Who is Meg?

[ford91exploder]

If we're all done insulting each other, I have a serious query. I have no issues with discussing the management of WDW in a general sense. I don't understand how we can assign blame to particular executives without knowing what is actually going on in meetings and on the ground. I do know a few on this board (@WDW1974 ) claim to have knowledge of these dynamics, but I am loathe to dump on a particular individual without first hand knowledge. Why not just talk about the general direction of the resort and management decisions we agree/disagree with? Are we a few years away from endless George K. threads?



@Jimmy Thick seems to have a thick skin, but this is more directly insulting than anything he was accused of doing. Look, with respect to the general direction of the resort, I suppose I would be a bit of a doom and gloomer. There are posters I agree with more than others. In particular, I agree with @marni1971 , @The Empress Lilly , @RSoxNo1 , and @Master Yoda about 80% of the time and I agree/disagree with them on completely different things. Nonetheless, I don't get this behavior at all. When I joined the board things were generally positive all the time and I got dumped on if noted that the something wasn't A-OK with me anymore. Now things seem to have reversed with respect to attitudes...My point is that it is always easy to dump on the minority. Plus, Jimmy is correct with his views on the overall health of Disney. Me? I just wish they would put a little more quality back in the Florida parks.

We are a few years away from George K threads, What they will be is yet to be written by George If he arrests the slide in maintenance and show quality George will be hailed as a Hero, If he accelerates the slide to Six Flags levels of quality George will WISH we were as kind to him as we were/are to Meg,

As to being able to judge the decisions made by the TWDC executives we can only judge by results which for guests to be charitable have not been good.

As to the financial health of TWDC P&R while being 17% of the company generates 43% of the REPORTED profit. That being said TWDC P&R does not spend like a financially healthy company, Capital improvements meant to increase attendance are spread over years, A healthy company would want to get the assets online as soon as possible to capture revenue. It's a very odd pattern, My company sells capital equipment and customers want to put it into production the minute it hits their dock. Not wait months or years to install and use.

 

[George]

I was actually just tryin' to interject a little levity in the thread by jokingly inserting part of his user name to lighten things up a little. Should have used a I guess. Although, it probably wouldn't have made any difference to some.

I actually don't think your joke was a big deal. But, you've always got to be careful when you make it about one other poster. Ideas are A-OK to ravage.

 

[ford91exploder]

I actually don't think your joke was a big deal. But, you've always got to be careful when you make it about one other poster. Ideas are A-OK to ravage.

I thought ravaging ideas was the ENTIRE point of this board!

 

[George]

We are a few years away from George K threads, What they will be is yet to be written by George If he arrests the slide in maintenance and show quality George will be hailed as a Hero, If he accelerates the slide to Six Flags levels of quality George will WISH we were as kind to him as we were/are to Meg,

As to being able to judge the decisions made by the TWDC executives we can only judge by results which for guests to be charitable have not been good.

As to the financial health of TWDC P&R while being 17% of the company generates 43% of the REPORTED profit. That being said TWDC P&R does not spend like a financially healthy company, Capital improvements meant to increase attendance are spread over years, A healthy company would want to get the assets online as soon as possible to capture revenue. It's a very odd pattern, My company sells capital equipment and customers want to put it into production the minute it hits their dock. Not wait months or years to install and use.

I agree with the vast majority of this post, with one small exception. We know these boards are read by the different people at various levels throughout Disney. George and Meg are/were not final arbiters of WDW decisions. I'm sure they have input, but in large part, they are facilitating implementation of big decisions. So, let us suppose at various meetings George K. has had issues with fastpass plus. IF we dump all over him since he is ostensibly in charge of MM+, then he (like any other human being) would be less likely to point out that he knows for sure a big chunk of the fan community doesn't like the program. Being specific is good for anecdotes. Being general with respect to controversial decisions is actually good for people/change. You have a lot bigger chance for success if you give people with big egos the opportunity to save face.

 

[ford91exploder]

I agree with the vast majority of this post, with one small exception. We know these boards are read by the different people at various levels throughout Disney. George and Meg are/were not final arbiters of WDW decisions. I'm sure they have input, but in large part, they are facilitating implementation of big decisions. So, let us suppose at various meetings George K. has had issues with fastpass plus. IF we dump all over him since he is ostensibly in charge of MM+, then he (like any other human being) would be less likely to point out that he knows for sure a big chunk of the fan community doesn't like the program. Being specific is good for anecdotes. Being general with respect to controversial decisions is actually good for people/change. You have a lot bigger chance for success if you give people with big egos the opportunity to save face.

