Bye Bye Twinkies

[drauch]

Tried to find Twinkies and Hostees products today. No bueno. Life is over. New world order. Mayan rule. Fucking snacks are out of order.

[Udderdude]

No more insanely fattening Hostess snacks, Obamacare implemented. It's a win-win. Now eat your veggies :p

[KAI]

Mayans, piramids, end of the world, I get it.



Eat meat like a real man.

[greg]

I thought Twinkies were nasty, even as a kid. I slightly liked the Chocodiles better. Mom would always put one in my lunch box every day (I wish I'd kept my Pac Man and Return of the Jedi lunchboxes...), but I'd always end up giving them to one of my friends I sat with. Yuck. I haven't eaten a Twinkie in well over 20 years (I think I threw it out after the first bite or two), so I won't be missing them. But the fact that Hostess cannot survive the economy in a fat-ass country like the USA is worrisome.

[antron]

The only question is will the buyers of the twinky name and likeness be able seamlessly transition without a single twinkyless day in America. Same for wonderbread (much harder, as bread actually goes bad).

[Ed Oscuro]

a single twinkyless day in America.

Already happening. It'll probably be a twinkie-less New Year.

(Note: Before "Blackberrys" were plural, "Twinkies" were plural. No -y. American advertising, butchering the English language for fun, profit, and lulz since the 19th century!)

[shmuppyLove]

I was always more partial to the Cupcakes myself.



I remember they used to pack em in twos, not sure if they still do/did?

[drauch]

The funny thing is Twinkies are probably one of the least fattening foods of the Hostees catalog. If you're gonna hate, hate on Donettes or Chocodiles.

[beatsgo]

If you're gonna hate, hate on Donettes or Chocodiles.

Man I love powered donettes, could go through one bag if I get really hungry...
But hell it's like eating a heart attack if you ask me since they're so addicting.

[BrianC]

I like Sno-Balls.

Note: I wanted to use a clip from the Cheers episode where Woody put a full Sno-Ball in is mouth and called them "bite-sized", but I couldn't find it on youtube. Not to mention that that part mentioned other hostess snacks like ho-hos as well.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Went down to my local Hostess Bakery Outlet earlier today only to find out that was closed on Sunday. Sign said it'd be open for business on Monday, November 19th.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Moniker]

I like Sno-Balls.

Ditto. Baked goods + coconut = bliss for me. I'm the only one I know who adores those frozen coconut cakes (Pepperidge Farm, I think?) they have at groceries. Which means I get it all.

Also, eating Sno-balls is uncannily similar to cunnilingus, is it not? Must be why I'm so good at it.


As for the Vegan Food Pyramid, I'd rather endure protracted torture and undignified death. Which, incidentally, is remarkably similar to a vegan lifestyle.

[Friendly]

As for the Vegan Food Pyramid, I'd rather endure protracted torture and undignified death. Which, incidentally, is remarkably similar to a vegan lifestyle.

Vegans are mental. Basically the same as crazy religious types, because their lifestyle is based on faith and not rooted in reality. Humans are omnivores. That doesn't mean you should eat steak every day, but it means we are not meant to live completely without animal products (milk, eggs, etc). Vegans usually suffer from malnutrition, lacking certain minerals and vitamins, which is the reason for their bodies aging faster and them dying earlier. (I'm not talking about vegetrians here).

[mesh control]

Hey Friendly,
Fuck you

[Friendly]

Hey Friendly,
Fuck you

I like you, too, mesh

[CMoon]

Vegans have such a bad rap because a lot of them can't stop talking about being vegans. Probably true of a lot of things, but because eating is social, it always comes up, and its hard for it not to sound like preaching or some kind of guilt trip.

That said, back to Twinkies. Aren't there some other companies making dumb shit like this you guys can transition to?

[gabe]

As for the Vegan Food Pyramid, I'd rather endure protracted torture and undignified death. Which, incidentally, is remarkably similar to a vegan lifestyle.

Vegans are mental. Basically the same as crazy religious types, because their lifestyle is based on faith and not rooted in reality. Humans are omnivores. That doesn't mean you should eat steak every day, but it means we are not meant to live completely without animal products (milk, eggs, etc). Vegans usually suffer from malnutrition, lacking certain minerals and vitamins, which is the reason for their bodies aging faster and them dying earlier. (I'm not talking about vegetrians here).

