Bitchin Dave's Newsletter - May 19th
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What happened a few weeks ago with Spirit airlines is maybe a little dispiriting (pun intended) for several specific reasons: we lost a low cost carrier that drove the competition to keep pricing down, there were many thousands of workers who were laid off, and we got a not-so-great lesson in economics.
It's that lesson that I wanted to talk about. Spirit was a Fort Lauderdale - based airline, and that made it an employer of note in my hometown. Did I love them? No. Had I ever flown them? Also no. But they drove some amount of economy here locally.
Sometime around 2016, Frontier looked to acquire them, but the price point was too low, and the shareholders rejected that. Then, in 2022, there was a much-hyped offer for JetBlue to acquire them. This one was complicated. It wasn't entirely clear what JetBlue would get out of it, other than adding planes and some routes to its portfolio. But it wasn't a great fit and there was internal strife. Several vocal rejections by shareholders were noted, and the board was also working to reject it.
Ultimately, it was nixed by the Biden-era DOJ who said that allowing them to merge would raise prices and stifle competition. To be fair, if the DOJ had allowed it to proceed, it's still possible (maybe even likely) that the board of JetBlue would have killed the deal anyway. But, sure, lets "blame it on Biden" ...
The thing that was clear 4 years ago was that without a change, Spirit would not be able to continue operation for very long. It was a well-known fact that they needed operating capital in an ever-changing landscape.
Enter private equity in around 2024, who bought a stake in the airline and helped manage it along, with an intent to have it sold somewhere.
But it still wasn't enough, and in early 2026, Spirit needed an influx of capital. The airline and the private equity ownership asked the government for a bailout.
The T-rump administration asked for a 90% stake in the company, which would make it government owned. The board of Spirit wasn't aligned with that. And that private equity firm said no thanks; there would be little return for them.
So they declared bankruptcy, and are selling their planes, and their routes to other airlines (notably: JetBlue). And in the end, they went out of business and we lost a low-cost airline, anyway. Based on the desire to have it be state run, it's funny that almost no one is saying "blame it on T-rump" and point back to the failed merger as their reason for the bankruptcy.
But it's as much the problem of private equity as it is anything else.
What's sad is that the media can't wrap their head around all that's happened here. The debt should get mostly paid off, but the private equity firm will also get a nice payout for their "help" ... and as always, we consumers get screwed.
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This is a long form article about, essentially, Disney betting big on physical experiences such as theme parks and cruise lines.
It’s an interesting perspective to be sure. And they do point out that the other CEO that took over for Iger - chapek - was also investing in theme parks, but he was very big on the revenue and thus raised prices and cut amenities.
Something D’Amaro appears less likely to do. But we'll see…
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Using the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists took some amazing visible light photos of Saturn.
Then, they turned the James Webb Space Telescope to it, and got some incredible infrared shots of Saturn.
Using both, they currently have a pretty detailed look at our celestial neighbor.
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Here’s a study that’s worth taking a look at. Of course the headline itself is a little misleading. The scientists break it down thoroughly in their study findings. They studied people with healthy, plant-based diets and did discover the incidence of lung cancer was higher.
However, what they also discovered is that the reason wasn't the fruits and vegetables themselves, but rather the pesticides and remaining residue that people consumed on the plant matter.
Does that mean one shouldn't eat plants? Of course not! It means that we need to find better ways to remove pesticides from them before ingestion (because we all know that the industry will not stop using pesticides; that is a losing battle!)
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This is an interesting look at an archaeological find. It shows a couple of things: (a) these appear to be homosapiens, which tells us that these early humans wandered farther than we previously thought, (b) the reason for their wandering may have been related to the ice age, and (c) we really need to re-think what we think we know about our early ancestors.
And again, this underscores the beauty of science. We have a notion of what early ancestors did, and where they traveled. But, we can continue to learn and update those theories, because we gather more evidence,
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So much to unpack in this story. It shows how ships were built. Unlocks some stories about how trade worked. Tells us a little about the human spirit. And of course creates new mysteries around how the ship wound up inland; probably through changing oceans?
It’s always amazing what we can learn.
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Here’s an interesting concept: use banana stems and pulp, that otherwise goes to waste, to create tissue paper and other materials.
In early tests, it can be done fairly cheaply, so this definitely has some potential.
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Bonus: On the other side of Disney is the story about how they are trying to use AI to create more content. At the expense of actual people!
Here are two views on that topic.
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