Also: these four panels are FAR more clear about this topic than *ANY* of the many articles I have read about this. Excellent work.

perfection

Great comic. Private equity firms are indeed awful & predictable. Every customer I've had that's been PE-funded has had some colossally shitty directives aimed at them, all for short term financials:
1. Audit customers, pull in short term revenue & burn down futures & relationships
2. Kill growth projects, close depts & reduce ops costs
3. Eliminate open headcount & layoff staff down to the bare bones to keep the lights on
4. Sell off business in 1yr with "shiny, new financials"

that is truly evil. Making generosity (endless shrimp) the villain of the cautionary tale, instead of corporate greed. This is also happening in hospitals, as small, regional hospitals are bought up by private equity firms. It’s one reason some counties have no hospitals & why there was not enough staff & PPE during the early days of the pandemic.

Didn't that private equity firm also hold stake in the businesses that Red Lobster had to buy the shrimp from or something like that?

@peltast After they sold off the real estate assets, the PE firm sold the company to the shrimp supplier, which was a whole 'nother disaster

@eldubuu I'm not normally one to defend chain restaurants, but a lot of people lost their jobs with little to no notice, and this transferred even more wealth to the already wealthy.

Public companies also sell and lease back land. The real problem is wealth preferring to just own land at any price even if its an empty building. Because scarcity will push prices higher.

☝️Paging @pluralistic this reminded me of your Red Lobster article 😀

Another mechanism of enshittification. @pluralistic