Posted on 11/27/2023 5:26:09 PM PST by george76
Below is my column in The Hill on how Disney appears to be honoring the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith by recognizing some basic economic principles like the need to sell goods to make profits.
Here is the column:
This year marks the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith, the iconic figure behind the theory of free markets, or of what we have since come to call “capitalism.”
Born in June 1723, Smith went on to explain how the “invisible hand” of the market worked as people exercised their choices between certain products. It can shape economies and challenge whole governments. One company in particular appears to be learning that lesson.
In recent filings, Disney appears concerned that the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith is effectively giving the “House of Mouse” the middle finger. In a new corporate disclosure, Disney acknowledges that its controversial political and social agenda is costing the company and shareholders.
In its annual SEC report, Disney acknowledges that “we face risks relating to misalignment with public and consumer tastes and preferences for entertainment, travel and consumer products.” In an implied nod to Smith, the company observes that “the success of our businesses depends on our ability to consistently create compelling content,” and that “Generally, our revenues and profitability are adversely impacted when our entertainment offerings and products, as well as our methods to make our offerings and products available to consumers, do not achieve sufficient consumer acceptance. Further, consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brands.”
Disney and other companies have previously ignored consumer backlash over corporate campaigns such as Disney’s opposition to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law. Corporate officials once avoided political controversies and focused on selling their products and services rather than viewpoints.
Disney has reportedly lost a billion dollars just on four of its recent “woke” movie flops, productions denounced by critics as pushing political agendas or storylines. Yet until now, the company has continued to roll out underperforming movies as revenue has dropped. What’s more, Disney stars persist in bad-mouthing its fabled storylines and undermining its new productions. The company admits that it has suffered a continued slide in “impressions” (that is, viewership) by 14 percent.
For shareholders, it may seem counterintuitive that corporate executives would trade off profits for political or social agendas. However, it does serve as a rationale for individual corporate executives who are professionally advanced when they champion such causes. For example, when Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing for Bud Light, pledged to drop Bud Light’s “fratty reputation and embrace inclusivity,” she was heralded by colleagues, even though her move went on to tank that brand as a whole. Indeed, Bud Light has still not recovered from the loss of billions in profits, market share, and overall market value.
The same trend is playing out in the media. Public trust in journalists has fallen to a record low. Yet media executives continue to push advocacy journalism, abandoning objectivity. As former New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones declared, “all journalism is activism.”
With falling subscriptions and public backlash (this includes the amusing “Let’s go, Brandon!” mantra), the journalists continue to saw at the thin branch upon which they are sitting.
Again, while advocacy journalism is no more popular than woke corporate agendas, it remains “wealth-maximizing” for individual journalists, who can receive accolades from contemporaries by taking steps detrimental to their profession as a whole. For each individual, the falling revenues of their media outlets are outweighed by the individual advancement that comes with embracing advocacy over objectivity.
The same is true with academia, where universities and colleges are roundly criticized for their intolerance of opposing views and for purging faculties of conservative or libertarian professors. Roughly half of this country holds conservative or libertarian views. Yet faculty members have little incentive to put themselves at risk by demanding more intellectual diversity or viewpoint tolerance.
Each of these tales of decline represents a variation on another economic model called the “tragedy of the commons” whereby everyone makes personal decisions to their own immediate advantage that ultimately kill off the very resource that sustains everyone.
All of these corporate, journalistic and academic figures are acting for their immediate personal advantage at the expense of their companies and institutions.
In fairness to Disney, there is an expressive element to its products. Movies are artistic creations that emphasize certain motivations and values. At one time, those values included some that are now viewed as offensive, including racist tropes.
The question is the balance and degree of the political and social agenda. Disney’s products are now viewed by many conservatives as empty virtue signaling and endless attempts to indoctrinate children. Moreover, when the company publicly declares its opposition to a popular parental rights bill in Florida, it is moving away from a commercial to a political focus.