You are absolutely correct in this point, It's why when I queue up a retort I usually use TWDC. However it's also a manager's job to point out to those above them when they are about to make a mistake,

Meg tended to have the attitude of 'how can I help Burbank s----w the Guests today' which of course is why she is reviled.

I am pointedly reminded of the scene in Babylon 5 where Mr Garabaldi has taken over the dysfunctional and corrupt Edger's Industries and he has called all the 'Troublemakers' into one room and given them the task of fixing what is wrong with the company.

TWDC is deep in the throes of groupthink and it has paralyzed their creative efforts as everyone is telling Bob how wonderful he is and how great his ideas are and we get the mess we have today out of that.

The 'Boat's parody unfortunately seems to be what passes for the creative process at Disney these days see 'Planes' for the example.

 

[George]

Meg tended to have the attitude of 'how can I help Burbank s----w the Guests today' which of course is why she is reviled.

You may know more than me and be 100% correct, but there is still a finite chance that after weeks of arguing that the upstairs of the Imagination pavilion be opened, she logged into wdwmagic to see if anyone had ever commented on the issue. After perusing the boards, she went to bed that night clutching her Figment plush with a lone tear rolling down her cheek. Her last words as she drifted off to dream land were, "Those bastards are gonna get what they deserve."

I should note I have two exceptions to my personal rules. One is my sworn wdwmagic enemy. The second is Mr. Cockerell (spelling?) who I have seen held responsible for the degradation of WDW french fries so many times that I figure it must be true and for this he should be drawn and quartered.

 

[lazyboy97o]

What is the point of having a president of US and European parks and resorts with no decision making abilities or responsibility? What is the point of having a president of Walt Disney World or Disneyland Resort with no decision making abilities or responsibility? The way some people paint it the shift manager at the local fast food joint makes more decisions than presidents in Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

 

[jdmdisney99]

 

[copcarguyp71]

What is the point of having a president of US and European parks and resorts with no decision making abilities or responsibility? What is the point of having a president of Walt Disney World or Disneyland Resort with no decision making abilities or responsibility? The way some people paint it the shift manager at the local fast food joint makes more decisions than presidents in Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

If there are enough fingers pointing in different directions then nobody gets blamed....corporate politics.

 

[ford91exploder]

You may know more than me and be 100% correct, but there is still a finite chance that after weeks of arguing that the upstairs of the Imagination pavilion be opened, she logged into wdwmagic to see if anyone had ever commented on the issue. After perusing the boards, she went to bed that night clutching her Figment plush with a lone tear rolling down her cheek. Her last words as she drifted off to dream land were, "Those bastards are gonna get what they deserve."

I should note I have two exceptions to my personal rules. One is my sworn wdwmagic enemy. The second is Mr. Cockerell (spelling?) who I have seen held responsible for the degradation of WDW french fries so many times that I figure it must be true and for this he should be drawn and quartered.

It is the Christmas season afterall, Perhaps all Meg needs is a visit from the Dreamfinder and Figment to clarify her priorities.

On Mr Cockerell - he should be forced to eat only his 'improved' fries until he changes them back for you.

 

[GoofGoof]

From the Motley Fool - Article is a bit dated but nothing of substance has changed at Disney


Disney surely doesn't seem to be an Enron but recent events cause us to pause and wonder just how creative the auditors and financiers, accountants and executives have become nowadays at any major corporation.

Reading a paragraph about Enron in a recent Orlando Sentinel article, I in fact am reminded of Disney:

Within weeks of Lay's Sept. 26 reassurances to employees, Enron admitted publicly it had kept hundreds of millions of dollars in debt off the company's books in partnerships -- which were paying millions of dollars in fees to the Enron executives who ran them.

Has anyone ever came up with the answers to where the hundreds of millions of dollars Disney has payed out, is shown on the books? I think the answer is that the money isn't shown on the books. In fact, Disney makes no secret about the fact that it keeps secret, money paid out in "settlements", golden parachutes, and other sensitive "partnerships.".

