Shacknews LoL

Yeah, Shacknews Chatty threads now have 24 hour expiries.

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"without me you are nothing" - the motto of every abusive partner ever.

No - they got killed by private equity.

- Lease Buybacks (should be called a Sell Leaseback imo) really fucked the bottom line of so many locations
- Supplier squeeze and race to the bottom on food costs
- Labor cuts leaving their restaurants under staffed

No one expected a Mich star at Red Lobster. But they expected the food to be at least good, but nothing special, and service to be good. Once those things went away when people had their cheddar biscuits craving and found out that Red Lobster couldn't really scratch that itch, their sales comps faltered. But the real bitch is the debt leveraged buy out by private equity with the lease buybacks. That takes a healthy company and absolutely fucks them.

I can't say I'm an expert on debt leveraged buyouts but what I do know about them makes it feel like it should be illegal.

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It used to be Darden. Now it's Golden Gate Capital. If you're thinking "that sounds like one of those private equity firms that would be more valuable to society as a literal smoking crater", you'd be correct.

No.

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It's ludicrously expensive for normal people. I think it would have been like $2K per seat one-way. We didn't pay anywhere near that.

The flight back was coach, and that was miserable. You just shut your brain off and sit there for 9+ hours. Pretty terrible but having thousands of extra dollars when you land is pretty cool as well.

Usually it does go straight through because there are huge tax implications if it doesn't.

However, the companies that do this will be reporting it as THEIR charitable donation, not yours. On the other hand, you're probably getting a shit ton more people donating by having it in storefronts. So. Depends on how you look at it.

Or we could just tax the rich and corporations nominally and not have to have charities.