That is the problem with the invisible hand. You can bring movies to the public, but you cannot make them sell. Once an unassailable and uniting brand, Disney brand is now negatively associated with activism by a significant number of consumers. The company is now even reporting a decline in licensing revenue from products associated with Star Wars, Frozen, Toy Story and Mickey and Friends — iconic and once-unassailable corporate images.
The question is how long Disney (or its shareholders) can tolerate falling revenues tied to its “misalignment with the public.” It is a massive corporation and it can lose billions before facing any truly dire decisions. Yet even Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, now appears to be seeking to “quiet things down” after years of culture wars.
Iger has come to accept that a company does indeed have to sell products to survive. As Smith wrote, “It is not from the benevolence of the Butcher, the Brewer or the Baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
So Happy 300th birthday, Adam. It is a bit belated, but so was Disney’s recognition of your economic principles.
“Go woke get broke” Adam Smith
Thomas Sowell bump.
5.56mm
“we face risks relating to misalignment with public and consumer tastes and preferences for entertainment, travel and consumer products.”
300 years and they still kept trying to ignore Adam Smith. He still ends up being right.
We’re here! We’re queer! We’re coming for your children!
If Disney has any economists or demographers on staff then they know that the birth rates of Western and Eastern countries is cratering. There will not be as many children in the future.
They also know that the West is being flooded with non-Western folks, and what children there are will most likely not be of Western European decent.
So what is a company to do that caters primarily to families with children? Especially in a world where the word "family" now has been stretched so thin that a single person living alone can declare him or herself to be a family.
They could continue to eke out a profit by continuing to focus on content that appeals to the traditional Western European family (e.g. content based on Grimm's Fairy Tales) but this won't result in an ever-increasing profit.
So it appears Disney is doomed, just like Kodak was doomed. Kodak could have pushed their digital cameras, but that would have decimated their film camera business. Disney is trying to branch out to accommodate all "families" but is losing their core constituency in the process.
It began a long time ago with the acceptance of Gay Days. They tried to broaden the tent, but only ended up distancing themselves from their main audience.
“Disney CEO responds to claims that the company is sexualizing children: ‘Preposterous and inaccurate’” https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4167620/posts
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https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4167098/posts
‘Insulting’: Disney+ invents person’s homosexuality in famous true story
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Disney’s New Ultra-Woke Kids Movie Featuring ‘Nonbinary’ Character Bombs at the Box Office
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4160901/posts
These Disney characters are set to appear at Disneyland’s first-ever After Dark Pride event
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/4159901/posts
Disney brings ‘Pride’ to Seattle Men’s Chorus
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Disney mocked for ‘woke-a-thon’ $250M Little Mermaid live-action reboot: with ‘drag queen’ Ursula, King Triton the environmentalist, mixed-race mermen, and ‘affirmative consent’ slipped into prince’s love song
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4154576/posts
Disney partners with PRIDE to develop content for children
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4147870/posts
Check Out Disney’s New Rainbow Collection in Honor of Pride Month
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4144881/posts
New Disney show focuses on teen-girl sex with Satan
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4131543/posts
Gay chorus that sang about converting kids into LGBT cult partners with Disney for PRIDE concert
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4130372/posts
Thought your children’s TV cartoons were innocent and fun? CJ PEARSON exposes how Disney is using them to brainwash your kids with woke, offensive nonsense - and insists: For their sake, it’s time to fight back
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4129193/posts
Disney still going all in on woke
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4129046/posts
Disney’s ‘Proud Family: Louder and Prouder’ Advances Racial Division To Children After Previously Pushing ‘Not So Secret’ Gay Agenda
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4128587/posts
Disney-Affiliated Drag Queen Welcomes Children to Show Featuring Simulated Sex And Nudity
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4113884/posts
Bob Iger Confirms Disney Will Double Down On Woke Content: “We Can’t Lose That, We Just Can’t”
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4112785/posts
Disney Loses $100 Million on Its Latest Flop Promoting Gay Teen Romance
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4112627/posts
Disney CEO Pledges To Double Down On LGBT ‘Storytelling’ In Animated Kids’ Movies
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4090582/posts
In a move that seems a stretch even for a leftist corporation that openly promotes LGBT agenda points and links itself to the body mutilations of young children through transgender ideology, this new “cartoon” from Disney features a little girl “Antichrist.”