This thread has taken a turn for the worse so why not a little tangent. Full disclaimer: we are about to enter into the world of accounting rules and SEC reporting. Turn back now if this stuff bores you.

Back in the days of Enron the official SEC requirement was that if a company owned 50% or more of a subsidiary they had to consolidate the subsidiary on their balance sheet. However, a loophole was created that was never fully endorsed but also never stopped by the SEC or FASB that allowed something called a special purpose entity (SPE) where a parent company could own up to 97% of a subsidiary with as little as 3% owned by outsiders and the subsidiary could still be considered independent and so there was no requirement to consolidate the subsidiary's balance sheet for the parent company. This practice had been going on since the 80s or earlier but became popular in the 90s.

Enron took it to a whole new level. They would set up these SPEs and have executives and friends of executives become the 3% outside owners. In many cases the 3% equity contributed by these "outsiders" was borrowed from Enron so in reality Enron was funding 100% of these SPEs. Because of the loophole Enron could borrow millions and maybe even billions of dollars that were never recorded on the balance sheet of Enron as debt. The investment banks fell all over themselves to lend money to these SPEs since they were usually backed by Enron stock - basically if the SPE failed and the debt was left outstanding then the banks got Enron stock. Often times the SPEs would have fictitious revenue - 97% of which went back to Enron as earnings from subsidiaries. When the whole house of cards came tumbling down these SPEs and the Enron shares that backed the debt became worthless with the rest of the business.

This is only 1 of the many ways Enron fooled everyone. One of the positives that came from the whole Enron situation is new accounting rules on consolidations. FASB issued FIN46R as a direct response to Enron. It focuses on variable interest entities and a whole lot of boring accounting stuff, but the gist of the thing is you can no longer get away with not consolidating a subsidiary and SPEs are no longer a viable way to hide debt. It is very unlikely that TWDC is hiding debt in SPEs the way Enron was.

Has anyone ever came up with the answers to where the hundreds of millions of dollars Disney has payed out, is shown on the books? I think the answer is that the money isn't shown on the books. In fact, Disney makes no secret about the fact that it keeps secret, money paid out in "settlements", golden parachutes, and other sensitive "partnerships."

Katzenberg, All Star Sports, Ovitz, go.com and other debts that total billions of dollars in losses, seem to mysteriously never make it into financial reports for shareholders.

This is a different issue all together also covered by different accounting rules. If a company is facing potential litigation loss and the loss is both probable and you have a good estimate of the amount it must be booked immediately as an expense and an accrued liability on the balance sheet. If the loss is "reasonably possible" then you aren't required to book an accounting entry but you must disclose the potential loss and an estimate or range of losses in the notes to your financial statements. If a loss is remote then in most cases do nothing. For Disney in each of the cases you referenced they would have expensed these settlements long ago so there would be no mention of them on the current financial statements. The point is it's very unlikely TWDC has material "secret" settlements that don't in some way pass through the financial statements.

 

[ford91exploder]

This thread has taken a turn for the worse so why not a little tangent. Full disclaimer: we are about to enter into the world of accounting rules and SEC reporting. Turn back now if this stuff bores you.

Back in the days of Enron the official SEC requirement was that if a company owned 50% or more of a subsidiary they had to consolidate the subsidiary on their balance sheet. However, a loophole was created that was never fully endorsed but also never stopped by the SEC or FASB that allowed something called a special purpose entity (SPE) where a parent company could own up to 97% of a subsidiary with as little as 3% owned by outsiders and the subsidiary could still be considered independent and so there was no requirement to consolidate the subsidiary's balance sheet for the parent company. This practice had been going on since the 80s or earlier but became popular in the 90s.

Enron took it to a whole new level. They would set up these SPEs and have executives and friends of executives become the 3% outside owners. In many cases the 3% equity contributed by these "outsiders" was borrowed from Enron so in reality Enron was funding 100% of these SPEs. Because of the loophole Enron could borrow millions and maybe even billions of dollars that were never recorded on the balance sheet of Enron as debt. The investment banks fell all over themselves to lend money to these SPEs since they were usually backed by Enron stock - basically if the SPE failed and the debt was left outstanding then the banks got Enron stock. Often times the SPEs would have fictitious revenue - 97% of which went back to Enron as earnings from subsidiaries. When the whole house of cards came tumbling down these SPEs and the Enron shares that backed the debt became worthless with the rest of the business.

