When I was a kid (many eons ago....) my parents used to torture me every Sunday with the dreaded Sunday drive.  We would all pile into the car and drive around looking at things.  Gas was ridiculously cheap, so it didn't matter how wasteful the drive was.

My father was a carpenter and the company he worked for built homes across a good third of the state.  He was proud of what they built so we would often drive around to their latest subdivision and look at the homes and he would tell us how many rooms, etc.  I didn't realize it at the time, but those houses were the pipe dreams of my parents.  At the wages paid to my father, they would never be able to build for themselves the homes my father helped build for others.  But dreams were cheap and they enjoyed the time together.  Our drives would almost always end at a "custard stand" which is what ice cream stands were known as in those days.  I could rarely eat the goodies, though, because riding in the car made me car sick.

Fast forward to today.

Hubby and I took our Jaguar Vanden Plas out for a final drive before putting it away for the winter.  Now, lest you think we are rich, I happen to be married to a real car guy who found this very, very cheaply and took it upon himself (with friends) to restore it for me.  It was a labor of love because he knew that of all the car types in the world, the only ones I could reliably identify were Jaguars.

This car had not been driven as much as I would like this summer, but today made up for it.  There are endless miles of back roads and we covered most of the southern half of the county on this trip.  The drive was leisurely and we enjoyed looking at the scenery and commenting on the changes we have seen over the years.

We realized that we had become our parents.

There have been a lot of those moments lately.  We are in our mid 50s and we find ourselves doing, saying and fussing over things we swore we would never do.  We are not sure if it is maturity or we have just caved in to our destiny.

But if our destiny has occasional bouts of Sunday driving in a Jaguar....I'll take it.

The news was all over .....the news.

The iconic yellow cake with white icky icing inside was being discontinued.  The Twinkie, that confection which allegedly would last forever (due to the preservatives and packaging) was coming to an end.  It was economics that killed the Twinkie.

People were raiding the stores.  Man on the street interviews indicated that these little cakes were the dirty little secret of millions.  Trucks stood empty of their wares. 

Actually, Twinkies and Hostess Wonder Bread (a fake nutrient filled white bread) will both be discontinued.  Hostess fell victim to a raiding company of venture capitalists (you know, buy the company, load it with debt, etc...) and was facing a strike by the Bakers Union (yes, flour covered bakers are unionized).

And so, Hostess is closing. On a website, Hostess stated that negotiations have broken down because the company could not reach an agreement.  A website for the company stated the following:

Hostess Brands is unprofitable under its current cost structure, much of which is determined by union wages and pension costs. The offer to the BCTGM included wage, benefit and work rule concessions but also gave Hostess Brands’ 12 unions a 25 percent ownership stake in the company, representation on its Board of Directors and $100 million in reorganized Hostess Brands’ debt.

Do take note of this part of the statement: "25 percent ownership stake in the company, representation on its Board of Directors and $100 million in reorganized Hostess Brands' debt.

In other words, Hostess wanted to make the workers pay for the debt that the venture capitalists piled onto the company in the takeover bid.  Along with wage concessions and paying more for their health-care.

So what happens now?  Well, the workers are out of jobs and possibly unemployment benefits, although the company website says that those who work during the "wind down activities" will still get benefits, since they were on strike when the company folded.  The venture capitalists will walk away with their fees, which will have to be paid from whatever monies have been generated by the sale of the buildings, equipment, trucks, etc.  The company shirts will get their severance pay.  And the public will not have their Twinkies.

Welcome to the free market economy.

Herlaine Olen writing as Forbeswoman in Forbes Magazine described the following:

More than a few observers say they know who to blame for the demise of the iconic company: the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International union, which represents thousands of striking Hostess Brand workers who have refused to accept a new contract that would do everything from slash their salaries to their retirement benefits.

Hostess has been sold at least three times since the 1980s, racking up debt and shedding profitable assets along the way with each successive merger. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004, and again in 2011. Little thought was given to the line of products, which, frankly, began to seem a bit dated in the age of the gourmet cupcake.

As if all this were not enough, Hostess Brands’ management gave themselves several raises, all the while complaining that the workers who actually produced the products that made the firm what money it did earn were grossly overpaid relative to the company’s increasingly dismal financial position.

