Should Disneyland Paris be Allowed to Fail?

[alternageek]

Think there's one in California, which is much smaller than the Orlando resort. There's one in Tokyo too.

 

DisneyLands are in California, Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong, and soon to be Shanghai.

 

DisneyWORLD is in Orlando.

 

Theres also Disney vacation resorts in South Carolina, Hawaii and Vero Beach, FL.

 

BTW I say let it fail. Its tooo expensive and not really worth the money. We tried to price an offpeak trip a few years back for the family, and for the cost we could have gone to DisneyWorld - and not worried about the weather.

[ukdobby]

I heard ridiculous prices of food and drink coming from friends who had been so not surprised its failing,always said it was a Mickey Mouse company.

[L00b]

That won't happen, nor will the EU allow the French to subsidise it, it is against the law.

Happened in the early 90s. The French Gvt effectively bailed Disney out then, on the run-up to the opening in 1992. Disney couldn't (or didn't want to-) pay CGCE and a few other large-scale contractors on the park build, so the choice Disney gave then was "wipe the slate" or "go bust and wave bye-bye to the flagship job creating moment which the Gvt had been hyping up to Pluto". Guess what the Gvt did?

Since it has come into force. As it made you laugh the onus is on you find me an example of a company being illegally subsidised by a government.

According to the EU Commission, Apple Inc. by the IE Gvt (a 'secret de polichinelle' as French would say, about as well kept as Microsoft's Irish "Island One" and "Island Two" corporate entities ), Amazon by the LU Gvt (that one is on the starting blocks, should be in today or tomorrow's mainstream news). They're the easy ones, as the biggest and most public heads currently just above the parapet. But you don't want to start (and would really struggle to get the evidence for-) lifting the veil about national military hardware manufacturers...and neither does 'the EU' (meaning, the heads of the biggest EU Member States...in which the said manufacturers reside).

 

Fair's fair, tzijlstra. France really has no lessons to give to any other EU Member States as regards contra-EU rules subsidizing. They've turned EU antitrust and anti-subsidising legislation dodging into an artform over the decades, as they never had the constitutional bank secrecy of certain other, central, pivotal members to hide behind.

Edited October 8, 2014 by L00b

[RollingJ]

Thanks for your examples, L00b - They are the current ones, but I seem to remember something about Peugeot-Citroen getting 'illegal' help somewhere some time back. I could be wrong though, if so - sorry in advance.

[tzijlstra]

Happened in the early 90s. The French Gvt effectively bailed Disney out then, on the run-up to the opening in 1992. Disney couldn't (or didn't want to-) pay CGCE and a few other large-scale contractors on the park build, so the choice Disney gave then was "wipe the slate" or "go bust and wave bye-bye to the flagship job creating moment which the Gvt had been hyping up to Pluto". Guess what the Gvt did?

According to the EU Commission, Apple Inc. by the IE Gvt (a 'secret de polichinelle' as French would say, about as well kept as Microsoft's Irish "Island One" and "Island Two" corporate entities ), Amazon by the LU Gvt (that one is on the starting blocks, should be in today or tomorrow's mainstream news). They're the easy ones, as the biggest and most public heads currently just above the parapet. But you don't want to start (and would really struggle to get the evidence for-) lifting the veil about national military hardware manufacturers...and neither does 'the EU' (meaning, the heads of the biggest EU Member States...in which the said manufacturers reside).

 

Fair's fair, tzijlstra. France really has no lessons to give to any other EU Member States as regards contra-EU rules subsidizing. They've turned EU antitrust and anti-subsidising legislation dodging into an artform over the decades, as they never had the constitutional bank secrecy of certain other, central, pivotal members to hide behind.

 

Fair enough, I am no expert, but I do know that Apple, Google, Amazon, Starbucks and many other US firms that are dodging taxes through the Irish/Dutch tax-sandwich (god knows why it is called that) are under fire at the moment from the to be and previous competition commissioner.

[willman]

France and Germany have always been masters @ protectionism.

Proving they've supported home based products or unfairly interfered with imports has always been an issue.

[L00b]

Thanks for your examples, L00b - They are the current ones, but I seem to remember something about Peugeot-Citroen getting 'illegal' help somewhere some time back. I could be wrong though, if so - sorry in advance.

And Dassault, and EDF, and <...> There's a list as long as my arm.

 

That's before we start to consider the PAC as well, and the fact that the EU Commission eventually had to resort to counting cattle heads by satellite to try and curb fraud (I s**t you not).

Fair enough, I am no expert, but I do know that Apple, Google, Amazon, Starbucks and many other US firms that are dodging taxes through the Irish/Dutch tax-sandwich (god knows why it is called that) are under fire at the moment from the to be and previous competition commissioner.

It's simply a case of the (essentially US-) political pressure reaching critical-enough mass for the gears to start turning.

 

These dodges have been going on for years, they were already very old hat when I started working in Dublin in 2004.

 

Most Joe Blogs don't realise how much pressure the US has put on tax dodges and for how long to try and get at the big boy's tax liabilities, but that is what has eventually put the Swiss banking secrecy on its kness (others have since, and currently are still, following...including Lichtenstein, Luxemburg, <etc.>) and just about eradicated tax havens in this day and age (yes, really...there's not many left at all, and their days are numbered, with Borg-style 'comply/assimilate or else').

 

That political pressure has been intense, but it's not small SMEs or never-heard-of small-ish multinationals you're talking about, but global corporations with cash piles the size of a G20 member's annual budget, so it's taken a while, plus a dire financial crisis and its aftermath.

 

Coincidentally enough, Luxemburg is ending its banking secrecy on annual earnings as of 01 January 2015, at which time it will start reporting annual earnings in Luxemburg of non-residents to their national tax offices. So there may be a bit of correlation here (even though Amazon Sàrl is incorporated in LU and technically resident there).

Edited October 8, 2014 by L00b

[top4718]

I have no interest in going to that one or either of the ones in the USA as I imagine that its even worse than Alton Towers for waiting to go on the rides etc and vastly more expensive.

 

Always thought situating it in Paris was a big mistake due to the weather, somewhere in the South of France would have made more sense.

 

I've always found the Orlando parks to be great, obviously there are queues at peak times they are nowhere near as bad as Alton Towers but everything is handled so well that you hardly notice, they are a bit "all American" so the Paris one never seemed a good idea or appealed to me.

[Mr Bloom]

Mmmm. Should Disneyland Paris be Allowed to Fail?

 

 

 

Errrrrrrr.....

[Harleyman]

Too expensive by far. Took my two sons to Disneyland years ago. For them, my wife and self the admission came to just over 100 dollars and then there was the food and drinks on top of that. End of day it came to near two hundred dollars. Just too much for 8 hours