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4086275/posts
Disney Set to Push More LGBTQ Propaganda on Children
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4085676/posts
Double-Extra Woke: Disney Casts Trans, ‘Non-Binary’ Actress in Marvel’s ‘Ironheart’ After Casting Drag Queen
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4082734/posts
Disney’s Woke Agenda Continues- First Out Trans Character Will Debut on The Disney Channel
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Natalie Portman Loves that Disney’s ‘Thor 4’ Is ‘Gayest’ Marvel Movie Ever
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4075460/posts
“Baymax!”, the new kids’ show streaming on Disney+, features a transgender man who buys tampons at a supermarket.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4074956/posts
Disney Animated Children’s Series ‘Baymax’ Features Transgender ‘Man’ Who Menstruates
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4072608/posts
Disney’s Lightyear FLOPS in opening weekend after lesbian kiss controversy
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4069453/posts
Disney Doubles Down On LGBTQ Programming With ‘Lightyear’ And More
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4066528/posts
Watch: Disney Used Pride Special to Encourage Children to Support Gay, Transgender Group GLSEN
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4065025/posts
Disney Releases LGBTQ Pride-Themed Toys Marketed to Children
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4064758/posts
Disney Launches LGBTQ Clothing Line for Children and Older, Donating Profits to LGBTQ Groups
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4056730/posts
The Mouse that Whored-Disney sets a trap for children
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4054973/posts
‘Gayest kids movie yet’ from Disney unleashed on America Supporters gush: ‘Gloriously queer-positive’ with ‘not a moment censored’
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4054340/posts
Disney to air ad accusing Americans who oppose genital mutilation of kids of wanting to ‘tear families apart’
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4051842/posts
Disney Executives Admit: Of Course We’re Grooming Your Children: Multiple Disney employees admitted their own personal missions to deluge 5- to 9-year-olds with as much of their own sexual ideology as possible.
Disney isn’t just grooming children with radical sexual propaganda — now they’re bragging about it.
On the heels of Florida’s new Parental Rights in Education law, which bars educators from instructing kindergarten through third-grade students about sexual ideology, multiple executives and employees from the Walt Disney Company admitted their own personal missions to deluge 5- to 9-year-olds with as much of their own sexual ideology as possible.
One Disney executive boasted about her “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” and efforts at “adding queerness to” children’s programming, in leaked audio published by investigative journalist Chris Rufo on Tuesday.
“Our leadership over there has been so welcoming to my, like, not-at-all-secret gay agenda,” said Latoya Raveneau, an executive producer for Disney Television Animation. “I was just, wherever I could, just basically adding queerness … No one would stop me and no one was trying to stop me.”
“Disney CEO responds to claims that the company is sexualizing children: ‘Preposterous and inaccurate’” https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4167620/posts
I can’t help but think that...
Screw them. They deliberately chose the path they’ve walked on, and thought they could rub our deplorable noses in it.
The people advocating all of the woke agenda hate us. It’s NOT out of regard for minorities and suppressed peoples, but rather their sheer rage and anger at the majority.
So good, I hate them back.
I believe Disney will be for sale within five years. I also am aware of a certain investor who is putting himself in a position to make a very sizable cash offering for something.?????
A South African guy, perhaps?
the crap sandwiches are not selling
maybe they should try a different roll
They have succeeded in destroying all that is good in society
We are at a stage where corporations are increasingly woke, because executives seek praise instead of profits.
It used to be that their directors would keep a lid on that, but directors are appointed by investment houses, who are run by the woke.
It all comes down to people who are unfaithfully managing money which is not theirs.
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