• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Twinkies maker Hostess going out of business

Vulture capitalists took over Hostess and borrowed 450 million against Hostess - not against the hedge funds who owned Hostess. Some of the plants had production machinery that was built in the 1920's. We might assume that investment in equipment, long before now, might have increased efficiency and profit. The hedge fund owners then asked the union to kick in 100 million. They did. Mismanagement continued, Hostess continued to dive. The hedge fund held owners then asked for more concessions from the union, which included salary reductions and loss of retirement benefits. Management including the CEO awarded themselves huge salary increases. There is no record how much the hedge fund owners took out of the company compared to how much they put in. It is reported that they covered their investment and made money, but not as much as they had hoped as they sucked the company dry and milked the workers for everything they could.


"Milked the workers for everything they could."

What does that mean other than a slogan?

Offer ANY $18 an hour job around here and people would line up for 300 yards.
 
The taxes were taken out of their pay checks.

I would guess most got a small tax return at the end of the year and paid very little in income taxes - certainly not $20,000 a years.

As for screwing the workers, Hostess management COULD NOT formally close down, but instead could let the strike keep them closed - and striking employees would get NO unemployment benefits.

Formally going out of business makes employees eligible for unemployment. The Board of Directors didn't have to do it this way. They could have let the employees wanting to strike hang out to dry.
 
I would guess most got a small tax return at the end of the year and paid very little in income taxes - certainly not $20,000 a year

So they still paid SS taxes and unemployment.
 
if you cant pay rent making $18 per hour you really need to step back and look at your income vs. outgo and figure out what you are doing wrong, its not the employers fault .......and tell us how does one need to make to afford an expensive medical procedure?.....and why throw the "children card"?...my wife just had a procedure done las week that cost me $1700 out of pocket after insurance.....do i need to go talk to my boss about a raise?...NO, i just man up and take care of MY business, its not my employers problem..............besides, $18 per hour to make cupcakes?...really?...we're talkin cupcakes, not digital cardiac pacemakers............thats whats wrong with the Auto unions, paying somebody $40 per hour to screw on a door handle
If 100 autoworkers make 100 cars, it is equivalent to each worker making a $20,000 car even if he only screws on a door. Besides, that work is monotonous and hard to put up with. If you don't stand up to your wage-gouging, luxury-living boss, don't sneer at those who are manly enough to fight back.

Fat cats love mice. Are you a man or a mouse?
 
Ohhh of course the typical "its the union's fault" card right?
Typical...

Anyways something to think about:
1jvoma.jpg

Just a bunch of partisan-crap slogans, nothing else.
 
Just a bunch of partisan-crap slogans, nothing else.

Naw, no way. "Bain-style crony capitalism" is a totally objective and non-partisan term in business. :roll:

The duck/dodge/dive approach to cast blame for this closure elsewhere than the unions--whose effect on business has always been toxic--is nothing but desperation and willful denial. In the end, the business does not exist, and the union's role in its non-existance is undeniable. Sit with that and squirm, lefties.
 
What I've noticed instead is that, especially in immigrant-owned convenience stores, the managers replace the good stuff with off-brand junk. I suspect these are concocted by slave-wage companies that can offer a bigger profit margin to the stores.

Actually, that is exactly the kind of thing you should be supporting if I am not correct.

You see, Hostess is part of a large National corporation, like WallMart. And they charge more because they have to support dead wood and pay for operations that do not return as much money.

Where as most of the "off-brand" companies are normally locally owned and operated, quite often a single location that is normally only an LLC.

SO this is an irony, you are actually saying that the big Conglomerate is better then the small family owned businesses?
 
If 100 autoworkers make 100 cars, it is equivalent to each worker making a $20,000 car even if he only screws on a door. Besides, that work is monotonous and hard to put up with. If you don't stand up to your wage-gouging, luxury-living boss, don't sneer at those who are manly enough to fight back.

Fat cats love mice. Are you a man or a mouse?


Being manly is not standing in an unemployment line to live off the government tit. Besides, stop being a crybaby about it. They played poker and they lost.
 
But come on, a professional sports union? This is just getting out of hand, when somebody with a starting wage of over $750,000 (and your guaranteed salary after 5 years is over $1 million) needs a union.

