I logged onto Yahoo about five minutes ago and noticed that Microsoft just posted a 32.6 BILLION dollar dividend. After saying holly shnikies, taking turns with my fellow officemates bending over and kicking one another in the backside for investing in companies other than Microsoft, and picking my chin off the floor, I began to think about this fact in relation to railroads.
I remember Mark noting that it would only take about 85 billion to buy all the rail lines in America. Microsoft, which isn’t even America’s most lucrative company, just paid out a dividend over one third of their worth. That makes it seem as though Microsoft could buy all the railroads in this country as an afterthought.
Suddenly, I just don’t feel as though my passion for trains is that important to the public anymore.[sigh]
They don’t make Christmas movies about Windows, there are remarkably few folk songs about the Crash of Ol’ Operating Systems, and nobody ever lay awake at night listening to the far-off ping of incoming e-mail and dreaming of far away places. Also, folk legends of heroic Sys Ops are non-existent. We are embedded way deeper in the culture.
Gabe, Don’t worry, it is just public perception. Well, yah, money, too. But, aside from the fact that Microsoft shareholders would would find their assets in the tank and the economic ripples might be about tsumai (Sp?) size, if Microsoft liquidated, life with computers, as we know it, would probably continue on.
Much of Microsoft’s dividend comes from the fact that it tends to operate a lot like a bank and reinvests much of its net income into securities, not necessarily its core business.
You don’t know us geeks very well, do you? I’ll have to see if I can pull up a few computer related songs. (Ok, they’re all parodies thus far, but it’s just a small sample.)
To the tune of Gillian’s Island (http://www.humorcentral.net/audio/gilligan.wav)
“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tail about my virtual trip.
It started on my I.B.M. with a single little click…”
To the tune of Oh Come All Ye Faithful:
“Oh COM on 0 3 F 8…”
(Don’t take this personally, just want to make sure you understand the stuff’s out there, just out of the common person’s knowledge.)
Gabe,
Maybe it’s your perception of things, just because you’re a railfan.
I think all of us wish we’d bought Microsoft way back when.
Almost everyone has a computer, and there are relatively few of us, in the large scope of things, who railfan. I doubt anyone goes out to watch a computer run by, or takes pictures of one, or has meetings with their buddies to talk about them.
Trains still haul LOTS of stuff to LOTS of places. They’re big and loud a smell good. AND a lot of people still make a pretty good living working for the railroad.
Keep your passion for trains and enjoy it for yourself. Don’t care about what the rest of them think.
But I do have an off-topic comaparison… I love drag racing and sprint car racing, but all I get on TV is NASCAR. I’ll bet if you checked, NASCAR turns a pretty hefty profit too. But it doesn’t mean I love sprint cars or dragsters any less, and it doesn’t matter to me what anyone else thinks about them , or trains either.
Microsoft’s dividend situation is sort of a once in awhile type thing.
They have accumulated so much cash, no make that SO MUCH CASH, that they have nothing to do with it. So, they are giving it back to the owners of the company.
Why? Lets see:
Cannot find anyone worth while to purchase in tech industry.
Do not want to fight Justice Dept over any purchases in the tech industry.
T bills and commercial paper are returning about 3% now, which tends to drag down the ROE.
Railroads are not a core business and should not be invested in even tho Mr. Gates does seem to like trains (or so I have read). Plus the ROE for railroads is pretty low.
The tax rate on dividends is fairly low at this time, so it makes sense to do so.
By being a dividend paying company, it puts Microsoft into play as a “value” stock, thus making it a stock which “value” funds can purchase. So, it is more liquid.
Microsoft is a textbook company for stocks that should be owned. Enormous brand recognition and huge ROE. Same for Coca Cola, McDonalds, and a few others. Note those companies have relatively few assets, the opposite of rails, which are asset intensive, have no brand loyalty and basically have a product that is a commodity (except for value added situations).
Not to worry, this isn’t going to stop me from being a rail fan–I don’t think that is even possible.
It is more that I liked the fact that my hobby was an integral part of the national economy and that rail knowledge translated to insights into the economy as a whole. Now, it seems as though any insights I might have are yesterday’s news.
I can think of several ways for the railroad to fix that.
