Missy on November 16, 2012 at 12:55 PM

Sorry, must correct myself – Hostess is headquartered in Texas but the bakery strikes crippling it were nationwide.

And meanwhile, hilarity ensues in Texas, where a bunch of dumb-as-a-sack-of-hammers union workers negotiate themselves permanently out of their jobs at financially troubled Hostess Cupcakes.

Um – not in Texas. Texas is a right-to-work state. Hostess is in California.

A lifetime of free housing, free flat screen TVs, free food, free cheez puffs, free Obamaphones awaits them, courtesy of the great Democrat welfare system.

As an extra bonus, these layoffs come just in time for the release of the new Nintendo console. Subsidy Christmas for the kiddies!

Let people see what their paycheck is like without deductions, and then let them see the real bill that comes due on April 15….

The Schaef on November 16, 2012 at 9:42 AM

Nah, the Monday before national elections.

(It will be even funnier if after they liquidate, Hostess suddenly re-emerges in Mexico with brand new factories, brand new equipment, and brand new workers.)

You do realize that when you say shit like that, you sound like this guy, right?

Odysseus on November 16, 2012 at 9:33 AM

I wonder if he realizes he sounds like this guy, too?

But Obama doesn’t care how it works. All he knows is that the rich and big corporations should pay their fair share. ™

I think that health benefits should be taxed like regular income (which they are). Health care cost in the U.S are absurd and if people actually felt like they were paying for them, they’d be more amenable to attempts to curb costs.

urban elitist on November 15, 2012 at 6:55 PM

I seem to recall John McCain proposing something to that effect, only to be crucified by the Obama crowd for even bringing it up.

That said, I’ll go ahead and one-up you on this, by recommending that the government stop withholding state and federal taxes from paychecks. Let people see what their paycheck is like without deductions, and then let them see the real bill that comes due on April 15, not the amount obscured by 51 weeks of incremental leeching. Then we’ll see what they think of their tax rates.

I think wing-nuts like this one didn’t hear people screaming “we’re not stupid” on Nov6.

lester on November 15, 2012 at 6:09 PM

The screaming, while necessary, didn’t compensate for the actions taken on same day. Something about them speaking louder than words, or whatever.

Its time to quit robbing peter to pay paul (themselves) and start showing responsibility for their employees.

libfreeordie on November 15, 2012 at 6:21 PM

I’m not sure you realize, but the explanatory parentheses essentially illustrate why that was exactly the wrong expression to use to describe the phenomenon.

But then again, “responsibility” to you is defined as “required to buy a comprehensive health plan without regard for the cost to the business or, for that matter, to the worker who probably couldn’t afford the lower-priced health plan to begin with”. Take it from someone who has no insurance for himself or his family of five because the cost is already too high and going up, meaning I’ll get booted into the state exchange (if Ohio even sets one up), which I will again be unable to afford at that level of coverage, meaning in the end, the government will charge me a tax penalty for the crime of not being able to afford something they are trying to force me to buy. And my income is significantly more than your average busboy.

These people have been making their profit lines by exploiting workers. Its time to quit robbing peter to pay paul (themselves) and start showing responsibility for their employees.

libfreeordie on November 15, 2012 at 6:21 PM

It’s obvious that libfreeordie knows nothing about business. This paragraph doesn’t make any sense.

These people have been making their profit lines by exploiting workers. Its time to quit robbing peter to pay paul (themselves) and start showing responsibility for their employees.

libfreeordie on November 15, 2012 at 6:21 PM

You do realize that when you say shit like that, you sound like this guy, right?

Put some incredibly cheap price on all the products and then tack on the cost for taxes and regulatory compliance to the bill.

Commies like lester and libFree hate this because once people start seeing the bill, they’ll all be in the Tea Party. This is why you’ll never see the Fair Tax because it puts the cost of the federal government in front of people’s faces every day instead of once a year.

The business could hide the cost or be open about it.

CW on November 16, 2012 at 9:07 AM

Kind of pathetic that businesses (for profit) are more transparent than the Most Transparent Administration Ever. (TM)

Oh wah, wah, wah. These people have been making their profit lines by exploiting workers. Its time to quit robbing peter to pay paul (themselves) and start showing responsibility for their employees.

libfreeordie on November 15, 2012 at 6:21 PM

Sheesh you’re predictable. BTW this does bring about responsibility…and in a very honest way. People can pay for o-care and they will know they are paying for it ….you should be ecstatic.
The business could hide the cost or be open about it.

You’re still ugly and nobody likes you—-still.

You just hate that Americans will have to face the reality of O-care..