I'll have been vegan for three years in January. My decision to live a vegan lifestyle has nothing to do with faith (or science), and I surely don't preach the lifestyle to anyone. I mainly do it because I like exploring new food. I don't think my diet is any more or less healthy than that of an omnivore, though I will admit to taking dietary supplements to help fill in the gaps. According to my doctor, I'm quite healthy... And I'd say that my activities reflect that.

In any event. I don't have much to contribute to the real topic, so I'll just leave this here:

[Jeneki]

I need some cash, so I'm going to try to flip twinkies.

So when there's a giant line outside the store, they're not waiting for a Wii U, but the last shipment of Twinkies?

[Udderdude]

$20/hr to make Twinkies sounds pretty sweet, although their overall effect on the health of the nation consuming them isn't exactly a net positive.

[Ed Oscuro]

RE the picture:

Interesting, but I don't believe it.

I have wondered, since the beginning, what exactly the management was doing (spoiler alert: The picture won't clear that up for us; they may have been the worst management ever, but the graphic's concerned with other issues). I don't see that they have shown that the numbers add up. "100% raise" sounds amazingly evil, but where is that $160M going to come from? 200% of $1M, even multiplied for a group of executives, is probably not going to get you $160M. It's not moral, but the angle in should be if they actually failed in their legal obligations when not paying into that fund. These things tend to be paid in by deadlines; they can't say "well, here's part of it, now are we good?" It wouldn't have gotten them out of bankruptcy, and it wouldn't have gotten the benefits needed. So that is probably a red herring, most likely (I haven't seen the actual numbers but this seems to be a very safe guess).

It's not likely that there was an intention to sacrifice the company to make unions look bad (like is the apparent case in that mass mining layoff) but you could say there was negligence on the part of the management if they weren't looking everywhere to find sources of the best outcome. However, along with this, one has to recognize the emotions - the CEO would have a strong incentive not to "reward" the unions for aggressive tactics by trading his own compensation for a bit of the unions' outcomes. And then you still have to deal with that vast chunk left of the unions' demanded outcome: Where does the money come from? The management probably could have conceded everything, short of donating money to the company, and worked for free - but that $160M just isn't going to show up. (I'm not clear on whether that was one lump sum or $160M alleged to be shortchanged from the fund over a long period of time - if it was a lump sum, which I think might be likely given how big Hostess was, then it doesn't look like embezzlement or anything criminal, just an obligation that could not be met due to circumstances).

It reminds me of what I've just heard on the radio today - somebody pointing out on the Diane Rehm show that the $1.8T tax increase over ten years Obama is looking for will only cover about 1/4 of the $6T debt. The difference between business and the national fianances is that companies can be run, and quite often are, as a personal cash cow for execs, who can play the "my talents will be better rewarded elsewhere" card if somebody, including shareholders (who themselves aren't "incentivized" to favor union workers or wages over their own profits). I can understand the argument that you can't realistically get the company running without some union concessions - with or without the CEO pay and other compensation, it just wasn't going to fly. In other words, the CEO pay might have been a non-issue (and I think this is probably the case).

Mixing percentages and lump sums like that is a good sign that the dollars won't add up in a way the pro-unions message will want.

The general spirit of working together for an outcome would lead us to say that everybody - including CEOs and the like - should pitch in as much as they are reasonably able to get things working again. Unions can't just say "well they aren't sacrificing their compensation so we won't move on the millions that the company otherwise literally can't make up" (assuming this is the case); that's a matter of money - the CEOs resisting the temptation to see things as tit-for-tat or not excessively rewarding themselves is a moral matter. That is a big issue but it is not clear to me that CEO morals or even ineptitude led to the bankruptcy of the company. A big problem for many companies these days has been structural deficits - that was a big issue, if I remember right, for our hometown team, General Motors. The main company had to split off the retirements benefits into "old GM" and couldn't keep the "new GM" running profitably with that on the books, so the argument has been made.

The argument for reducing the multiplier between wage and executive pay is a good one, but it is harder to make than the one here. It would also have to be made honestly.

It also would highlight that there are some structural problems with keeping a company like Hostess afloat that have nothing to do with the traditional clash of union man versus executive - the fact that Hostess faces stiff competition and, yes, that its unions may have been pushing for something that couldn't possibly have been theirs.

[BulletMagnet]

Interesting, but I don't believe it.

