghai Disney Resort, we can get rid of the whole d a m n bunch too. Let’s not let a good opportunity go to waste!
Sources:
[1]http://www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/history/1977/houseprt-95-640.pdf
[2]http://www.ghi-dc.org/files/publications/bulletin/bu053/bu53_007.pdf
[3]Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
http://www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/docs/fcpa-english.pdf
[4]OECD Anti-Bribery Convention
http://www.oecd.org/daf/anti-bribery/ConvCombatBribery_ENG.pdf
[5]Department of Justice Guide to The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
http://www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/guidance/guide.pdf
[6]OECD Anti-Bribery Convention Ratification Status
http://www.oecd.org/daf/anti-bribery/WGBRatificationStatus.pdf
[7]http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/03/china-scandal-fatal-ferrari-crash
Last edited:
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
Classic misdirection.
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
Perhaps Disney's now legendary layers of administrative overhead are part of the problem?
If they truely wanted to streamline expenditures, they'd cull middle-management. Same in all industries.
I think you're becoming my favorite poster here, but please don't tell @Lee or @WDWFigment, because they both think that!
More seriously -- and bringing this back to Disney (and UNI) -- that ''willingness to lie for that bias'' is something that has greatly concerned me with media shrinkage (I have that problem when I stay in the pool too long!) and the increase in social media (yep, the bloggers, the podcasters and the lifestylers).
Look, Disney and UNI (and others for that matter) have been providing free trips, accommodations, food, booze, tickets, swag etc for decades. The difference is that when you dealt with real reporters, they either couldn't take anything or were limited. They also tended to need a much higher threshold to be paid off or to be downright unethical.
That's simply not the case with today's social media w h o res who will sell themselves for two nights at the Poly, a free special vinylmation and the ability to interview a Jason Grandt for three minutes while handlers look on (think Bob Iger on CCTV). Although with the shrinkage in outlets of traditional media, you get even to the top with folks like Brooks Barnes widely talked about as being on the payroll of Disney and a couple of other media companies.
I'm not completely objective when it comes to Disney. Or many facets or personalities from it. I don't think any one here is. When you've had personal issues with someone you were once close to, say a George Kalogridis, you can't view him like everyone else because you know things they do not. That's why I always try to put my feelings out, so people can figure out my bias and judge based on all the facts.
That's why I don't get the talk that the HuffPo author of the ode to Bob Iger entitled Disney CEO Fumbles Entry to China somehow wasn't honest because his family happens to be the Redstones (BTW, I'd love to see a reality TV show on them!) He put a disclosure out so people could read his words and draw their own conclusions. That, to me (as someone who once played a journalist in real life), is what you call doing the ethical thing.
Anyway, I know I went off on a bit of a tangent, but I do love your original point. It is so accurate. It isn't really about bias because it is impossible to not have it to some degree. The issue is all about disclosure and ... really ... ethics of an individual.
10/13 happens to be a VERY good day!!!
Yep, heard about both. Actually have a friend on said Wonder cruise with her family.
That Tweet ... what can you say? ... Disney has no idea the real power of social media or how to use it effectively. Instead of censoring stories in the HuffPo (and who knows where else ... likely the larger concern) and shouting down critics with Pixie Dusters as Duncan Wardle crowed was Disney's philosophy (BTW, would love to see Gary Buchanan post here now that he is no longer with Disney!) for the Internet, it might be nice is they actually learned a bit about the business they are in.
Clueless.
But there's only so many times you can offer your services and show your value without a phone call, right @ParentsOf4 ?
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
Well, that's really not true unless you are in the service industry and then it's true everyplace you go. However, and this is a big "however" you can't afford to go anyplace on vacation due to low wages, high housing costs, high taxes and high energy bills.
Oh, the woes of Willow. Poor woman. Must be so tough to wind up being the one most likely to fall after this whole fiasco with the censored story.
I actually wasn't going to put this out as it is industry gossip that I heard from someone at the TV Academy (not the Academy of Motion Pictures). But it would appear that Willow's dress made so much of a statement (what that was, I'm still not sure) that a few individuals have quietly made inquiries with the Academy as to whether this just wasn't a tacky choice and breech of protocol, but it might have been in violation of rules governing promotion/advertising at the OSCARS. Yes, Willow as a walking billboard for her hubby's latest acquisition (or as I opined, an FU to the Op-Ed author and a way of further burying his photo and the dead link to the story Disney CEO Fumbles Entry to China) could actually have broken some old Academy rule about promoting IP governed by the Academy in which she and her family have a financial interest.
I'm thinking this makes sense because it prevents people from showing up adorned with garb promoting future projects and instead promotes decorum befitting the event.
I have no idea whether this is the case, but I sure hope it is. I've heard, personally, from multiple folks who were there that she appeared very uncomfortable and was mocked openly by a number of people, even people who knew who she was.
Yeah, poor Willow. At least she has Bob's millions to keep her warm at night.
Gabe1
Ivory Tower Squabble EST 2011. WINDMILL SURVIVOR
Kudos. Easily the Best post I've read this year! Refreshing.
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
But they SHOULD be Zenia is a scary lady.
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
Willow spiking the story and then covering it up with the Yoda dress is the gift which just keeps on giving, I'm STILL having problems believing that it was real or that the Iger/Bay duo would stoop that low at the Academy awards, Irrespective of what one thinks of the current denizens of Hollywood and my opinions are well known on that subject it IS their special night and should not be spoiled by things like Willow's dress.
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
But for how long, If Beautiful Bob is inconvenienced by the blowback for Willow's actions, He will discard her like yesterday's newspaper even though said actions were at his behest.