 So now an estimated 18,500 workers will join the nation’s unemployment rolls. But while Hostess Brands might soon become a forgotten name from the past, it’s unlikely such a fate awaits such signature products as Twinkies. Company executives have already asked for bankruptcy court permission to begin the process of selling off their famed product lines to other companies.

So, apparently, while Hostess may go away, Twinkies may be the product of another acquisition.  I just hope the workers can "acquire" another job soon.

 

 

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Since the election here in the US, there have been businessmen who have been very public about how they are now going to have to do business since Obamacare (properly known as The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) is unlikely to be repealed.  Their actions and proposed actions are generating a lot of interest and comment.

One of the first to publically speak out was Mr. Robert Murray, a coal company operator.  Coal is mined in the US as a fuel for energy plants and manufacturing plants.  It's a pretty dirty resource, making a lot of grimy smoke, putting acid into the air, and creating mounds of ash which must be dealt with properly.  It's still rather abundant, with mines stretching almost the entire way across the US.  In the news, people are touting "clean coal" which is not exactly the whole truth.  For years coal was mined with pretty much careless abandon, leaving a devastating trail of dangerous underground mines, hazardous high wall cliffs of surface mining and a seemingly endless amount of streams and rivers turned red/orange from the sulfur that polluted the water around the mines.  Companies were busy trying to find new sources of "low sulfur coal" and when it ran out, the companies reluctantly (with prodding of the federal government) began "cleaning" the coal to eliminate as much of the sulfur as possible.  Cleaning plants have managed to make a lot of the "high sulfur" product clean enough to meet the original sulfur content in the old coal.  It's cleaner but far from clean. 

Power plants which used coal for decades are beginning to show signs of age and inefficiency.  The government has targeted many of them to be closed, since they spew copious amounts of ash into the air.  Mr. Murray's contention is that health care will mean that he has to eliminate jobs from his company.  That may be part of it, but I suspect that not getting into the coal cleaning business has meant that his coal is now of less value than the coal cleaned at other companies.  The speed with which Mr. Murray fired people led me to think that this was coming anyway but the health care bill gave him a good excuse.

The next to spout was Papa John (John Schnatter) of the famed pizza franchise.  Papa was eager to point out that the healthcare bill meant that (sadly, he pointed out) he would have to eliminate the hours of his workers because he simply could not pass along the cost to his customers (and risk making his shareholders angry).  Papa was quick to make sure everyone knew right after the election that this was coming to pass, and he was mighty sorry about it, but there it was.  The estimated cost to the consumer was about $.10 to $.25.  Hungry pizza patrons would doubtlessly quail at paying so much more.  I find that unlikely, since they already shell out between a $1.00 and $1.75 for extra toppings. 

Competitors of the franchise are eagerly cheering them on and, at the same time, lowering their prices to snag their customers.

Next into the fray comes John Metz, who is a franchisee of quite a few Denny's and Hurricane Buffalo Wing establishments.  Mr. Metz is just adding 5% onto the bill of each customer in order to recoup his losses.  Now, what you need to know is that Mr. Metz's businesses are located near West Palm Beach, Florida, which is not exactly a middle class enclave.  Mr. Metz has thrown out quite a few numbers about how much it would estimated take to meet the law (approximately $175,000 per restaurant).  Now, I'm not a business person (far from it) but since Denny's is open just about everyday of the year, each store would need to clear about $480 per day to meet just this.  That seems pretty doable to me, but maybe it isn't.  If your location is a good one, chances are that your establishment should make much more than that in a day.  If a restaurant isn't in a good location, maybe it shouldn't be there at all. 

As a business person, I believe that you have the right to run your business freely, short of breaking the law. 

I have to wonder if freely and ethically can exist side by side.  All of these businesses benefit from a workforce and that workforce works in situations that could be dangerous.  My take is that ethics need to be part of the equation when you figure the cost of doing business. 

This could get interesting.  Stay tuned.....

There is a great deal of huffing and puffing the last couple of days about individuals signing petitions for their states to leave the United States and become soverign in their own way.

Led by Texas (which has an historic "out" in their agreement to join the Union in the first place), people petitioned to have the state leave.

Let's think about that for just a moment.  Make Texas pay for their own border patrol.  Would save money for the US.  Eliminate funding for Texas sized projects.  Would save money for the US.  Stop cleaning up after their hurricanes, flooding, fires, tornadoes, droughts.  Would save money for the US.

