Twinkies: The Breakfast of Champion Programmers Still Hard To Get 223
An anonymous reader writes "When Hostess, baker of Twinkies, filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations in November, Twinkies were no more. Then, a private equity firm bought the business for $410 million and planned to resume production in 'The Sweetest Comeback in the History of Ever.' Now, an article in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette reports that they're still hard to get, since an unprecedented demand has caused orders to exceed production capacity 'by a significant amount.'"
Pathetic (Score:1, Insightful)
It's pathetic that there could be that much of a demand for 'Twinkies'; the food of the unhealthy and overweight.
Re:Pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)
What is this magic healthcare we pay for that makes them healthy and keeps them alive as long as you and I?
My understanding is no amount of money will fix type 2 diabetes and obesity in a non-compliant patient. Odds are these are going to be cheap deaths. If you want to lower healthcare costs you have to get people to do more of this stuff. Us healthy folks living into our 80s and 90s requiring round the clock care is where the real costs are.
Fat Rage (Score:5, Insightful)
What do they care?
They all care. That is the point. You think anyone chooses to be fat, your less attractive, treated badly, can't fit normal clothes, you are generally slow, as well as a whole host of illnesses...yeah you die sooner as well, so I guess others will have to pay for your pension. Overall though its shitty being fat, and you care about it all the time.
You get penalised for being fat.
Re:Pathetic (Score:2, Insightful)
besides, most countries have taxes on sugar etc..
heh, in the US we tariff the hell out of sugar and subsidize high-fructose corn syrup. To support the War on Triglycerides, apparently.
what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.
Are you kidding? That strategy has generated billions of dollars worth of free advertising for the Twinkie brand and demand is now at an all-time high; profits from now go to the new owners, losses from then are accounted for in the bankruptcy and get paid for by the creditors. It's brilliant, really, in a sociopathic sort of way.
FWIW, there is a mountain of Twinkie boxes and a 5x8 advertising banner at the entrance to the WalMart in Claremont, NH. I won't need any until October, when the boy wants some of those Minion cupcakes for his birthday party.
They also managed to extract all the money from the employee's retirement fund and give it to themselves in the form of bonuses, then continue to reduce pay (while increasing bonuses) until the workers couldn't afford to work anymore. Then they sold the company for millions. I'd say they managed the "bankruptcy" brilliantly, from a cut-throat, anti-working folks sort of way. Now those same working-class folks are going to go run out any buy the product to reward it.
Re:Pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)
We could do with doctors having some end of live training. I have watched too many elderly relatives treated with expensive and painful procedures that only managed to lengthen their suffering a very short amount of time. Often increasing their suffering for that time. Yeah, lets try chemo on an 85 year old who is more cancer than man! What the hell is wrong with these doctors?
awful (Score:4, Insightful)
You know what else is hard to get? Heroin.
"Champion programmers" don't eat Twinkies. Fat programmers eat Twinkies.
Don't fuck up your body, please. You only get one and it's already out of warranty.
Re:Pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)
What the hell is wrong with these doctors?
The patients ask for it. I am a doctor. Many people say that they are at peace with dying, but when they are actually near death, NO ONE really means it. In 20 years, I have seen too many people die than I can count. All of them wanted everything done, regardless of the cost and side effects, and questionable benefit. If there was even the slightest question of prolonging their life 10 minutes, as long as it was covered by insurance, then they insisted on the treatment. But I'm sure you don't want to hear that. It's easier to blame the doctor.
Re:Pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)
We could do with doctors having some end of live training. I have watched too many elderly relatives treated with expensive and painful procedures that only managed to lengthen their suffering a very short amount of time. Often increasing their suffering for that time. Yeah, lets try chemo on an 85 year old who is more cancer than man! What the hell is wrong with these doctors?
Doctors!? What about 85 Year Old Cancer Man's fearful obsession with trying to eke out even a possible tiny few months more of life? What about 85 Year Old Cancer Man's family who sues the doctor years after Cancer Man dies because the doc "didn't do all he could and spend tens of thousands of dollars to eke out another few months of pitiful life for our father/son/husband!!!!11lleleventy"
Talking directly to Cancer Man I say this: dignity, motherfucker, do you speak it? Try dying with it then you selfish asshole. The ultimate issue is that in the US, there is no dialog on death and dying, there's only more fear. We don't talk about dying, we don't want to deal with dying, we don't want to see people dying, we don't want to deal with what we sometimes must do after death (like plan funerals, etc.) Death and dying as a natural part of living are treated as almost a kind of taboo subject and rarely intrudes into public consciousness except for when complete fucking morons spout off about "death panels" and pile on more and more fear.
As a people, Americans are now defined by and controlled by every kind of fear imaginable and more the kind of fear that is only imagined.
So tell Cancer Man and his family to sit down, have a nice hot cup of shut the fuck up and figure out how to make his dying as best as circumstances allow instead of driving up everyone else's medical costs, suing good doctors into oblivion and/or driving good people out of medical practice in the first place due to these hysterical lawsuit-happy SELFISH ignorant fools.
Re:Pathetic (Score:3, Insightful)
We could do with doctors having some end of live training. I have watched too many elderly relatives treated with expensive and painful procedures that only managed to lengthen their suffering a very short amount of time. Often increasing their suffering for that time. Yeah, lets try chemo on an 85 year old who is more cancer than man! What the hell is wrong with these doctors?
It's the same reason you get an XRay every time you go into the Dentist. You don't need them (visual inspection will tell almost everything you need to know), but they are a very simple and easy procedure that will get the dentist a good amount of money from the Insurance company. In addition, like mechanics and the specialist equipment they have to buy, paying off that XRay machine they are forced to buy will probably take a few thousand XRays, so they have to do it in order to survive.
A lot of the medical decisions we make in this country are satisfied by this basic economic pressure: The exact point where they can bleed as much money from the Insurance companies (who bleed as much out of you).
This is why we should have went with single payer or Universal health care in the United States, instead of using the Affordable Care Act to prop up a diseased industry. Perhaps in another 10-20 years we'll be at that point in the US, it depends on how fast the current Ultraconservative Party collapses.
Chapter 7 versus Chapter 11 (Score:4, Insightful)
I've never had a twinkie. I want to try
You really don't. They are pretty gross and really bad for you.
what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.
The company didn't go through Chapter 11 bankruptcy where you keep operating and restructure the company. The company did a Chapter 7 where you liquidate the company. A Chapter 7 bankruptcy occurs when you no longer expect the company to have a reasonable expectation of remaining a going concern. When you do that you stop production because the company no longer exists and is being sold for the residual value of its assets. Someone bought the assets and started production again which is exactly what you might expect in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Re:Pathetic (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, Talent? They were making Twinkies. Not growing human brains on mars. I'm pretty pro union, but this union voted for unemployment, rather than a concession on stupid job conditions. They're the idiots that aren't needed in organized labor in this day and age. Many people saw corruption and incompetence take root at unions and decided they were better off without the unions at all. In the end for most, the decision was simply choosing the method of death. Unions need to be smarter and have pay and benefits aligned with the company's financial health.