Re:What it took to save the Twinkie
by Turing_Machine on Monday September 12, 2016 @12:26AM
(#12477182)
It's not even the same company. It's a new company that purchased the brands. Actually, the Hostess assets were sold off to multiple companies, but the one under discussion here purchased the Hostess and Dolly Madison snack cake brands for $410 million. The problem was that the old Hostess company was $860 million in debt.
The OP's theory that the old executives got rich is completely without merit.
> You may think my question was a straw-man - it was intentionally leading actually, to set-up these following points.
Bullshit. I could have just as easily responded with "No." Give me a break.
Of course I can't present any evidence I didn't work for Hostess, where am I supposed to get evidence from short of a whistleblower? My point isn't that I'm saying 100% this is what happened, I'm saying I'm skeptical of the story being sold that the union is at fault and the executives did all they could to save the company, etc.
I'm not interested in any more discussion with you, so this will be my last response.
1) You'd have to prove such a dramatic claim. I don't see where you've presented a single shred of evidence. Given the size of the claim, to then not back it up with any proof, more than throws the credibility of the claim into question.
2) You're simultaneously claiming the company was fine as it was (and or at worst needed a mild adjustment perhaps), and that it didn't need to so significantly restructure its labor costs. You also didn't provide any proof of that claim either. How do you know the company could continue to operate with seven times as many employees as it has now? What financial statements is that claim based on?
3) If it was run into the ground on purpose, and that somehow violated the agreements they had with the unions, then there would be a very large recourse for the unions. That clearly wasn't the case given the outcome so far. They clearly found no more evidence for that premise that what you have, which is to say: none. How is it you're in a position to know so much more than what the unions have been able to prove?
4) What makes the workers entitled to anything beyond the contracts they signed via the unions? The workers aren't going to keep going in to work if they don't get paid. Why should the owners keep operating a business if it's in an impaired condition and is going bankrupt?
5) Your premise is that the former owners intentionally ran the company into bankruptcy, so they could sell it for $410 million, all so that somebody else could get vastly richer by rebooting it over just a few years to be worth $2.3 billion. That's wildly illogical. It blows a hole in your theory a mile wide.
You may think my question was a straw-man - it was intentionally leading actually, to set-up these following points. You proclaimed a dramatic and empty theory with nothing backing it up.