I haven't followed the issue that closely, but I do recall reading, along with the whole "giving themselves ludicrous raises even as the company floundered" thing, that the higher-ups were already planning to close a bunch of factories and lay off a bunch of people even before the bankruptcy matter came up (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this). If nothing else it certainly doesn't help them make the "of course we were negotiating in good faith, as opposed to grabbing all we could for ourselves before the whole thing came tumbling down" argument.

[blackoak]

http://wsws.org/articles/2012/nov2012/pers-n21.shtml

Just adding this to the discussion. 16.12 an hour is the figure that article gives, per the 2004 round of concessions.

[Ed Oscuro]

I think the real story is pretty much contained in a snippet from Reuters reporting:

Aside from its unionized workforce, analysts, bankers and restructuring experts have said that a fleet of inefficient and out-of-date factories has also eaten up costs. They have said the brand names were likely to be more valuable once they were separated from the factories and sold to non-union competitors.

Interesting, but I don't believe it.

I haven't followed the issue that closely, but I do recall reading, along with the whole "giving themselves ludicrous raises even as the company floundered" thing, that the higher-ups were already planning to close a bunch of factories and lay off a bunch of people even before the bankruptcy matter came up (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this). If nothing else it certainly doesn't help them make the "of course we were negotiating in good faith, as opposed to grabbing all we could for ourselves before the whole thing came tumbling down" argument.

Why couldn't that be evidence that they were already in a tough spot? In fact, that was the case: Hostess emerged from a previous bankruptcy in 2009, and then they defaulted on a pretty large ($700 million dollar) loan last year.

I haven't done much digging at this, but a rather ham-handedly written Think Progress article trying to defend the union gives some figures on executive pay, quoting the union's statement:
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/1 ... ?mobile=nc

BCTGM members are well aware that as the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, 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.

As I said, those sound like terribly impressive numbers, but given their default on a $700 MILLION loan in 2011, they were already in big trouble. More to the point, I doubt that those numbers would have given the unions much meaningful leverage in discussions with their management over the union pay. Sheer balances mean that even less well-paid employees, if there are a lot of them, could easily overwhelm the management's pay. Of course, the balance of worker pay to management pay might have gotten them closer to a deal, and one could legitimately blame the management if it was very close.

This worthwhile article mentions that Teamsters actually warned the unions not to drive too hard in this case. The author doesn't agree this was a realistic worry, but I disagree there - clearly in the short term people are unemployed and many of them will not find employment with or in relation to the rebirth of these brands later. The survival of the brand or assets per se were not the union's or Teamsters' concern; keeping the union members employed was, so I don't know what the author is on about there. That said, I now wonder if it's not actually the case that the union was just a convenient target for blame when they were hoping for a more personally profitable liquidation, which is what they're proceeding through in this case. It seems likely that Hostess will not be resurrected under that name in this case, unless somebody really wants the name. Just as likely, people will pay for specific brands and maybe some (but not all) of the factories.

It would be shitty of management to just throw everybody else out of the bus while they sell off the brands - but given what I've found, I think we have to recognize that they have been struggling to keep the company above water for years. Teamsters knew the union was playing with fire here, and maybe they didn't have a choice, but management didn't need much of a pretext to quit. So maybe, for the union members, this should be a case of quitting with dignity. I don't think anybody was required to play differently here - the management probably could not budge because the math wouldn't work; the unions didn't want to encourage more self-congratulatory management raises and leave a legacy of bowing to demands to take more of the hit out of their paychecks; and the creditors had no reason to swoop in to the rescue, as the company was apparently already structurally bloated and underperforming.

@ the WSWS article: I think the only relevant point they've hit on is that there is a sense of the "new normal." Beyond that they aren't answering my questions, just baselessly accusing the management of "blackmail" after listing what the workers were faced with. To show blackmail you'd need to say something about the other side, and these sources are silent on that. If the truth was on their side I don't think we'd see that tactic.

[BulletMagnet]

Why couldn't that be evidence that they were already in a tough spot?

It very much was, which is the point I was trying to make: management is insisting that it was asking for further concessions from workers in hopes of keeping the company going (which is already in question thanks to their own refusal to "tighten their belts", if only for solidarity's sake...quite the contrary, in fact), but they come across (to me, at least) as rats fleeing a sinking ship when the larger company picture is taken into account.

Perhaps, as you say, management really did want to save Hostess and really couldn't act any other way than they did, but considering how much MBA rhetoric revolves around the concept of "we CEOs make as much as we do because we're so much smarter, more creative, and all-around more valuable than the rest of the workforce put together, and thus fully deserve every penny we award ourselves", it always grates me to see how little personal risk any of them ever seem to have to take on whenever one of their ventures goes awry and scores of others must suffer as a result (seriously, every CEO of a bankrupted company seems to get picked up for an equally-posh position someplace else within weeks afterwards [as if they even need it, considering the size of the severance packages they get], because of the "valuable management experience he brings to the table" or some such malarkey, as if his actual performance doesn't matter a bit; and somehow it's the schoolteachers who are the worst offenders in this area and MUST be paid solely on merit before society collapses under them).

To be sure, I certainly wouldn't assert that the unions bear absolutely no culpability in this situation, but management always loves to take pretty much all the credit (and ensuing rewards) when a business is doing well, so I think it's fair to assign them a lion's share of the blame when things go south if there's no damning evidence suggesting otherwise (and even if there is, why didn't they flex their much-vaunted leadership skills and fix it?).

They have said the brand names were likely to be more valuable once they were separated from the factories and sold to non-union competitors.

Well duh: nothing makes the free market happier than one more tentative step back towards the ideal of slavery.

[Ed Oscuro]

Why couldn't that be evidence that they were already in a tough spot?

It very much was, which is the point I was trying to make: management is insisting that it was asking for further concessions from workers in hopes of keeping the company going (which is already in question thanks to their own refusal to "tighten their belts", if only for solidarity's sake...quite the contrary, in fact), but they come across (to me, at least) as rats fleeing a sinking ship when the larger company picture is taken into account.

Well, that's the thing - the workers pretty much had a chance to keep their jobs, or thumb noses. I don't blame them for what they did. Management is going to stick around no matter what, at least as long as it takes to sell off assets. You don't need workers for that.

Perhaps, as you say, management really did want to save Hostess and really couldn't act any other way than they did

I didn't say that I have a magic window into what management's intentions were (in fact I mention that they still could have acted "nefariously" at least once) and I didn't say they were locked into only one course of action - although what happened was definitely what was most likely. You never expect management to cave in a situation like this.

You have to ask - what difference did it make to keeping jobs that the union folks mentioned the pay raises, when it ultimately didn't matter to keeping the company going? I don't blame them, but it was just about making an emotional or moral point.

Edit: Reading through the comments thread of the Outside The Beltway piece, one thing I mentioned was reflected quite a few times - the unions decided not to take a pay cut (8% in this case) just because management wanted it, or even because it was economically necessary for the company. So what I write above about making an emotional or moral point applies here - the unions get to emphasize exactly the situation that they are basically rebelling against. Taken that way I don't have a problem with it.

There is also some interesting stuff about the statistics of different types of bankruptcy failing.

Edit #2: Zero Hedge's reporting on the issue, includes some tantalizing bits about the Private Equity players involved. (Note that these guys are going to lose a lot of money, so saying they're bad vultures etc. doesn't exactly make sense.)

Edit #3: Bloomberg - the bankruptcy judge:

“I’m giving the union as well as the debtors and their lenders a last chance to try and work those issues out in private,” Drain said Nov. 19. He cited “serious questions as to the logic behind the decision” to strike.

Also a nice picture of one of the Hostess Brands drivers carrying his last products for his last delivery.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Well, the final meeting/talks between Hostess management, a federal mediator & the union did not work out on November 19th, 2012. So the Hostess employees are, indeed, out of work. And it'll be about another six months to see the Hostess snacks back on the shelves under new ownership (and about three to four months of legal paperwork for the new owner[s] for transfer of ownership). It's business as usual.

In the meantime, business with Little Debbie's, Svenhard's, Entenmann's, Otis Spunkermeyer & Bimbo will pick up indeed in regards to packaged snacks sold in grocery stores nationwide.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Udderdude]

This guy planned ahead.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Damn, that's a whole cubicle load of the beloved Twinkies indeed.

It'll be back, no doubt about it.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Mortificator]

It looks like the shelf life for Twinkies is a little less than a month. I wouldn't be surprised if prices online climbed as the dreaded hour approaches. The last Twinkie should go out of the world like the book ending of I Am Legend, a strange and terrifying apparition of forgotten snack time.

[shmuppyLove]

It's been a long time since I had a Twinkie, but I don't remember them being especially good.

Around where I work / live, I'd wager I'm never more than a 5 minute walk from an infinitely tastier Boston Creme donut from Tim Horton's.