Posted by Jim Hightower
Remember the horrible murders in 1978 of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk? At the killer's trial, his lawyer argued for leniency, saying that a steady diet of junk food had addled his client's brain – a claim that entered the annals of jurisprudence as the "Twinkie Defense."
Even less defensible is a recent claim by Ripplewood, a private equity firm that had bought out Hostess Brands three years ago, including Twinkies. Just before Thanksgiving, the firm asserted that it had been forced by greedy labor unions to kill off Hostess Brands. Far from greedy, however, the 18,500 unionized workers are quite reasonable and very loyal – in fact, they had previously given back $100 million in annual wages and benefits to help the company survive.
The true greed in this drama is inside Ripplewood's towering castle of high finance in Manhattan. Rather than modernizing Hostess' factories and upgrading its products, as the unions had urged, the equity hucksters plundered the company to feather their own nests. For example, they siphoned millions of dollars out of Hostess directly into their corporate pockets by paying themselves "consulting and management fees," which did nothing to strengthen the company.
Like a character in a bad Agatha Christie whodunit, Ripplewood – the one so insistently pointing the finger of blame at others – turns out to be the one who killed the Twinkie. Along with the livelihoods of 18,500 workers.
"It turns out Twinkies don't last forever," Washington Post, November 17, 2012
Taken from HERE.
5 comments:
I read something when this first hit the news relative to all of us boomers wailing and moaning about the demise of Hostess .. "when was the last time anybody you know actually ate a Twinkie?" In all honesty, I havent touched a Twinkie or a creme-filled cupcake (of any kind)or Wonder Bread in many, many years. I think what bothers me the most is the loss of one of my childhood icons.
There was a Hostess factory right in my town (as an adult) back in Massachusetts and they were struggling to keep afloat even way back 20 years ago before the latest rape and pillage began.
O!Daddie - I haven't eaten any of that stuff myself either for many years, but it's disgusting the way the company was drained and discarded. Appears they learned well the lessons of Bain Capitol.
bbb
Google " The Media Chokes on a Twinkie " for a different take on what happened.
Jake - I read the article and it made my head hurt.
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