ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
The finest Drivel that Flower St can produce these days...
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WDW Awakens ...
- Thread starter WDW1974
- Start date
The finest Drivel that Flower St can produce these days...
rle4lunch
Well-Known Member
Besides using the corporations are Satan argument. There's legit things to complain about the parks, but not that.
Pumbas Nakasak
Heading for the great escape.
The devil does have the best music.
disneyflush
Well-Known Member
My car was making this pinging noise when I drove it over the last year or so. Miraculously, I have found that if I simply turn up the radio the issue goes away completely and it is no longer a problem for me.
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
Beelzebub rules below.
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
Mike S
Well-Known Member
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.
ParentsOf4
Well-Known Member
Perhaps most importantly, there were SEC regulation changes in 2003 that made it much easier for companies to buyback their own stock.
Before that, cash rich companies looked for ways to invest their earnings in capital projects, acquisitions, R&D, and higher salaries for better talent. That money was pumped into the economy, producing the growth of the 1980s and 1990s.
After 9/11, companies lobbied for the change to help sagging stock prices. After the rules change, companies began spending nearly all profits on stock buybacks, creating paper wealth but building nothing, accelerating the trend where the country's wealth became increasingly concentrated among fewer and few individuals.
Disney is one of the companies that led both movements.
In the 10 years before the change, Disney repurchased $3.4B of its own stock.
In the 10 years after the change, Disney repurchased $35.9B of its own stock. Yes, that's over 10 times more.
That's money that Disney used to spend on Parks & Resorts improvements, major acquisitions (like ABC), etc. "But wait, Disney bought Pixar, Marvel, and LucasFilms. Those are acquisitions." Yes, but for a company the size of Disney, they are chump change. Combined, these decade of mergers add up to less than a single year of Parks & Resorts revenue.
The 1995 ABC merger alone was valued at $19B, more than all of Iger's acquisitions combined. Let's not forget that before the rules change, Disney was building Disney-MGM Studios, DLP, DAK, and DCA. Even the decision to build HKDL occurred before the change. Disney used to invest big on Parks & Resorts.
Perhaps more than anything in recent decades, these regulation changes have altered how companies are operated, and how Disney spends its profits.
Stevek
Well-Known Member
Interesting, I generally find DL bathrooms to be in pretty good condition and I certainly would never "hold it" based on one bathroom.
FYI, the Lancaster Soccer fields are the complete opposite way from Joshua Tree. But they are a hideous drive, have been there many times for State Cup soccer tournaments. The wind can be abysmal out there in the land of the dirt people.
Donaldfan1934
Well-Known Member
While I get your overall point on corporations post 9/11, it wasn't 9/11 that killed the "substantial" P&R improvements. The blame there goes to Michael Eisner cutting costs after DLP's initial failures and no one being around to keep him in check after Frank Wells died. Remember, DCA 1.0 opened before 9/11, not after.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
Agreed 100%. Disney is guilty for sure but they are far from alone on this. The insane pace of stock buybacks across the board is going to eventually have to slow. The short term stock price gains drive up the value of executive stock options as well as the portfolios of Wall Street funds that are the primary shareholders of most corporations. It's a win/win for both parties in the present, but there should be someone focused on the future as well. By not investing in new projects that will lead to growth and/or future cash flows these companies will eventually face a drop off in available cash and the knee jerk reaction will be to cut costs and sell non-core assets. It's not a real positive outlook but it's reality.
The other crazy thing is that the more stock prices go up the worse value stock buybacks become. In the past companies mostly reserved stock buybacks for times when they really felt their stock price was grossly undervalued.
ParentsOf4
Well-Known Member
DLP opened in 1992.
After that, Eisner OK'ed BB (1995), DCL (1996), DAK (1998), DCA (2001), WDPS (2002), and HKDL (2005).
Eisner didn't slow down because DLP performed poorly. It was exactly the opposite. Despite DLP's poor performance, Eisner stomped his foot down on the accelerator and sped up Parks & Resorts spending. From 1996 to 2001, P&R capex budgets skyrocketed.
As late as 2001, Eisner was spending 21.6% of Parks & Resorts revenue on capex. (Iger has averaged 15.3%.) In 2002, that number plummeted to 13.8%, despite revenue dropping 10%. In terms of absolute dollars, the P&R domestic capex budget was cut in half in one year!
What slowed Eisner down was the collapse of the tourism industry in 2001 along with shareholders who were furious with Eisner for spending P&R capex like the proverbial drunken sailor.
Donaldfan1934
Well-Known Member
Have you ever heard of the Disney Decade? It was a grand plan back in the 1990's to greatly grow and expand upon all of Disney's existing parks and resorts. After DLP opened, however, plans for things that would happen in the second half of the decade or soon after were either dramatically budget slashed or cancelled entirely. That's why instead of Westcot and Disney MGM Paris, we got the dramatically budget slashed DCA 1.0 and WDSP. This mindset is also part of the reason why HKDL ended up as small as it did. Now, I don't think the Iger era is perfect. In fact, its far from it. But considering all the additions that have been put in the park under the Iger administration, very few of the permanent changes have been cheap. Both eras have pros and cons, but additions made in the latter half of the Eisner era, despite being more frequent, were unacceptably cheap. Those are the facts, and while you do have a good point about post 9/11 corporate culture, that's not where the current P&R culture is rooted in.
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matt9112
Well-Known Member
amen.
matt9112
Well-Known Member
do you spend 8+ hours in a theater or even a ball game.....for a week....
matt9112
Well-Known Member
its relative....
virtually i am much faster than you dave......
ParentsOf4
Well-Known Member
I lived the Disney Decade. (And quite a bit before.) Did you?
Have you ever actually read Disney's 10K filings? Do you even know what a 10K is?
Disney's P&R capex spending was through the roof up till 2001. Disney was spending gobs of money.
Certain well-known (and still in business) Disney "commentators" were complaining that Disney wasn't spending enough even as total P&R capex budgets reached an unsustainable 30% of revenue! Having been a fan of WDW since the 1970s and in the private sector for nearly as long, I well remember their baseless fanboi comments. Do you?
These are the facts, not some false narrative by fanbois:
Eisner was spending all over the place, trying to do too much too quickly, resulting in him doing a lot of things poorly.
Eisner's problem was not that he was not spending. His problem was that in trying to do too much, he was spending badly.
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matt9112
Well-Known Member
i sort of agree here.....sure the mermaid is a meh ride but the theming is top notch. and its still a fun ride and the coaster albeit short is also fun....sadly capacity issues galore. from a better stand point i think if they retained the original scope of the land for both rides it would be near perfect....sadly they didn't care.
matt9112
Well-Known Member
well god created beer before adam and eve.....so beer is pretty important
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
Are we not working on phrasing?