The fishy death of Red Lobster • Hacker News Board

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#431

Post by habitue » Thu, May 23, 2024, 3:14 PM UTC

thrance wrote: post #418

I've seen many people saying, on this site and others, that they "believe in markets", as if it was their profession of faith. When markets are allowed to work "normally", this is what always happens: regulations are lobbied to the ground, resources get depleted, profitable companies get destroyed to make a quick buck and everyone is worse off in the long term. Having a strong economy is sadly harder than letting the…

Couple points:

Strong companies usually aren't killed in this way. They are making everyone money and their share price is too high to allow activists to get a controlling interest.

"Regulations are lobbied to the ground" is not what is described in the article. The regulation was to conserve fish, and it was so onerous to comply with that only large companies could do it efficiently. Assuming this description is accurate, regulation (i.e. non-free markets) is causing this side-effect of consolidation.

Now, is the regulation worth the side effect? If the consequence is overfishing, yeah, I'll take a little hit to market efficiency to avoid tragedy of the commons. Avoiding tragedy of the commons is a great thing for the government to regulate. The flip side is that the government should have enforced anti-trust better to prevent the consolidation.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#432

Post by lesuorac » Thu, May 23, 2024, 3:14 PM UTC

habitue wrote: post #430

I think the author has a hard time trying to put a "why should we care?" spin on this at the end: Middle class families need a nice night out, and red lobster is the best way to do that! Totally agree that this is vicious jackal like behavior by the PE funds. But as others have said, this is the lifecycle of a dying company. If red lobster's share prices were high because they were extremely profitable and everyone l…

You have a wonky definition of a dieing company.

If a company makes $X in reveune and has $X - Y (YThe price of RL share prices is pretty irrelevant to whether PE can kill it or not. Honestly the higher the price the better it is. If you can spend $100M to buy a company and gut it for $300M that sounds a lot more attractive then buying 100 $1M companies to gut for $3M a peice.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#433

Post by Log_out_ » Thu, May 23, 2024, 3:39 PM UTC

habitue wrote: post #431

thrance wrote: post #418

I've seen many people saying, on this site and others, that they "believe in markets", as if it was their profession of faith. When markets are allowed to work "normally", this is what always happens: regulations are lobbied to the ground, resources get depleted, profitable companies get destroyed to make a quick buck and everyone is worse off in the long term. Having a strong economy is sadly harder than letting the…

Couple points: Strong companies usually aren't killed in this way. They are making everyone money and their share price is too high to allow activists to get a controlling interest. "Regulations are lobbied to the ground" is not what is described in the article. The regulation was to conserve fish, and it was so onerous to comply with that only large companies could do it efficiently. Assuming this description is acc…

There should be a law that allows companies to self split once they become monopolies. As in a person can collect evidence of a monopolie and then can walk out of the busters office with the standalone part of the company thats the monopoly as a compamy of its own. Make those that conspire and lobby for the r monopolies those who would profit the most on busting.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#434

Post by jfengel » Thu, May 23, 2024, 3:46 PM UTC

moralestapia wrote: post #408

neom wrote: post #393

I went to red lobster in Toronto yesterday as a "lets save red lobster Canada" idea I had in my head, they came to Canada the year I was born and my dad was obsessed so I have a lot of nostalgia. Came out thinking: let em burn. Worse than mediocre rubber for $200 after tip and tax.

I had a really bad dining experience the one single time I went to Red Lobster; happened at the same place probably (Toronto, the one in Bay Street?) hence why I want to share. I came in to the restaurant and there was no one at the front desk, but the place seemed to be operating normally so I just went on to seat at the nearest table I found. Waiters just started ignoring me; at some point I realized this was on pu…

Just to explain a bit of restaurant procedure:

It sounds like you seated yourself at a section that wasn't open. "Sections" are often not obvious to customer, but they're really important to the wait staff. You don't grab tables outside your section; it can be seen as attempting to grab more tips. (A Red Lobster probably has tip pooling, but still, working outside your section is a no-no.) Eventually they got somebody to open your section.

Threatening to call security is also a no-no. He should have called the manager over. But if the host desk was unoccupied for more than a couple of minutes, it sounds like the manager was off fighting some kind of fire.

With the host desk unoccupied, the restaurant would prefer that you ask a passing waiter to find the host.

So I'm not surprised that wait staff were ignoring you. A better waiter would have figured out what was going on and signaled the host to come talk to you, and move you into an open section. But if you're waiting tables at Red Lobster, you're not being hired for your initiative.