I think wing-nuts like this one didn’t hear people screaming “we’re not stupid” on Nov6.

lester on November 15, 2012 at 6:09 PM

We heard you. What we didn’t hear was the not.

You wanted this, so take it and stop whining.

Oh wah, wah, wah. These people have been making their profit lines by exploiting workers. Its time to quit robbing peter to pay paul (themselves) and start showing responsibility for their employees.

libfreeordie on November 15, 2012 at 6:21 PM

Any worker that feels “exploited” is free to stop collecting pay cheques and quit.

That steak I was talking about when all said and done I bet goes up at least 25%. So many things involved….

watertown on November 16, 2012 at 5:50 AM

Our main business is ranching. Cattle prices are record highs. But we are not really getting ahead bcs the cost of doing business have skyrocketed.
As with many in agriculture, we have been forced to hold jobs off the ranch. We bought a semi & hubby drives cattle hay & grain & I am a HS teacher.
Without those jobs, we would not be able to ranch.
And it isn’t bcs we run the ranch poorly. It’s just that bad for all of us unless you’re a farmer getting sweet crop payments from the federal govt programs.

All those part-time servers, half of them students, who live off of tips and wouldn’t be getting Obamacare anyway? Riiiight.
I think wing-nuts like this one didn’t hear people screaming “we’re not stupid” on Nov6.
lester on November 15, 2012 at 6:09 PM

That’s bcs the government is forcing their parents’ health insurance companies to cover them until 26. You think this has no financial repercussions anywhere?

Oh wah, wah, wah. These people have been making their profit lines by exploiting workers. Its time to quit robbing peter to pay paul (themselves) and start showing responsibility for their employees.
libfreeordie on November 15, 2012 at 6:21 PM

So the profits of a company go only to the workers? Do these profits belong to the workers? Is a business solely in business to reward workers?
This is communist thinking. You have only to look to the failed communist countries around the world to see what this mindset has wrought.
Meanwhile, communist China has woken up & is letting the good times roll for its citizens. Notice they are not that communist anymore. And their economy is booming.

I notice LibDie has no complaints about the surcharge on his phone bill that pays for all those obamaphones.
BeachBum on November 15, 2012 at 6:55 PM

He’s probably just fine with paying higher taxes. That is, until it starts affecting his bottom line at home.
Or perhaps he wants to be part of the unwashed proletariat where everybody shares everything & owns nothing. Perhaps he would feel comfortable living in close military like quarters & eating meals in a canteen with his fellow workers.

I’ll go you one better. I think that health benefits should be taxed like regular income (which they are). Health care cost in the U.S are absurd and if people actually felt like they were paying for them, they’d be more amenable to attempts to curb costs.
urban elitist on November 15, 2012 at 6:55 PM

with the above post pointing out that perhaps you are stoned, let’s explore health care costs…Medicare gave the industry a “blank check” to spend tons on facilities and experimental medicine. and then we get a profession that monitors every move ready to take 40% of the take.
After a hearty meal and the check comes, Medicare determines that it forgot its wallet…
so the check gets spread around everybody else in the restaurant that has money in their wallet. People that came late find that they ordered a 6 shrimp dinner but only get 3 shrimp and the menu price doubled.
So let’s expand that concept to the rest of the population.
teejk on November 15, 2012 at 7:32 PM

Nice job teejk. But of course, health care is a right. And doctors have no right to profit from healing the sick.

Lets take a steak.

First the farmer who has to pay for insurance now. This adds cost to the cow.

Then the company that picks it up to slaughter, these people also have workers.

Not only now does the farmer charge a bit more for the cow, but the company picking up the cow also has to adsorb their own cost that went up due to obamacare.

Also, lets not forget that power companies need to supply power and fuel to the farmer and the slaughter house and the shipper.

All the different branches alone from that, transport, workers,ect ect all will be adding cost because they have to pay “a little extra”.

I swear liberals are retarded. They can not see outside of the little world they each put themselves in. They have no dang concept how things are interconnected in society. They just think you can tax one area and not have a domino affect on down the chain. Now, they put it on EVERYONE… so the domino affect is going to happen to everyone.

That steak I was talking about when all said and done I bet goes up at least 25%. So many things involved….

phillypolitics on November 15, 2012 at 6:09 PM

I would enjoy seeing manufacturers put a similar tag related to Obamacare/corporate tax on their products – call it the “Galt line item” or “Galt label”.

Since people seem to have so much trouble realizing that taxing a company only taxes the consumer, maybe try to be more explicit.

If almost all businesses are going to have to pass costs off to the consumers, won’t this start increasing costs of many things very quickly?

