On Friday, November 16, Hostess announced their end and blamed the Bakers’ Union strike. In 2011, Hostess lost $341 million due to debt. High sugar prices tied to US trade tariffs also really hurt the floundering company. But the CEO who helped cause the bankruptcy got a raise, and the workers received a 30% pay cut and benefit cuts. Frank Hunt, president of BCTGM (Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers) had the following to say:
“Our members decided they were not going to take anymore abuse from a company they have given so much to for so many years. They decided that they were not going to agree to another round of outrageous wage and benefit cuts and give up their pension only to see yet another management team fail and Wall Street vulture capitalists and ‘restructuring specialists’ walk away with untold millions of dollars.”
So, are the executives or the workers to blame? Some blame the executives along with our economic system itself. We live in a capitalist country. Our means of manufacturing and distribution are privately owned by individuals. These individuals can make whatever decisions they want with the company, depending on what contracts they have signed. The workers have to just play along or form unions to go on strike. It’s an economic playground. But what other way is there? Get ready to cringe at the poor villianized word “socialism.”
Socialism is when the government owns the means of manufacturing and distribution, and this usually means a more steadily healthy economy, rather than the highs and lows of capitalism. The idea of socialism usually entails free healthcare, housing, and sometimes even cars. This is of course because the government receives the profit from the multimillion dollar companies. As of 1986, socialist countries were known to have better education and health compared to capitalist countries of similar economic growth, according to a study by UC Irvine and CAL State University professors. Socialist countries today include Australia, Sweden, Venezuela, North Korea, Vietnam and China.
Socialism has a bad rap because it’s a part of communism; however, communism’s economy isn’t any reason for alarm. It’s the totalitarian government that does what it pleases with its money that makes communism a horrible government system. People also believe that it would be too easy for people to take advantage of disability claims and receive welfare checks and that communism is inevitable in a socialist country.
Well, neither of these claims hold any proof, considering Australia and Sweden’s healthy economy, great welfare systems, and the apparent fact that as long as a country has an acceptable government before the arrival of socialism (like our own) and is a first world country, then the country will function with socialism. With our massive debt and the obvious fact that changing our country’s economic system would be nearly impossible, socialism may not happen for us.
So Hostess just got court approval for their wind-down plans November 29, socialism gains new ground every year, idiot CEOs kill functioning capitalism, and there is a possibility of mass immigration out of the US in the distant future. Just know that unions aren’t bad.