371–380 of 540 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I don't understand is the value people place on waitstaff being enthusiastic to serve you. I don't care, as long as you they take my order and check on my drinks.
But you clearly care about the staff's enthusiasm to serve you?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We live in a time where almost everything is getting worse. Products are getting smaller, service is getting worse, businesses are closing, quality is going down. I don't think I've ever experienced such an obvious decline in commercial society in my entire life. Is it the financialization of everything? Is that we reached peak growth and profit increases are only possibly through extreme optimization? Is it financia…
Oh man I FEEL this deeply. I was just wondering if it's just me feeling like everything is on a highway to terrible. - Prices in my city, just this year, have felt like they've jumped 10 or 15 percent. - I've been working in tech for a decade now and for the first time a new company simply refused to negotiate salary. - I feel financially worse off than 5 years ago making a third of what I make now. - Housing prices…
We have a total lack of competent leadership across all institutions -- political, commercial and social -- increasing extremism and authoritarianism from every political faction, and cynical short-term thinking from every economic institution. Everything is drowning in mediocrity and pessimism, and society is increasingly dysfunctional in every aspect. Extremists keep proposing authoritarian political solutions, but I see their proposals only as even worse iterations of the problem. What can we do about it, apart from admitting defeat and going off-grid in the mountains?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Private equity takeovers are often just scams to convert customer trust to short-term profits, but labeled as growth. You can get away with cutting quality for a little while, but eventually customers are going to lose trust and you're not going to get it back.
the whole point is to flip the business in 5ish years.
Optimistically, you could see this as a way of freeing operating assets from underperforming businesses and putting them back into circulation, clearing the way for superior competition. But that only works if there is superior competition to fill the gap, and the whole economy isn't saddled with dysfuction, perverse incentives, and bad leadership. Unfortunately, it seems like we're getting closer and closer to that latter situation every day.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've just repeated and rephrased the claim that I challenged without providing any evidence or argument at all. Your actual answer to both questions is "because I believe this". Can you explain how the math works that PE owners make money from discouraging people from going to a restaurant, and other owners don't have the same incentives?
You've replied with the same trivial urban myths that are endlessly repeated about private equity. You've compared the incentives of private equity and a small business owner . Do you think that Red Lobster was previously a small business? Why can't you answer the question on the different incentives that apply to different owners of large businesses? If a private equity fund can make a profit by buying a successful…
To me this is not even slightly surprising. Red Lobster used to be at the top of our list of restaurants. Then in recent years the quality of both the food and service deteriorated. One visit the food was so bad I couldn't even eat it. That was compounded by not having a server to talk to. Took our order and never returned - even had someone else bring out the order. The thing about a restaurant is that you'll always…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We do evil for selfish reasons. God’s Word says the Father draws us to Him, faith itself is a gift He enables, and those who repent receive eternal life and close fellowship with God Himself. Then, His presence in our lives in many ways from changing character to answered prayers. Committing to rebellion in this life gains us nothing in the long term in comparison. A sovereign ruler who is just necessarily has to enf…
Sir, this is a Red Lobster comment thread.
There were also predictions about what would happen if we followed Christ and His model vs other models centered on selfish gain. The other side denied the Biblical truth saying we’d have a better America with godlessness, capitalism, and/or communism. We’ve had time to see where those philosophies would take us. What happened?
God’s Word came true quite literally in many ways while the godless’ predictions were wrong with damaging results. So, the rational choice between multiple worldviews is to think the one that works and has correct predictions is true (or better). And then commit to Christ and repent.
Now, let’s tie that directly into Red Lobster:
1. Christ-like business over worldly greed would have the new owners not sell the real estate the business depended on.
2. Jethro and Paul said to pick leaders of great character and wisdom who aren’t sellouts. They’d have managed it better.
3. Humility in the service sector means constantly listening to customers to adapt to their needs since we put others first. Red Lobster would’ve changed with the times in some way which might have worked out (or not).
4. Proverbs focused on equitable or profitable arrangements. Jesus said to count the cost before you commit to a plan. The Bible often says to seek counsel. These would preclude all you can eat shrimp every day.
In short, Biblical morals would’ve prevented every aspect of this situation. Whereas, godless, unloving capitalism… all those together… naturally leads to things like this. If you will benefit from, but never be held accountable for, destroying the chain… why not make a fortune destroying it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people used to believe in Jesus Christ with values built on the Bible. That was true from lay people to Ivy League colleges to even folks in prison. His blessings with His accountability both made many good things happen and limited lots of damage we’d cause. America was prosperous as the Bible said it would be. Over the decades, people turned away from God and those values to chase new ones: money first, pleasu…
As an American Millennial, all my life I've seen Christians who talk about love and charity on Sunday, and then work the rest of the week to lower taxes on the rich, shame women, and get as many guns into as many American hands as possible. Ultimately, they found their political apotheosis in Donald Trump, who seems to be the physical manifestation of the deadly sins. If he was created in a lab by Atheists to prove t…
As I look at the Word, we see Jesus Christ promised that anyone who repents and believes in Him would receive eternal life by how good He was, not our own works. It’s a gift of grace. From there, John 15 shows real believers who are in the vine bear the fruit. We’re all steadily changed over time (sanctification) to be more like Him. So, we’ll all have faults.
Even in God’s Word, we see all kinds of sin in the churches. They have fake leaders, people about money, sexual immorality, ego, and James says they starve the poor. Yet, apostles call them “saints” because Jesus bought their future. Instead of discarding them, the apostles keep exhorting them to improve to become who they need to be. Anyone that confessed and made an effort would make it.
Whereas, we can’t let any excuse… ourselves or others… separate us from Christ. Apostasy leads to a worse fate than non-belief if one never returns. John says Christ will never let anyone snatch His real sheep out of His hand. He’ll forgive anyone that returns. I encourage you to return to your first love and find a Biblical church (eg GiveThemLife.com has help).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of this just doesn't seem like it flies with consumers in 2024. I think people value quality over consistency when it comes to their leisure spending, especially when small restaurants can still be consistently good. Why do I care that the pancakes at an IHOP in Tampa taste the same as the IHOP in my neighborhood when the local diner across the street makes better pancakes than either of them? Having lots of opti…
I believe there is some market for consistency when your market is explicitly travelers. This is probably why so many motels have chain restaurants in the parking lot: if you've just spent 7 hours in the car getting there, or are primarily staying there on the way to get somewhere else, convenient and predictable trumps good.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Boomer checking in. I totally blame my generation. We spent our whole lives sucking the long term value out of everything we could, for our short term gain. Leaving your generations with massive debt and nothing to show for it. You’re welcome.
Yea, I hate generation wars, but it seems to be increasingly true that most of the economic value created in the last, say, 50 years, was currently either 1. captured by a few extremely wealthy individuals, or 2. locked up in the retirement accounts and real estate of people over 60 years old. I feel like we (the younger generations) are all sitting here holding our breath in this stasis, waiting for that generation…