.
You're begging the question. The only reason players get paid like that (which is only fair because they produce billions in revenue) is because they finally organized a union after 100 years of wage slavery. I first realized this when reading Jim Bouton's Ball Four. He was a 20-game winner in the pre-union 60s who had to beg for a salary of $18,000! Even adjusting for inflation, that is about 3% of what he could get today. Most players back then had to work during the off-season.

I identify the method of attaining economic freedom of superior athletes with what superior minds should do. Nobel Prize winner Kary Mullis got a $30,000 bonus for his invention, which his inferior-IQ corporate slavemasters sold for $300,000,000! That's .01%, and in general superior minds get the same raw deal non-unionized superior athletes got. The Capitaliban merely hike the ball, the employeess make it gain ground, and the STEM employees are the superstars.
 
You're begging the question. The only reason players get paid like that (which is only fair because they produce billions in revenue) is because they finally organized a union after 100 years of wage slavery. I first realized this when reading Jim Bouton's Ball Four. He was a 20-game winner in the pre-union 60s who had to beg for a salary of $18,000! Even adjusting for inflation, that is about 3% of what he could get today. Most players back then had to work during the off-season.

And does anybody think it will go back to that point again anytime in the future?

Look, I have no problem with employees unionizing if conditions and wages are crap. But that does not mean the union has to be a permanent fixture. Because almost every time, what eventually happens is that the unions themselves start to exploit the workers, wanting the higher pay (and dues) to fill their own coffers.

Trust me, this is no longer the 1960's. The players now make almost obscene salaries, as do actors. It always puzzled me how we have salary caps on CEOs, but not on employees. But if the Baseball union dissapeared tomorrow, do you or anybody else in here think the days will return to where the players make starvation wages?

For me, I have pretty much abandoned watching professional sports. The unions and strikes have pretty much ruined the game's enjoyment, and now I stick strictly to more amateur sports, like skiing and college football.

But nice dodge there, I guess you really do favor the big national conglomerates over the small local companies.
 
"Milked the workers for everything they could."

What does that mean other than a slogan?

Offer ANY $18 an hour job around here and people would line up for 300 yards.

The hedge fund DIDN'T invest in Hostess, it borrowed the money to "invest" in Hostess BUT it transferred the debt to Hostess. As a result Hostess didn't actually receive a large infusion of capitol to improve the company, make it more competitive and upgrade its manufacturing. The hedge funds Bained Hostess. They transferred the debt to the company thus making a very difficult situation even worse for Hostess employees. At the same time they went back to the workers and told them they had to pony up some more money! During this process Hostess executives were given large raises and golden parachutes. THAT is milking the workers.
 
The hedge fund DIDN'T invest in Hostess, it borrowed the money to "invest" in Hostess BUT it transferred the debt to Hostess. As a result Hostess didn't actually receive and infusion of investment to improve the company, make it more competitive and upgrade its manufacturing. The hedge fund Bained them. The transferred the debt to the company thus making a very difficult situation even worse for Hostess employees. At the same time they went back to the workers and told them they had to pony up some more money! During this process Hostess executives were given large raises and golden parachutes. THAT is milking the workers.

I guess I'd rather be a hedge fund person than a worker.

LIFE IS SO UNFAIR, isn't it?:doh
 
Hey, it wasn't only the rotten, evil investors taking money out of the company, do you know that the employees took 100% of their money out of the company?! 100%!!!!! I haven't read that even 1 employee took less than 100% of their paychecks.

Just how greedy could those employees be?!

And the company going broke won't show up on their credit reports either. That's how corrupt the system is for total greedy people like the Hostess employees are. And it's not like the employees wanted a little bit of the money they could get in their paychecks, they wanted 100% of it!

Anyone who wants to make money off a corporation is fundamentally evil, and the most evil of all then is the Hostess employees.
 
And does anybody think it will go back to that point again anytime in the future?

Look, I have no problem with employees unionizing if conditions and wages are crap. But that does not mean the union has to be a permanent fixture. Because almost every time, what eventually happens is that the unions themselves start to exploit the workers, wanting the higher pay (and dues) to fill their own coffers.

Trust me, this is no longer the 1960's. The players now make almost obscene salaries, as do actors. It always puzzled me how we have salary caps on CEOs, but not on employees. But if the Baseball union dissapeared tomorrow, do you or anybody else in here think the days will return to where the players make starvation wages?

