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Getting price-gouged by private equity in the UK's happiest resort (2023)

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Re: Getting price-gouged by private equity in the UK's happiest resort (2023)

#101

Post by geodel »

blitzar wrote: post #43
llimos wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the government want to help (and the new government has shown a strange attraction to price interference), they could simply let schools choose their own holidays, as long as they have the right number of school days in the year. It would be a bit harder for families with kids in different schools, but probably most schools would be _more or less_ the same, with just a bit more variation to spread it around a litt…

School holidays are already annoyingly staggered +/- a week for different schools.

What's so annoying about it?

Re: Getting price-gouged by private equity in the UK's happiest resort (2023)

#102

Post by n4r9 »

rwmj wrote: post #6

PE is terrible, but this isn't a good example as there's plenty of competition for Center Parcs. Plus they raise their prices during school holidays when there's greatest demand, that's not an unfair practice, that's rationing out a limited resource when demand is greatest, economics 101. Bad PE looks like private equity trying to corner the market in vets[1] and dental practices[2], services that you don't really ha…

Who do you see as competitors to Center Parcs? Butlins and Pontins spring to mind initially, but are actually pretty different.

Re: Getting price-gouged by private equity in the UK's happiest resort (2023)

#103

Post by throwup238 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #26
londons_explore wrote: post #10

Notably... This business owns a lot of forest in the UK. The UK doesn't have much forest. So, they can make themselves appear more valuable by pushing up the price of forest land. Forest land used to be priced based on the lumber value - which is almost nil. There was also the pricing element of the possible agricultural value if it were to be cut down (which is also almost nul, because the land is usually unsuitable…

> Most don't sell, but a few do - and thats all you need to make the basis of a new market price. That seems like an elementary mistake for a buyer/lender (who would be appraising the property for use as collateral). Unless the lender has a too big to fail guarantee where everyone but the taxpayer wins as long as a plausibly deniable deal is made. As an aside, the linked article has no substance to support its theory…

The banks don’t care because they package the loans up as securities and sell them to investors. The investors don’t care as long as they’re packaged up with a bunch of other healthy mortgages.

This was one of the causes of the ‘08 financial crisis.

Re: Getting price-gouged by private equity in the UK's happiest resort (2023)

#104

Post by dspillett »

ggm wrote: post #58
dspillett wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a con, more like obfuscation. Which is a very subtle and complex distinction, like the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance.

Feather? Legal. Whole bloody chicken? Pornography.

Nah, the feather is erotic, the chicken is kinky. Both legal by my understanding. Unless the chicken is live.

Re: Getting price-gouged by private equity in the UK's happiest resort (2023)

#105

Post by dahart »

HeatrayEnjoyer wrote: post #78
dwighttk wrote: post #53

“Price-gouged” is sort of a dog-whistle for me these days… most often when it is used it is a person complaining about a limited resource costing more when in high demand. It’s not always 100% that but usually leans heavily that way on the spectrum.

...you're describing price gouging.

There is a real (and sometimes large) but also subjective distinction between price gouging and market (supply & demand) pricing. The article discussed higher prices during peak demand school holidays, which isn’t price gouging on its own, and only suggests normal market high-demand pricing. Most importantly, the high demand pricing is regular and predictable: everyone knows when the school holidays are coming and they know in advance when the prices will be higher. Price gouging is most often used to describe selling basic needs at very extreme prices during an emergency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging

Also important to note here, the UK has anti price gouging laws. This doesn’t mean Center Parcs isn’t violating them, but without any specific evidence, I’d guess a good default assumption is that what they’re doing isn’t price gouging by the law’s definition.

Re: Getting price-gouged by private equity in the UK's happiest resort (2023)

#106

Post by jogjayr »

geodel wrote: post #100
gklitz wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can change it up slightly, but there is just no way to go from a delta distribution around the same weeks to a uniform distribution around the year. People want to have summer vacation in summer, and they often want it to overlaps with the vacation of relatives and family. You’ll never get a system where demand for vacation options is independent of period.

> People want to have summer vacation in summer Well that's just kind of truism. It is forced by policies and not some innate behavior of people in all places or of all classes.

It isn't a truism. Summer is when the weather is good.

Re: Getting price-gouged by private equity in the UK's happiest resort (2023)

#108

Post by b800h »

Retric wrote: post #87
b800h wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally yes - generational farms are expected to go out of business when the head of the family dies as a result, and have to sell up to massive farm businesses.

That’s great news! Small family farms are a significant economic drain. I’m only half serious, but protecting multigenerational business does come with serious drawbacks.

This isn't "protecting" multigenerational businesses. Inheritance tax shouldn't be a thing in the first place.

Re: Getting price-gouged by private equity in the UK's happiest resort (2023)

#109

Post by krisoft »

thebruce87m wrote: post #99
krisoft wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you be more concrete please? What did you do? What did you experience? Basically I'm asking this because I'm trying to understand. I see two options: option 1: the oven is lacking several expected safety features and it is actually dangerous. option 2: the oven has the usual safety features, you (and your toddler) were perfectly safe, you just didn't know this because you don't understand how gas ovens function…

Honestly, I can’t remember the details. I turned the nob to preheat the oven not realising it was gas. Later came back to check, opened the door to a strong smell of gas. Maybe it had cut out by then, not sure. Was I dumb? Yes, but I’d just driven for hours and was trying to unpack, handle the rest of the family and cook dinner all at once and was still in the mindset of the electric oven I had at home.

> Was I dumb?

Doesn't sounds like it. I mean in general it is bad form to blame users for safety problems. Even more so in an unfamiliar environment.

If the oven had a safety thermocouple and it was working correctly there should have been 0 gas smell after what you say you did. If you did that and smelled gas then the oven was either faulty or very old.

Re: Getting price-gouged by private equity in the UK's happiest resort (2023)

#110

Post by fransje26 »

dahart wrote: post #105
HeatrayEnjoyer wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...you're describing price gouging.

There is a real (and sometimes large) but also subjective distinction between price gouging and market (supply & demand) pricing. The article discussed higher prices during peak demand school holidays, which isn’t price gouging on its own, and only suggests normal market high-demand pricing. Most importantly, the high demand pricing is regular and predictable: everyone knows when the school holidays are coming and th…

> The article discussed higher prices during peak demand school holidays, which isn’t price gouging on its own, and only suggests normal market high-demand pricing. Most importantly, the high demand pricing is regular and predictable [..] Price gouging is most often used to describe selling basic needs at very extreme prices during an emergency.

This is more a defense of price-gouging by bringing in market-based price fixing arguments than a strong argument to defend a "fair" price.

We can take the price of insulin in the US as an example fitting that description:

- It is a "normal market" high-demand pricing

- The demand is regular and predictable.

- There no emergency (except for the diabetics that cannot afford the medicine they desperately need)

And yet, at 10x the average price of insulin on the European market, it is clearly price-gouging.

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