This is only 1 of the many ways Enron fooled everyone. One of the positives that came from the whole Enron situation is new accounting rules on consolidations. FASB issued FIN46R as a direct response to Enron. It focuses on variable interest entities and a whole lot of boring accounting stuff, but the gist of the thing is you can no longer get away with not consolidating a subsidiary and SPEs are no longer a viable way to hide debt. It is very unlikely that TWDC is hiding debt in SPEs the way Enron was.

This is a different issue all together also covered by different accounting rules. If a company is facing potential litigation loss and the loss is both probable and you have a good estimate of the amount it must be booked immediately as an expense and an accrued liability on the balance sheet. If the loss is "reasonably possible" then you aren't required to book an accounting entry but you must disclose the potential loss and an estimate or range of losses in the notes to your financial statements. If a loss is remote then in most cases do nothing. For Disney in each of the cases you referenced they would have expensed these settlements long ago so there would be no mention of them on the current financial statements. The point is it's very unlikely TWDC has material "secret" settlements that don't in some way pass through the financial statements.

Thanks @GoofGoof, This was a extremely informative explanation looks like I have quite a bit of reading ahead of me.

 

[copcarguyp71]

But...just because it isn't legal does not mean it is not a potential possibility. Not throwing that out there as an accusation, just saying laws are broken every day and at high corporate levels like this nobody really pays the price of justice anyway so what is the motivation to obey...sorry for throwing gas on the proverbial fire.

 

[GoofGoof]

Thanks @GoofGoof, This was a extremely informative explanation looks like I have quite a bit of reading ahead of me.

If you are interested in Enron try a book called Conspiracy of Fools. It reads like a novel despite all of the technical jargon. It's a fairly accurate description of the events.

On a completely unrelated note, I don't consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but Ken Lay really might still be alive. He conveniently dies 3 months before his trial of a heart attack in a small town in CO (not Houston or another major city where it would be much more difficult to cover up). A guy with that much money could find a way to "die on paper". He's hanging with Elvis right now having a peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich.

 

[GoofGoof]

But...just because it isn't legal does not mean it is not a potential possibility. Not throwing that out there as an accusation, just saying laws are broken every day and at high corporate levels like this nobody really pays the price of justice anyway so what is the motivation to obey...sorry for throwing gas on the proverbial fire.

No doubt it's still possible to do, but it's now looked for. It's no longer a grey area in the rules. I'm the first to say accounting fraud will always exist and can never be fully prevented, but when something as big as Enron goes down the issues surrounding it will get so much attention nobody will try to repeat that again. They will get caught. Think of it this way, what are the odds that anyone with a box cutter gets away with hijacking a plane again? Terrorism will still exist, but most likely in a different form.

Another thing to consider is that what Enron did with SPEs was technically not against the rules so Arthur Anderson allowed it. If a company does this today their audit firm would have to sign off on it. Nobody who paid big bucks to buy into a partnership is going to risk signing off on that knowing if things go south they will be left holding the bag. If/when the next "Enron like" accounting fraud goes down it won't follow the Enron play book. There will be a new game played with some other grey area.

 

[ford91exploder]

If you are interested in Enron try a book called Conspiracy of Fools. It reads like a novel despite all of the technical jargon. It's a fairly accurate description of the events.

On a completely unrelated note, I don't consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but Ken Lay really might still be alive. He conveniently dies 3 months before his trial of a heart attack in a small town in CO (not Houston or another major city where it would be much more difficult to cover up). A guy with that much money could find a way to "die on paper". He's hanging with Elvis right now having a peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich.

I'm not really interested in ENRON per se, I'm more interested in how as an investor to spot the NEXT one, And recently with DVC there are a bunch of weird and wonderful happenings, a key example being BLT members have been charged 11M for housekeeping last year,

Yet at a Marriott timeshare in Manhattan with the same number of timeshare units as declared DVC units in BLT housekeeping expense is only 4.5 Million Supposedly these services are provided to DVC membership at cost. This is not passing the smell test especially with the respective labor costs in each market.

