I don’t know.
Maybe the time has come when we have to swallow the bitter pill of not being able to ever eat a Twinkie again.
This may be my fault, since I haven’t eaten a Twinkie in about forty years, although I eat a package of Hostess Cup Cakes about once a year, because, like Everest, they’re there.
As the article relays, the company has been having some problems staying alive. Most media likes to blame the workers, but we’ll see if the factories open up again with a new workforce after the hoopla has been forgotten. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the workers were able to reopen the factories in a more democratic fashion? The CEO’s can walk away with their money and golf more often. Would that be bad?
#1 by Nathan Erkkila on November 18, 2012 - 1:37 am
So after not eating a Hostess product for 10 years, I can’t really say I’ll miss it. On the other hand, it’s up for grabs so more than likely, Disney will buy it out.
#2 by Larry Bergan on November 18, 2012 - 2:18 am
Conflicts always seem more interesting then friendships, but that’s always the way it’s framed.
To me, death is boring and life is exciting.
#3 by cav on November 18, 2012 - 9:34 am
Hostess TRIPLED their CEO’s salary – while emerging from bankruptcy, demanding further wage cuts from their employees.
There’s a wide-front attack on workers’ rights across the entire industrial West (post-industrial, more like it). The goal being to reset benefits and social gains to just above minimum subsistence level, in order “to become competitive again.”
And this happens while the executive layer funnels trainloads of money and assets to themselves, robbing both their companies and the nations that are desperate to keep an industrial base.
#4 by Larry Bergan on November 18, 2012 - 9:55 am
As I see it:
We need more Buffalo and less bullshit.
The natives had it right.
#5 by Larry Bergan on November 18, 2012 - 11:34 am
I don,t know where the examiner emanates from, but this piece seems to take both sides in favor of the rich; as always:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/ding-dong-hostess-is-dead-and-wicked-union-did-it/article/2513727#.UKknBGewW54
I mean – HONESTLY – ,was that a sarcastic headline?
#6 by Ronald D. Hunt on November 18, 2012 - 9:05 pm
http://www.bctgm.org/2012/11/hostess-contiunes-pattern-of-misinformation/
“the then CEO of Hostess was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256.”
“Over the past 15 months, Hostess workers have seen the company unilaterally end contractually-obligated payments to their pension plan. Despite saving more than $160 million with this action, the company continues to fall deeper and deeper into debt. A mountain of debt and gross mismanagement by a string of failed CEO’s with no true experience in the wholesale baking business have left this company unable to compete or survive.”
Hostess is currently owned by a Bain capital style equity firm, I can only imagine what they are paying in the form of “consulting fees”.
The union accepted large pay cuts in both of the prior bankruptcies, and are currently payed well below market rate for those types of jobs.
It is a damn shame that the executive staff isn’t on the hook for the $160 million stolen from the pension fund.
#7 by cav on November 19, 2012 - 6:30 am
Thank You Ronald.
That ain’t no ‘Frist Twinkie Hyperole 12:21′! Wherein it isalso written: Moroni also fortified one level of Heaven from the next…
We need to get our myths straight.
#8 by cav on November 19, 2012 - 7:06 am
This morning Krugman
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/opinion/krugman-the-twinkie-manifesto.html?hp
has the temerity to claim that we were better off economically under the iron-fisted rule of that wild-eyed Trotskyite and incorrigible sociamalist, the paragon of Marxism Dwight David Eisenhower, who crippled the country into poverty under the crushing 91% tax rate on the 0.01.
The very idea! How dare he point out that the period 1947-1973 was unrivaled in its productivity and economic equality! Doesn’t he realize that all the job creators were stifled and oppressed, and that most of them went Galt for twenty-five years?!
Anyone who uses historical facts to support a position is, ipso facto, unAmerican. Surely we recognize this.
#9 by Larry Bergan on November 19, 2012 - 5:00 pm
I can’t remember rich people complaining or firing their work forces when tax rates for them were at 91%. I say let’s GO back to the good old days.
#10 by Larry Bergan on November 19, 2012 - 7:31 pm
More on lamenting:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook
By the way; Leave it to Beaver was great television.
#11 by cav on November 20, 2012 - 9:25 am
Defense contractors, in anticipation of the fiscal cliff, are holding record amounts of cash reserves. It has occurred to no one in government that that cash came from bloated defense contracts. Those cash reserves run from $2 Billion for the smallest to $6 Billion for Boeing.
These same companies are the among the largest abusers of transfer pricing to avoid paying federal taxes at all, much less 91%.
#12 by Richard Warnick on November 20, 2012 - 4:01 pm
No mystery here. Vulture capitalists ate all the Twinkies.
#13 by Larry Bergan on November 20, 2012 - 5:33 pm
I’m making my way through PBS’s four hour presentation of “The Dust Bowl”. What a great lesson in how humans can ignore natural evolution in favor of fast wealth. At least once the facts were presented, everybody had to admit the disaster was man made. Do we have that ability anymore?
The old white men are having trouble getting things straight, but the younger people are catching on. The problem, for me, is that I’m an old white man who is being defined by ignorant Fox “news” watchers.
You can download the documentary or watch it online.
#14 by cav on November 20, 2012 - 6:34 pm
It ain’t just the vulture capitalists, Richard. The Fred Meyers by where I live received a truckload of Twinkies the other morning and were sold out by noon. Cases upon cases – out the door, presumably to pack turkeys.
#15 by Larry Bergan on November 20, 2012 - 7:14 pm
cav:
Holy cow! I hope nobody got trampled!
Hey, If we learned how to do without Lucky Strike cigarets, we can adapt to the Twinkies apocalypse.
#16 by Larry Bergan on November 20, 2012 - 7:33 pm
I, also remember another product called “Sight Savers” which didn’t clean your glasses very well because they weren’t absorbent at all. It was like trying to clean your glasses with wax paper.
Has anybody heard of “Protein 21″ shampoo lately. I have all my hair to this day, but I remember it falling out in the shower when I was in my twenties. Didn’t do a scientific study on it, but maybe “Protein 21″ did.
Does anybody else remember a failed product line that we could live without?
Perhaps Walmart?
#17 by Richard Warnick on November 21, 2012 - 11:42 am
Hostess Liquidation To Proceed, Bankruptcy Judge Rules
#18 by Larry Bergan on November 21, 2012 - 5:49 pm
Richard:
Looking at the pictures of the different Hostess products on your link reminded me why I never buy them. You can almost taste the preservatives just looking.
Yuck.
#19 by Larry Bergan on November 25, 2012 - 5:55 am
Ding Dong:
I STILL love Paul, George, Ringo and John.
And my best to the Walmart workers in this holiday season.