Hostess Brands Says It Will Liquidate

[OttoVonBismarck]

The company made extremely unhealthy, shit products that no one in their right mind should consume. I feel as bad for them as I would if a giant meth lab blew up.

Kraft or some other megacorp will aquire the various brand rights and continue selling lardass, type II diabetic Americans their beloved hydrogenated vegetable oils smothered in HFCS, wrapped in sugary corn starch.

I hope multiple crazed fat people beat you to death right after raping you for a half hour.

[PDH]

God bless you Otto.

[CountDeMoney]

Why is supply and demand such an impenetrable concept to the progessive left?

Why do you spread your generously lubed ass cheeks to submissively take incompetent corporate management and private equity monster cock?

[Martinus]

First they abolish the gay panic defense, now this. Is there nothing the gay lobby won't stoop to?!? 

Welcome to Obama's America.

[Legbiter]

I hope multiple crazed fat people beat you to death right after raping you for a half hour.

Yeah, I had that coming. 

[Ed Anger]

Groupo Bimbo out of Mexico may take a stab at getting Hostess.

[Faeelin]

People act as if there is absolutely no relationship between demand for the product or service a company sells and the compensation it can afford to pay its workers.

Even as it played the numbers game, Hostess had to face chaos in the corner office at the worst possible time. Driscoll, the CEO, departed suddenly and without explanation in March. It may have been that the Teamsters no longer felt it could trust him. In early February, Hostess had asked the bankruptcy judge to approve a sweet new employment deal for Driscoll. Its terms guaranteed him a base annual salary of $1.5 million, plus cash incentives and "long-term incentive" compensation of up to $2 million. If Hostess liquidated or Driscoll were fired without cause, he'd still get severance pay of $1.95 million as long as he honored a noncompete agreement.
When the Teamsters saw the court motion, Ken Hall, the union's secretary-treasurer and No. 2 man, was irate. So much, he thought, for what he described as Driscoll's "happy talk" about "shared sacrifice." Hall says he tracked Driscoll down by phone and told him, "If you don't withdraw this motion, these negotiations are done." Hostess withdrew the motion a few weeks later when Driscoll left -- the same Driscoll who, Hostess told the court in its motion, was "key" to "reestablishing" Hostess's "competitive position going forward." Abbott and Costello couldn't have made this stuff up if they'd gone to Wharton.

The board replaced Driscoll with Greg Rayburn, a restructuring expert Hostess had hired as a consultant only nine days earlier. Rayburn was a serial turnaround specialist who had worked with such high-profile distressed businesses as WorldCom, Muzak Holdings, and New York City Off-Track Betting. He became Hostess's sixth CEO in a decade. Within a month of taking over, Rayburn had to preside over a public-relations fiasco. Some unsecured creditors had informed the court that last summer -- as the company was crumbling -- four top Hostess executives received raises of up to 80%. (Driscoll had also received a pay raise back then.) The Teamsters saw this as more management shenanigans. "Looting" is how Hall described it in TV interviews.

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/26/hostess-twinkies-bankrupt/

Obviously it was the unions who were acting irrationally.

[Admiral Yi]

Why do you spread your generously lubed ass cheeks to submissively take incompetent corporate management and private equity monster cock?

QED.  You and the Elizabeth Warrens and the Martim Silvas and the Occupy Wall Streeters of the world think that if sufficient public opinion is mobilized then the laws of supply and demand can be negated.  If only the 99% is sufficiently energized, and attains sufficient political consciousness, then Twinkie assemblers will all keep their jobs, receive generous raises, and get free lunch vouchers.  All without you and I having to eat any more Twinkies or pay more for them.

[sbr]

Why do you spread your generously lubed ass cheeks to submissively take incompetent corporate management and private equity monster cock?

QED.  You and the Elizabeth Warrens and the Martim Silvas and the Occupy Wall Streeters of the world think that if sufficient public opinion is mobilized then the laws of supply and demand can be negated.  If only the 99% is sufficiently energized, and attains sufficient political consciousness, then Twinkie assemblers will all keep their jobs, receive generous raises, and get free lunch vouchers.  All without you and I having to eat any more Twinkies or pay more for them.

Or they could stop giving CEOs multi-million dollar bonuses for driving companies into the ground.  Either one would work.

[PDH]

It is supply and demand.  There are not many CEOs and they demand a lot of money.

[Eddie Teach]

I suspect if you picked up some random schmo willing to work for five figures, they could probably run the company into the ground even faster. 

[PDH]

I suspect if you picked up some random schmo willing to work for five figures, they could probably run the company into the ground even faster. 

Pick me!

[Admiral Yi]

Or they could stop giving CEOs multi-million dollar bonuses for driving companies into the ground.  Either one would work.

The assumption being of course that any negative outcome for the company, such as fewer people eating Twinkies, must be a result of bad executive decision-making.  Similar to the concept that a poor economic situation is a failure of presidential leadership.

[dps]

Why do you spread your generously lubed ass cheeks to submissively take incompetent corporate management and private equity monster cock?

QED.  You and the Elizabeth Warrens and the Martim Silvas and the Occupy Wall Streeters of the world think that if sufficient public opinion is mobilized then the laws of supply and demand can be negated.  If only the 99% is sufficiently energized, and attains sufficient political consciousness, then Twinkie assemblers will all keep their jobs, receive generous raises, and get free lunch vouchers.  All without you and I having to eat any more Twinkies or pay more for them.

Or they could stop giving CEOs multi-million dollar bonuses for driving companies into the ground.  Either one would work.

In this particular case, we were talking about the possibility that, per Max's and Meri's statements about their friend, that the actual workers were willing to accept management's offer, but the union leadership wouldn't let them.  At the time, I accepted that, but I was under the impression that the strike had gone on since last November;  if it really just started this month, I have a lot of doubt about what the friend was saying.  In general, though, I don't doubt that in many cases, there's something of a disconnect between the interests of union leadership and the interests of their rank-and-file members.  On the other side of the fence, this is often mirrowed in a disconnect between the interests of the upper management/executives of the business and the interests of the owners, i.e., the stockholders.

[Faeelin]

The assumption being of course that any negative outcome for the company, such as fewer people eating Twinkies, must be a result of bad executive decision-making.  Similar to the concept that a poor economic situation is a failure of presidential leadership.

Not at all. But if you're complaining that unions are being unreasonable for demanding companies be bound by their contracts, it's weird that you gloss over the fact that Hostess gave its executive officers raises in the face of impending bankruptcy.