Hmmmm...I'm not seeing a problem here but an awful lot of benefits.

Other states are jumping on the bandwagon as well, including Pennsylvania.  I looked at the signers of the PA petition.  Way more than half of the signers were from states other than PA.  I'm pretty sure that negates the signature as being a valid one, unless the signer can prove that they own property in PA and live there a considerable amount of the year.

We Americans are a cranky bunch, aren't we?

The news was hyperventilating yesterday about the abrupt resignation of General David Petraeus.  Gen. Petraeus had a long and distinguished career serving the military and the United States and it all came crashing down because of an extramarital affair.

Being director of the CIA is an important and nerve wracking job.  But, I think Gen. Petraeus was correct in resigning.  Leadership needs an someone who is not compromised.  Gen. Petraeus was.

In the world of the spies, being compromised means that someone has something on you and can "turn" you for their purposes.  The delicate and often unpleasant work of the CIA demands someone who cannot be turned.

Thus, it was necessary for Gen. Petraeus to resign.

A lesser man might have tried to hold on and may have caused irreprable damage to the CIA and to the security of this country.

A better man would not have betrayed his wife by having an affair.

But we are not perfect men and women.  Lust happens and there are almost always consequences. 

But honor survives.  An honorable person does the right thing even when it costs them potentially everything.

I do not know if the Petraus marriage will survive this.  It is not my business to know or to pry.  I'm sure the media will, however.

But I do know this: Gen. Petraeus's military training at West Point drilled into him the idea of honor and that when a person has done something dishonorable, that person steps up and acknowledges that dishonor.  Acknowledgement is the only honorable way to face the deed.

General Petraeus faced up to the deed.  While his honor has been tarnished, that act restored some of it.

The election is over.

For some, it was terribly disappointing.  For others, it was very fulfilling.  For many, many others, it was one big WHEW!

So, here are my thoughts two days after the election.

I am glad that the onslaught of commercials, robocalls, endless junk mailings, and fevered discussions are over.  A few days more and I might have done the hermit thing.  As it was, I put all the mail in a box, ignored the phone, left the radio off and muted the television every time a commercial came on.  There was no escaping it.

The media reports that a billion dollars was spend on this election and nothing changed.  Mr. Obama is still President, the Democrats control the Senate, and the Republicans control the House.  All that for no change.

So, where do we go from here?  Hopefully we go, not to coin the election slogan, .....forward.  For heaven's sake (and ours) we need to quit the blame game of who got us into this mess and why it's (fill in the blank here)'s fault.  Get over it.  The time has come to fix it.  That requires a lot of people putting their hands out to work together and a lot of uncrossing of arms.  It's called work, and we citizens need to hold the Congress to it.

What did we learn from all of this?

In America, we have a lot of diverse thoughts about things.  Before all of this, I would have sworn that rape had universally been described as a CRIME of ANGER and not something that happens and the results of which merely had to be endured.  I realize that some older white guys are out of touch, but I never realized that some of them were such great snake oil salesmen that some area elected them.

In America, the idea of fairness still seems to stand, except for a small group who, I think, would be cranky no matter how life treated them, as in, if they had a million dollars, it would irk them that it wasn't two million.

In America, women don't get outwardly angry, they get back at you.  Men, it seems, have not yet figured this out.  A minister friend of mine mentioned that on his Facebook page, young women who share his interest in beagles and hunting were commenting that they were voting for Obama because of reproductive freedom.  Good choice, I think.  The local paper shared an obituary just the other day of a mother who died in childbirth.  There is an astonishing amount of people who think that childbirth death, or near time death after childbirth, has been wiped out.  It has not.  Being pregnant is a lot of things-joyous, astounding, fulfilling and wonderful.  But it also puts women's health at risk.  Healthcare and culture need to acknowledge that in the discussions about women's healthcare.

In America, people of color vote.  People who want to return to the 1950s seem to have missed this shift in the population of this country.  It's time to notice.  Unless, of course, you want to be set aside as irrevelant.

In America, faith still matters.  Pastors defied law/tradition and spoke from their pulpits about who their congregations should vote for.  People of faith voted their conscience, not necessarily what they were told.

In America, rural and urban came together to vote what they thought was fair and what they feared.  The economy was not far from most people's minds and often was the reason for their vote.