For me, I have pretty much abandoned watching professional sports. The unions and strikes have pretty much ruined the game's enjoyment, and now I stick strictly to more amateur sports, like skiing and college football.

But nice dodge there, I guess you really do favor the big national conglomerates over the small local companies.
The players produce almost all the billions in revenue, so they only get paid what they are worth, as long as the public is willing to pay high ticket prices, which they are in spite of your phoney resentment.
 
Being manly is not standing in an unemployment line to live off the government tit. Besides, stop being a crybaby about it. They played poker and they lost.
A stock certificate is just a piece of paper a real man would put his fist through. Owners aren't earners.
 
Well everyone has opinions but I'm extremely proud of crossing the line of a blue flu as a young officer and giving my community 14 hours a day - not too mention the 6 hours of over time was killer. If you think anyone not in a union is a boy toy of the rich what is a unionite - a boy toy of a socialist union boss?


If the Capitaliban own a man's work, they own the man. If you're not a union man, you're not a man. You're just a boytoy of the rich.
 
The players produce almost all the billions in revenue, so they only get paid what they are worth, as long as the public is willing to pay high ticket prices, which they are in spite of your phoney resentment.

So why the unions and strikes then?

I tell you, I lost all my confidence in MLB and in one of my favorite pitchers, Orel Hershiser, when they went on strike. Back in 1994, he was the Players Spokeshole during the strike, when we had no baseball at all. And back then, he went on camera and almost cried at how "abused" the players were, and how they "were not getting their fair share".

All the time, he was making over $4 million a year.

Oh yes, my heart really bled for him. It bled so bad I have never been to a baseball game ever since. This is a guy that is tallented, but he makes more throwing a ball in 2 months then I will ever make in my entire lifetime. Then he has the nerve to get up and say how it is not enough.

That is my general opinions of unions now. They will lie, cheat, and abuse the system however they can to exploit as much money as they can. And what about the thousands of others that work at the stadiums? I have sold concessions at sporting events myself, for comission and nothing else. Now I made pretty damned good money doing it, but when there is a strike it throws all of them out of work also. And the cleaning crews, and the security, and the parking attendents, and everybody else that relies on that income to put food on the table.

So they feel abused and strike, and to hell with the people who really are working hard to make ends meet. Baseball, football, hockey, basketball, I for one am sick to death of all the overpaid union primadonnas. They make often times insane wages, and the burden is then shifted to those of us that buy their products. But they do not are, as long as they get the most they can.

$18 and free health benefits for bagging groceries? $4 million a year for throwing around a baseball? $25 an hour for driving a school bus 4 hours a day? It is no wonder that our economy is broken, and more and more people are trying to ditch unions when they can.

And don't give me the "they deserved it" nonsense. The Teamsters thought the offer was more then fair, and they and their members voted to accept the new contract. And they are pretty pissed at the Bakers, for forcing them all to loose their jobs because they were not willing to negotiate. So because of one union, two unions now have members without jobs.

Good going there.
 
I guess I can see the solidarity between obama and unionites here in this post. After all the union doesn't realize "who built that" either.


A stock certificate is just a piece of paper a real man would put his fist through. Owners aren't earners.
 
A stock certificate is just a piece of paper a real man would put his fist through. Owners aren't earners.

Nonsense since many are people are both workers and investors (part owners). Selling shares of stock to generate working capital is a good way to make a good thing bigger and better. Don't invest if that makes you feel better, but you likely enjoy many of the goods and services that those shares of stock enable, like the insurance Obama will soon make sure that you buy.
 
I guess I can see the solidarity between obama and unionites here in this post. After all the union doesn't realize "who built that" either.


So if the union members did not build (or in this case manufacture) the twinkies why did the company shut down because of a lack of twinkies?
 
"The bakery union workers have already given leadership the right to strike. ... 1 month before filing bankruptcy this company gave ALL upper management a HUGE pay raise and ... paying into the pension and yet have KEPT that 3.40 an hour and out it in their pockets."I couldn't find the link to verify this, but I had remembered reading it yesterday. Upper management tripled its pay. The union paid $3.40 per hour, $136 per week back to the company and the company kept the money and that is a lot of money. There's two sides to this story. It was taken over by Bain Capital type vulture capitalists and milked of its assets and that's just good business, eh?Here's the linkhttp://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2012/may/11/bctgm-strike-vote-wednesday/
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom