The Other Side of the Twinkie Story (minimum wage, lobby, cost)
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I don't understand how this works. The workers would rather lose their jobs than accept lower wages? Someone please explain the logic in this.
There's simply no explaining the low IQ of a union member. It's group mentality, taught by stewards and up. Like most liberals, they don't have a clue; they just play follow the leader.
I have ZERO sympathy or empathy for them.
P.S. Quotes from Salon are always good for a few laughs.
This is the problem with liberalism. Yes it would be nice if everyone got a livable wage and health insurance but there are economic realities. If the company cannot make enough to service its debts it goes bankrupt. If your job is easily replaced guess what you're not going to be paid that much to do it. Nobody is going to pay someone $25 an hour for a job when they can find someone to do it for $12 and hour. Hence why many of us are against illegal immigration but we're denounced as racist and backwards. Oh well the unskilled and semi skilled worker is getting kicked in the teeth in both directions. On one hand their jobs are expropriated overseas because factors of productions, transport to markets etc are cheaper and just as good. On the other hand millions of people are let in unchecked, most with minimal skills to compete for the few unskilled jobs out there.
Oh well atleast women can have access to free contraception and on demand abortion. Oh and we have a Black president. That'll show those evil white men. On the merry road to penury we shall go.
If a person works hard on a job doing physical labor yet cannot support himself or family on the wages, he will say, "to hell with it!" That is the problem with conservatism. They believe capitalism will flourish when the people who control the money, pay themselves exorbitant wages and don't pay a fair wage to the hard working laborers. They believe money has more value than actual labor and accomplishment.
I have a sequel scenario to "Atlas Shrugged." Gait's hard working employees, who are not paid enough to live on, say, "to hell with it!" "Do your own labor!" John Gait then learns that his paper money really has no value but rather labor, that accomplishes and builds, is what truly has value. John Gait sits on his fat and soft butt counting his paper money and wondering who will build his railroad tracks.
Don't forget about our asinine protectionist policies and tariffs & quotas on imports; sugar prices in the USA are roughly TRIPLE those elsewhere, which is why companies such as Brachs, Kraft, Hershey and other companies wihich create and market sugar-centric products are getting slaughtered in the marketplace by those policies on top of insatiable unions, and have to move their operations to Canada, mexico & elsewhere.
No, those companies are using corn syrup. Look at the label.
Also, it was the Sugar producers in the US that are responsible for the increased price of sugar. They bought politicians with lobbyists.
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The United States has produced sugar for most of its history and produces a lot of sugar. The US produces more sugar than most of the other nations in the world. So one would think that sugar should be relatively cheap in the United States, but it is not. As it turns out the climate in the United States is not really suited to growing sugar efficiently. For this reason it cost significantly more to produce sugar in the United States than in many other nations. If the market was left to function normally, companies would buy sugar from the cheaper provider, mainly overseas producers, and sugar prices in the United States would be similar to world sugar prices. Instead of letting the market function the way it should, sugar producers in the United States have used government clout to protect them at the expense of the general public. Sugar producer have use political clout to receive price supports, subsidies, quotas ( limits on sugar imports), tariffs (taxes on sugar imports) and host of other benefits from the government. As result of these government interventions sugar cost twice as much in the United States and as it does worldwide.
How about wages sufficient to where one doesn't qualify for government handouts? Here in California, that is as little as $1600 a month for a single adult with no children. How is that not doable?
I'm tired of paying for the starving poor because the rich think they are entitled to billions and they pay their workers so poorly that their workers qualify for every handout imaginable. My taxes are subsidizing greedy rich people who won't pay poor people a decent wage. The poor as a result get angry, get entitled, vote to tax the rich, the rich whine, and the cycle goes on.
This is the heart of the problem! Employers are paying their help so low, these employees are forced to seek government assistance such as food stamps and Medicare. Meanwhile the employers, such as the Waltons, rake in billions! I would call this trickle up welfare!
No. Pension accounting is regulated by ERISA and GAAP. They accrued the liability. They didn't fund the liability. And it wasn't funded because there simply isn't enough cash to fund a rich plan in an economy paying 20 basis points on a savings account.
There are two issues: current and former employees. It's the former employees who are the problem. They were offered and promised a rich pension during a period when interest rates were much higher. The bean counters and actuaries made assumptions based on historical interest rates and market returns. Ten or 20 years ago they had to fund far less to maintain the same reserve ratio.
Today rates are zero. The plans are faced with a double whammy - legacy employees and current employees. It's a huge cash outlay during a recession.
Result: bankruptcy.
Hostess should have been making higher than required payments into the system in their good years, despite their bean counters assumptions. To do so is conceptionally no different than a rainy day fund. Since we know they did NOT invest much in the business even in profitable eras, but were in the black for decades (excluding the last 10-15 years), the money was there, and not being utilized.
I do not dispute they cannot fund it now, but your answer implies a corp living paycheck to paycheck..100% unacceptable.
Interest rates did drop over decades, but not very fast. This makes me wonder if their bean counters ever looked back to gauge assumptions vs the new reality. No wonder they died.
There sure are a lot of Anti Free Market Capitalism Commie loving companies in this country that want to subvert the Free Market by buying politicians to do their bidding.
They like sending more of my money to Commie China like Walmart does.
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Originally Posted by jojajn
No, those companies are using corn syrup. Look at the label.
Also, it was the Sugar producers in the US that are responsible for the increased price of sugar. They bought politicians with lobbyists.
Maybe the workers decided that to work hard for under poverty pay and not enough to pay their bills while the owners and top people in the company earned extremely high salaries was a bridge too far.
The Company has asked for millions to be paid to the management of Hostess in the bankruptcy but hey they can't pay their hard working employees a decent liveable salary............. anyone see what is happening today? The "FAT CAT'S in the Company want everything, even in bankruptcy and to hell with the workers.
BTW Hostess............. seems your company is useless without the workers but you seem unable to pay them properly for their hard work. I think Hostess wanted to go bankrupt anyway.
$34,000 a year plus benefits is poverty? In most states throughout the country that is just a little under the average wage, while not great pay it is better then many factory jobs I know of in my area, where a friend from high school was just telling me how great his new job is that pays him $36,000 a year with 401k no match and the company pays less then half of his own health insurance.
$34,000 a year plus benefits is poverty? In most states throughout the country that is just a little under the average wage, while not great pay it is better then many factory jobs I know of in my area, where a friend from high school was just telling me how great his new job is that pays him $36,000 a year with 401k no match and the company pays less then half of his own health insurance.
The prevelent wage reported by the press for the rank and file was $10-$14/hour. Hostess was demanding huge , additional concessions. So where the rank and file pay was going left it in Wal Mart turf, who also reports an avg $10.30 per hour.
In short, Hostess made an offer so awful they must have wanted the result they got this week.
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Originally Posted by EdwardA So you think family corporations are not concerned about those things? I mean there is some truth to your analysis, family firms tend to have longer term views and may put some more focus on interpersonal relationships than PE firms.
However they have board of directors too and are subject to the same economic forces as any other business. If they don't make enough money they close.
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Originally Posted by Versatile
You were doing good Ed until you threw in the BLACK part. As a white guy you just lost me. I don't like racists.
Huh?
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