 

[ford91exploder]

If you are interested in Enron try a book called Conspiracy of Fools. It reads like a novel despite all of the technical jargon. It's a fairly accurate description of the events.

On a completely unrelated note, I don't consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but Ken Lay really might still be alive. He conveniently dies 3 months before his trial of a heart attack in a small town in CO (not Houston or another major city where it would be much more difficult to cover up). A guy with that much money could find a way to "die on paper". He's hanging with Elvis right now having a peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich.

Ken Lay had the goods on a bunch of Washington types - having him whacked or dining with Elvis are equally probable!

 

[The Empress Lilly]

If we're all done insulting each other, I have a serious query. I have no issues with discussing the management of WDW in a general sense. I don't understand how we can assign blame to particular executives without knowing what is actually going on in meetings and on the ground. I do know a few on this board (@WDW1974 ) claim to have knowledge of these dynamics, but I am loathe to dump on a particular individual without first hand knowledge. Why not just talk about the general direction of the resort and management decisions we agree/disagree with? Are we a few years away from endless George K. threads?



@Jimmy Thick seems to have a thick skin, but this is more directly insulting than anything he was accused of doing. Look, with respect to the general direction of the resort, I suppose I would be a bit of a doom and gloomer. There are posters I agree with more than others. In particular, I agree with @marni1971 , @The Empress Lilly , @RSoxNo1 , and @Master Yoda about 80% of the time and I agree/disagree with them on completely different things. Nonetheless, I don't get this behavior at all. When I joined the board things were generally positive all the time and I got dumped on if noted that the something wasn't A-OK with me anymore. Now things seem to have reversed with respect to attitudes...My point is that it is always easy to dump on the minority. Plus, Jimmy is correct with his views on the overall health of Disney. Me? I just wish they would put a little more quality back in the Florida parks.

See, what I don't get is what has agreeing with somebody got to do with being respectful and polite? I don't care if you think UNI the greatest thing ever and WDW in a dismal endgame before inevitable collapse. Nor if you think FW in its best state ever and that the toonification of the MK is a blessing. (I draw the line at appreciating Fulton's Crap House. I'm fine with anybody enjoying Tilikum the orca jumping through firehoops in the EPCOT fountain while sipping on a $12.79 Starbucks cafeine fantasy drink, but eating at Fulton is just a moral wrong)

I do think you got your list of knowledgeable posters confused. @The Empress Lilly is an annoying pompous , easy to see through. The others are great, as are my heroes Flynn and Lazyboy. And too many others to mention. But I am not in blanket agreement or disagreement with posters. I agree with posts, not with posters. Minionhood is overrated.


Jimmy Thick is fantastic. A gem to this forum. A great cure against intellectual complacency and groupthink. I do not want to see my views confirmed, I want them challenged. Thick does so with great zest, humour, and always without personal insults. Awesome. Falsification creates intellectual progress, unlike insulting and silencing minority opinions.

 

[George]

See, what I don't get is what has agreeing with somebody got to do with being respectful and polite? I don't care if you think UNI the greatest thing ever and WDW in a dismal endgame before inevitable collapse. Nor if you think FW in its best state ever and that the toonification of the MK is a blessing. (I draw the line at appreciating Fulton's Crap House. I'm fine with anybody enjoying Tilikum the orca jumping through firehoops in the EPCOT fountain while sipping on a $12.79 Starbucks cafeine fantasy drink, but eating at Fulton is just a moral wrong)

I do think you got your list of knowledgeable posters confused. @The Empress Lilly is an annoying pompous , easy to see through. The others are great, as are my heroes Flynn and Lazyboy. And too many others to mention. But I am not in blanket agreement or disagreement with posters. I agree with posts, not with posters. Minionhood is overrated.


Jimmy Thick is fantastic. A gem to this forum. A great cure against intellectual complacency and groupthink. I do not want to see my views confirmed, I want them challenged. Thick does so with great zest, humour, and always without personal insults. Awesome. Falsification creates intellectual progress, unlike insulting and silencing minority opinions.

Huge mistake in this post. If you're going to compliment @Jimmy Thick , he should be tagged so you can see if he will reply with something funny.

 

[copcarguyp71]

If/when the next "Enron like" accounting fraud goes down it won't follow the Enron play book. There will be a new game played with some other grey area.

hahaha...sorry, I just HAD to!