Anyway... I hope that helps explain what happened. The upshot: don't seat yourself, but it sounds like they were being mismanaged anyway.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#435

Post by jsnell » Thu, May 23, 2024, 3:48 PM UTC

jonhohle wrote: post #409

johngladtj wrote: post #398

I'm continually amazed by how much outrage normal and perfectly reasonable business strategies generate in the general public. None of this is unusual or in any way wrong. Red lobster (and olive garden) were mismanaged, and the investment funds were right about that. Their attempts at salvaging the situation were perfectly reasonable, even if they were ultimately unsuccessful. You're welcome to be outraged, but that…

Did you read the article? The mismanagement was the supplier buying the purchaser with the most negotiating power and bankrupt them (by extracting as much equity as possible). This leaves purchasers with less negotiating power and the ability to raise prices. It was intentional. While I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the strategy, the comparison with there health industry jives with my own experiences. Insurance com…

No, I think Doctorow is explicitly arguing the opposite? He is saying that it wasn't Thai Union that killed the chain, but the previous (PE) owners. Even the title says that.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#436

Post by jjkaczor » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:06 PM UTC

hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #394

neom wrote: post #393

I went to red lobster in Toronto yesterday as a "lets save red lobster Canada" idea I had in my head, they came to Canada the year I was born and my dad was obsessed so I have a lot of nostalgia. Came out thinking: let em burn. Worse than mediocre rubber for $200 after tip and tax.

Is it the same sh* like Tim Hortons? RIP then...

Man, I wish Tim Hortons would die...

But, it's like the 'default' addiction for Canadians and crappy coffee (especially after they switched their coffee supplier to a much worse grade).

Before that, it was removing their in-house bakeries and supplying flash-frozen donut offerings. (And then after shifting the "overton window" for a couple years - reducing sizes, but keeping prices the same - they sold that as "healthier")

They moved their yearly promotional contest to an "app-only" mechanism - and have had major errors in notifying winners for 2-years in a row. (This year, my wife was notified that she won a $70,000+ boat+trailer... well, apparently so did a quarter-million other Canadians...)

And then there is the ever shifting introduction of nightmare food offerings - they keep shuffling the chairs around like something is going to be a big "hit".

The latest is crappy "cardboard flatbread pizza" - and they seemed to have removed the simple "grilled cheese" to accommodate that.

Their franchise owners blatantly abused the TFW program for obtaining minimum wage workers - and now they are abusing the student visa changes, because the TFW program was tightened.

They need to go. (The conglomerate who owns them, not the franchises - or workers)

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#437

Post by screye » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:13 PM UTC

xyst wrote: post #403

Private equity is also getting into professional American football. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10122183-report-nfl-owne...

Chelsea FC the football club, was acquired by a PE firm in 2022.

It's been a grand mess from day 1. All of PE's common failings are on display for the 100s of millions of premier league viewers.

* Arrogantly uprooting working structures because PE knows better

* Lack of domain knowledge means over reliance on flimsy statistics

* a general sense of discomfort for every working member of the club

* Optimisticly dumping money to exploit so called loopholes that somehow every other team had missed (they hadn't, the loopholes were double edged swords)

* Destruction of legacy, eliminating the emotional aspect that keeps someone supporting a team.

* Haphazard changes with large impact that get touted as reform, but come across as cluelessness.

And this a *good* PE firm who is pouring money into an asset that is likely grow as the market grows. So not exactly a pclueless best.

_____

I've supported Chelsea for 20 years now, and 2022-24 was the only time my love for it has diminished.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#438

Post by s1artibartfast » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:14 PM UTC

thrance wrote: post #418

I've seen many people saying, on this site and others, that they "believe in markets", as if it was their profession of faith. When markets are allowed to work "normally", this is what always happens: regulations are lobbied to the ground, resources get depleted, profitable companies get destroyed to make a quick buck and everyone is worse off in the long term. Having a strong economy is sadly harder than letting the…

I'm absolutely okay with the market destroying companies. It's literally one of the points of having a market to begin with. That sometimes also includes profitable companies.

I think the parent post is a fundamental misunderstanding of what markets are intended to do. If you want a static world that doesn't and can't change, then of course something like a command economy is preferable

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#439

Post by s1artibartfast » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:17 PM UTC

ninininino wrote: post #421

thrance wrote: post #418

I've seen many people saying, on this site and others, that they "believe in markets", as if it was their profession of faith. When markets are allowed to work "normally", this is what always happens: regulations are lobbied to the ground, resources get depleted, profitable companies get destroyed to make a quick buck and everyone is worse off in the long term. Having a strong economy is sadly harder than letting the…

Market economies destroyed the wildlife fauna of North America. It's incredible when you see photographs of what used to exist here.

Go look at parts of China, Russia, North Korea, and Vietnam and compare.

You also might be shocked to find that Native Americans also had a market economy.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#440

Post by kjkjadksj » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:21 PM UTC

Yujf wrote: post #423

ninininino wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market economies destroyed the wildlife fauna of North America. It's incredible when you see photographs of what used to exist here.

At least north america has some wild places and animals left. In most of europe there is almost nothing left. We destroyed everything.

Its mostly stuff in the west anyhow. Eastern half of the US is a lot like europe where if there was any ground fit to drag a plow it was plowed. States like Iowa are totally plowed. The idea of the federal government sitting on empty land for recreation is a new thing, really started with yellowstone after the US expanded west of the mississippi. Even yellowstone was almost dammed like the hetch hetchy.