The twisted tale of Hostess

As I am sure all have heard this week, the Twinkie is about to die. Well not literally it will probably be bought by some other snack company and sold off with the same name, but the company that makes it Hostess, is going out of business. And it seems that Hostess was extremely in tune to our last election: a company that went into bankruptcy twice, was taken over by wall Street restructuring firms, racked up a lot of debt, asked employees to take a pay cut and possibly had management take a pay raise. Sounds like Romney vs Obama all over again huh.

Now me personally, if a company is asking for employees to take a pay cut I think that MANAGEMENT should face the first axe. The CEO and board should take a year of pay cuts (anywhere from 10-30%) and if the company is still in trouble as they hopefully re-invest this money into the company then come to your employees. This way you show them that "yes I have skin in the game, I was willing to bleed for our company first, but now we need more blood." I think if CEO's took this approach it would probably be easier for them to get concessions from the workers. The approach that probably isn't going to work is to take a pay raise right before you file for bankruptcy as a Forbes article I read claims. In the comments somebody documents what they think is the current pay structure and pay increases but I didn't get a chance to look them up yet. I might but hey this isn't a "business blog" just a "Hmm why fancy wanders across my mind" style thing. I don't know about you but I think somebody making upwards of $1,500,000 dollars can afford to lose $150,000-450,000 a lot easier than somebody making $40,000(on average most of the salaries I could find Glassdoor were between $29,000 to just under $49,000) can give up between $3,200-12,800. I could be wrong but I am pretty sure that while it might take a little belt tightening a guy/gal making a million dollars or more a year has some investments that will help him buy that new car he wanted. somebody making sub $50,000 is now trying to figure out which bill they can afford not to pay this month.

The Diminutive Debutante or the Greeter

We all have our preferences when it comes to snacks, some of us like Lays, some of us like Vintners, some Ruffles same with snack cakes. Personally my tastes tend to jump brands for the most part down here I am a little Debbie fiend(yes that would be the Diminutive Debutante, oh you don't find that cute? Hater) especially in my more waist be damned days I would gobble up Swiss Rolls, Chocolate Chip Creme pies, Fudge Brownies and those little mini chocolate donuts. My reasoning besides price was(because you know little Debbie tends to be between 35-75 cents) I guess some of the cremes, coatings, and frostings tasted a little sweeter to me. I mean yes I like some of Hostess' fruit pies(thesauri people they exist both on line and in print) I used to love their lemon before they stopped making them(or at least I was told they stopped making them, but it could be like Sobe Black Tea just not working in this market) but past the pies while twinkies are okay you can only eat so much sponge cake.