In America, people got passionate about their vote.  No matter the color of the skin or the age of the voter, people voted.  Even if it was in the rain, even if they had to wait three hours, even if it made them late for work or dinner.  That's one of the beauties of America-we vote because we understand what a blessing it is to live in a country that allows it.

In America, rich and poor both had voice to their concerns.  Whether you were the 1%, the 99%, the 47% or the 53%, people voted.  We didn't need to have ink on our fingers, a little sticker was enough for us.  We showed those stickers proudly, almost as a challenge for those who had not yet voted.  We showed it mattered.

In America, we got up the next day and life went on as best as it could with all the storms and destruction.  Mother Nature may have caused violence, but the public did not.  There were no riots, no revolts (even if a couple of twits wanted them, eh Trump?  eh Limbaugh?) and no reason to barricade yourself in your house.  There were no overturned cars or fires in the streets.  We voted and we moved on.

In America, we take our freedom to vote seriously.  We take our growing family with all of it's warts and weird ideas and we come together.  We are noisy, we are vocal, we are, sometimes, weird and wrong.  But we are family.  And we go on.

We have a long way to go.  Our economy needs fixed, we need to address healthcare and immigration and a whole host of issues that challenge us.  But, hey, we are Americans.  We love a good rumble. 

Bring it on.  In America, we take on all comers, even when they are in the family.

(In the interest of being transparent, I have tried Papa John's pizza and find it.....lacking. This, however, is not a pizza review.)

Would you support a twenty cent price increase in your pizza costs?

John Schnatter, CEO of Papa John's pizza states that pizza price costs will have to go up because of Obamacare. 

He states in an interview : "Let's say fuel goes up-- which it does from time to time-- and we have to raise  delivery charges … We don't like raising delivery charges, but the price of fuel  is out of our control as is Obamacare. So if Obamacare is in fact not repealed,  we will find tactics to shallow out any Obamacare costs. And of course  strategies to pass that cost onto consumers in order to protect our  shareholder's best interest,"
Read more at  http://www.christianpost.com/news/papa-johns-price-increase-blamed-on-obamacare-79669/#SrGhgVkzLx3xAMpk.99

It's common business practice to pass along price increases to consumers when the price of producing that product goes up.  Otherwise, it would be impossible for business owners to stay in business.

Note, however, that Mr. Schnatter links fuel prices and Obamacare together. 

Delivery is a major part of the Papa John franchise plan.  "Better ingredients, better pizza-Papa John's and then you see Mr. Schnatter delivering to the soccer field, etc".  Sound familiar?    Thus the cost of fuel is something that should be considered when the pricing scale is devised.  You have to pay for the "raw materials", which in this case, do not produce your product, but do factor largely in the delivery of that product.

There are a variety of ways to keep prices down on products, unless, of course, you are targeting the upper economic levels for your product.  Discount Lexus just doesn't sound right somehow.

A producer can find ways to decrease cost by using cheaper materials, cheaper packaging or by changing how the product gets to the consumer.  Care must be taken to insure that the quality does not go down or the consumer group will take it's business elsewhere.

Note here that the ridiculous cost of fuel does not incur the same wrath as does providing health care for employees, without whom, Papa John franchises would not have producers of their product.  Apparently the workers are not in the same league as say, shareholders.  (Further in the article, Mr. Schnatter states that the shareholders must be kept happy.)

The food industry is one area that I, for one, would like to see workers at optimum health.  Since the health care law provides for more checkups and preventative care, I would think that the productivity of workers might actually go up.  But here's another aspect:  Without health care, workers tend to let things go until they become critical.  How would Mr. Schnatter feel if, say, one of his counter workers had contracted TB, did not have insurance to see a doctor and worked for a period of time, merrily infecting everyone they distributed food to or gave change to?  If the public's image of Papa John's changed from smiling man with pizza to an image of an iron lung, I suspect that the public would stay away in droves.  The damage to his company might just be insurmountable.  Those health-care charges might seem pretty cheap then.

My personal feelings are that a twenty cent increase on the cost of pizza won't keep people from buying pizza.  Actually, the general health of Americans might improve, driving down the costs of health-care, if we ate LESS pizza.  I include all pizza in that, not just Papa John's.

This is one of those things that is just so awful.  It's awfully funny in a twisted way and it's just awful as a use of logic.  I know our political debate is off the wall but has it really come to this?