1/ Advertising, lots of proganda and other marketing gimics
One of the main reasons why things are sucessful is that it is the public is constantly bombarded by advertising and slogans making people think that they need their product. The railroad is no exception really. NS and UP obviously have some idea of this as I have seen their t.v commercials before but not enough. They need to market themselves not just to the customer but to the general public to explain to them the importants of the industry. Essentially what this is designed to do is keep the voter informed and get them to do much of the pressuring on the politicians particularly when it comes to an election. A smart idea. Many industries do this including the automotive industry and its lobby groups.
I somehow doubt that the UP and NS commercials are accomplishing very much that furthers the attractiveness of railroads to the general public. And the commercials certainly do very little, I suspect, to attract shippers who would otherwise patronize another mode.
Yes, commercials could definitely rekindle some sense of romance in railroading – think what the Armed Forces commercial makers could do with a railroad commercial! – but I’m not sure any existing railroad knows enough, or has the right kind of ‘desire’, to do that…
Part of the problem is that when railroads note that they are run like businesses, both the romance and the public perception tends to decline… quite the opposite of what happens with Microsoft et al. Remember the context of that “public be damned” remark that W.H. Vanderbilt made? It would be somewhat difficult for the E. Hunter Harrison vision of railroading to come across as a dramatic role model for our youth’s careers, eh?
Even assuming for a moment that mass-market type advertising convinced me that railroads were “all that and a cup of tea,” it is not exactly going to make me run out and start shipping by rail. Why? Because I, the general public, and other such groups that are susceptable to mass advertising have absolutely nothing to ship by rail.
Mass advertising that works so well in selling beer doesn’t strike me as being at all successful in selling freight. This is not to say that advertising plays no roles, it is just not the same kind of role and it is not like selling beer.
Rail transportation is much closer to a utility like a phone company. For instance, AT&T, MCI, and Sprint can advertise all they want. They all provide basically the same service and type of service. Accordingly, no matter how much they make me familiar with their market name, I am still going to switch to AT&T for a lower rate and their $100 check they give me to change to them, and then switch back to
There’s very little that’s newsworthy about railroads nowadays. The railroads just do their job without fuss. That said, there were three news stories (and a Chicago Tribune editorial) on railroads this week here in Chicago.
To give you an idea of how much railroads are taken for granted, a Metra train that’s 10 minutes late makes the radio traffic report.
A major consideration in this example is that AT&T, Verizon, MCI, and Sprint are advertising their consumer services. When was last time you saw an ad for AT&T long line service (that which actually connects your long distance, your Internet, your bank to its headquarters, etc)? Where I work, we deal with these folks on a regular basis, as they provide the circuits we use to connect our voice and data to the rest of the world. Fact is, they don’t advertise it to the public. Perhaps in a trade publication, but not to John Q. The railroads are little different. They have no product to offer the general public. Potential shippers, yes, and you may well see advertising specifically targeted to those customers.
As far as you saying that advertising isn’t the key, consider this.
If UP et all didn’t advertise to sell the importance of the railroad, wouldn’t the general public be more incline to say to heck with rail and try to convert all lines into bike paths or something else that they thought was more important?
It is all in public opinion and how the industry is percieved. If the railroads continue to advertise, it might make others want to do business with the railroads because than the business can take advantage of the popular choice and say they ship by whomever. Kind of like telling folk that "our computers come with Windows 2000 (wow Windows big deal) but it is a big deal because the advertising and marketing strategy long ago sold the general public that it was a good idea so of course now it is the trend. Another example, “All of our products are 100% American”, some industries of said this and although they may not cater to the average Joe, their P.R has been altered and now they are respected as a “true blue American” company.
It is all on image. This is a material world and you can do anything including the railroads, unless you sell yourself to everybody not just those who will use your product or service. Anybody can ship by rail if not direct spur than by intermodal including Allied Van Lines. If you trust the rail more with your furniture than just a truck, chances are you will hire someone like Allied Van Lines. If you are a person who likes a good investment and you want to know of a company that is good, how do you do it. I may not have any use for a railroad but if I see that it is an important industry, I might be inclined to invest in it for a return of money. If people don’t know what the company is and are not shown that it is important period, nobody will be interested in it and will not appreciate its importants. If advertising wasn’t the key to establishing importance, would CN have www.cn.ca on their locomotives or UP have We Will Deliver on