First they came for our Twinkies...

[Joe Guy]

Hostess moves to liquidate after crippling strike

NEW YORK (AP) — Twinkies may not last forever after all.

Hostess Brands Inc., which makes Ding Dongs, Wonder Bread and other snacks, filed a motion Friday with U.S. Bankruptcy Court seeking permission to shutter its operations. The move comes after the company said striking workers across the country crippled its ability to maintain production.

The rest of the story.

[dales]

I'm sorry......didn't see your posting.

My error.

[Lord Jim]

Oh God, not the fruit pies too....

[Long Run]

Their loss is society's gain, though I suspect some enterprising outfit will fill the void to fill the voids.

[Scooter]

They will get out from under all their labour contracts and rise like a phoenix from the ashes (which is what I think their products are made from). Then they will pay everyone $6 an hour with no benefits.

[Joe Guy]

I suspect you are correct. The Twinkie will rise again.

[Joe Guy]

I'm sorry......didn't see your posting.

My error.

Great minds think alike. Besides, Twinkies are an important issue that could easily fill two threads.

[dgs49]

Quick question: Would you rather be employed for $9/hr, or unemployed at $15?

This strike is rather like the general strike going on in Europe right now over "austerity." My Old Man - like many in his generation - used to blast me for acting like "money grows on trees." Not that he ever gave me any.

It is amazing how many people can only see what they want, and not realize that the money must come from somewhere - it doesn't just materialize when needed.

[Scooter]

Quick question: Would you rather be employed for $9/hr, or unemployed at $15?

Convenient when bankruptcy protection can be manipulated to pretend that is the only choice, isn't it?

[Gob]

To be made in Mexico now?

[Big RR]

Yep; contract reformation through bankruptcy is the refuge of scoundrels. By offering more money for employees (something they freely contracted to do, no one forced them re any economic contractual terms) they presumably got the best employees, disadvantaging their competitors who couldn't (or wouldn't) offer as much. then, when management makes some bad decisions and loses money they run to the government and say, save us from our own stupid decisions and allow us to reform the contract to pay less. It's the law, but hardly fair.

[Long Run]

PORTLAND - Customers at Hostess stores in Portland began clearing the shelves Friday after news that the company is shutting down.

The company said Hostess stores will remain open for several days until the remaining products are sold.

Hostess announced it was closing Friday amid a workers’ strike, citing that the company was unprofitable "under its current cost structure, much of which is determined by union wages and pension costs."

The privately held company filed for Chapter 11 protection in January, its second trip through bankruptcy court in less than a decade.

http://www.kgw.com/news/Portland-custom ... 06371.html

[TPFKA@W]

[Lord Jim]

[Scooter]

But unions are to blame for everything, right?

Since 1934, Congress has supported tariffs that benefit primarily a few handful of powerful Florida families while forcing US confectioners to pay nearly twice the global market price for sugar.

One telling event: When Hostess had to cut costs to stay in business, it picked unions, not the sugar lobby, to fight.

“These large sugar growers ... are a notoriously powerful lobbying interest in Washington,” writes Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute in a 2007 report. “Federal supply restrictions have given them monopoly power, and they protect that power by becoming important supporters of presidents, governors, and many members of Congress.”

Such power has been good for business in the important swing state of Florida, but it has punished manufacturers who rely on sugar in other parts of the United States, the Commerce Department said in a 2006 report on the impact of sugar prices.

Sugar trade tariffs are “a classic case of protectionism, pure and simple, and that has ripple effects through other sectors of the economy, and, for all I know, the Hostess decision is one of them,” says William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Trade restrictions on sugar have a long, complex history, and sugar is certainly not the only major industry to have Congress play nose tackle against global prices by restricting imports. Yet as those policies have come under fire in the past decade, both Republicans and Democrats have so far refused significant reforms.

That refusal to address tariffs that neither support infant industries nor provide national security has come despite damning reports from the Commerce Department about the impact on US jobs, including the fact that for every sugar job saved by tariffs, three confectionery manufacturing jobs are lost.

Some of those job losses came when candy companies like Fannie May and Brach’s moved the bulk of their manufacturing to Mexico and Kraft relocated a 600-worker Life Savers factory from Michigan to Canada, in order to pay global market prices for sugar.

[Andrew D]

Quick question: Would you rather be employed for $9/hr, or unemployed at $15?

Quick question: What kind of society permits those to be the only available options?

[dales]

I blame Obama, what a disgrace for a foodstuff thats been around since 1930 to vanish.

[Crackpot]

Yet you opposed helping a company that's been around since 1908

[dales]

Humor, dear boy.........humor.

[Jarlaxle]

Oh God, not the fruit pies too....

Little Debbie's are better...Hostess pies are much too sweet.