And for the record on Hostess, here's what the very liberal Wall Street Journal reported:
Quote:
Hostess Brands Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday to confront burdensome debt and labor costs that the Twinkies and Wonder Bread baker says have left it fighting to compete.
The privately held Irving, Texas, company's move marks the second significant court restructuring in the past several years. In a statement, Hostess said the current cost structure "is not competitive, primarily due to legacy pension and medical benefit obligations and restrictive work rules." It said it would be able to maintain operations thanks to a $75 million financing commitment from a group of lenders.
Quote:
In bankruptcy, Hostess said it plans to continue negotiating with 12 unions to modify the collective-bargaining agreements governing the employment of its union workers, who comprise 83% of its approximately 19,000 employees.
"Whether the debtors can achieve long-term viability depends directly and substantially on the debtors' ability to achieve dramatic change to their labor agreements, with a corresponding material reduction in their cost structure and legacy pension and medical obligations, and a restructuring of their capital structure," Hostess said in court papers. "That is the purpose and the focus of these Chapter 11 cases."
So how is this the government's fault? Seems like the same troubles many corporations have had for the last few decades: unions and those damn CBAs, labor costs (i.e. American workers, not 3rd world imports), pensions, debt (you know, paying with money you don't have*), and maybe even executive failure to deal with competition.
The government should've bailed them out. Twinkies are too tasty to let them fail.
*=Actually, corporations are like the governmentin that regard.