This is just the tip of the iceberg. When all these companies realize that the stuff they are purchasing to sell is going to go up in price, they’re going to have to readjust and raise their prices again.

Or am I way off here?

VinceOfDoom on November 15, 2012 at 9:22 PM

You are missing something.

Obamacare requires additional profits to cover. If it was as easy as raising prices to raise additional profits, businesses would already be doing it.

For many companies the choice is between cutting hours and going under. Companies can’t simply make more money to cover higher costs. They are already making the most amount they can.

But first, as long as we’re talking about my families business, I’ve got to get the obligatory website plug out of the way.

Please visit, http://www.preparedpantry.com , for baking mixes, tools, syrups, jams, and various kitchen related gifts.

Yeah, sorry about the plug, I had to do that, it’s part of the Obamacare mandate!

Anyway, onto the actual content.

The sum of it, is that for the past year small businesses have been sitting in a bit of a holding pattern when it came to hiring decisions. We ourselves, have been very reluctant to hire anybody who was not absolutely necessary, due in large part to the coverage mandate for any small business with more than a certain number of employees. We actually have plenty of openings left until we hit that number, but the simple fact that we have a finite number of hires left before our costs rise dramatically, makes us very reluctant to hire people. We don’t like firing people if we can avoid it, so to hire people we have to be absolutely certain they’re going to work out.

Other small businesses we work with are facing the same problem. Those with only a handful of employees are clamping down on hires and training workers to be more productive, until they just cannot possibly keep up with the workload without another hire. Companies with more than a handful of workers, are now largely in the act of downsizing. Some are buying new equipment to make up for drop in manpower, but for the most part most small businesses that fall into this category seem to be trying to simply up productivity to get by.

Taxes of course, are a whole other monster. Suffice to say, most small business owners are now assuming that their taxes are going to go up. The expectation is that, not only will this drive their costs up, but its going to hurt sales and revenues as well. In fact I’ve heard multiple individuals state that they believe sales and revenues will likely drop back roughly to where they were three years ago.

For our business especially, this is staggering. We’ve managed to grow sales even during the economic collapse of 08. This should tell you just how dramatic we expect Obama’s economic policy to be now that it’s certain.

As for the liberals out there, the ones that think we’re just being greedy by cutting jobs, raising prices, and so on. The fact of the matter is that we cannot spend more money than we have, and things like health insurance is a cost, regardless of whether its mandated or not. The money to pay for this must come from somewhere, and we just don’t have many places we could take it from. We cannot quickly raise prices, because our products aren’t enough of a staple to sell even at high prices. In the past we’ve been able to gradually raise prices to pay for things like increased shipping prices, but even gradually this impacts sales, and it can take a long time for them to fully recover. Of course, whenever sales slow down, our ability to hire new employees goes down dramatically.

As for personal profit, we don’t really get much out of it. My father is the owner and primary manager, and despite his worth on paper his actual income sticks him somewhere in the middle class. On top of that, he regularly works sixty hours a week, volunteers eight to twenty hours of his time to the church every week, and loses tremendous amounts of sleep whenever the possibility of firing somebody rears its head.

In other words, he’s working his tail off now. He may eventually be rewarded for it, but if he does it’ll be years from now when his business is worth enough to actually be bought out.

All of you have probably heard this all before, in sanitized reports about the state of the economy. From the perspective on the ground though, it’s scary stuff. We’re all just trying to survive long enough for conditions to change, and last Tuesday we were informed that it’d be another two years at the soonest before we could expect any real reinforcements.

Must be really fun living in the conservative world of myth and legend, just making things up on the go…
 
lester on July 23, 2012 at 12:11 PM

All those part-time servers, half of them students…
 
lester on November 15, 2012 at 6:09 PM

Then again, their comments clearly give away that, while advocating from a “moral high ground”, they have no concept of morality or reality. Otherwise they would understand the concepts of profits (and profit margin) and private property.

Or am I way off here?

VinceOfDoom

nope there will be a multiplier effect. AF every level of research, discovery, excavation, construction, design, fabrication, transportation, retail, on and on the cost all gets paid by guess who?

us. its going to be really painful

This is just the tip of the iceberg. When all these companies realize that the stuff they are purchasing to sell is going to go up in price, they’re going to have to readjust and raise their prices again.

Or am I way off here?

Um, yeah, bad idea. I rag on Obozo on hotair as much as the next guy, but never let politics affect your family relationships or your bottom line.

sauldalinsky on November 15, 2012 at 6:12 PM

Too late, Vichy. Politics always affects the bottom line whether or not you even realize it.

libfreeordie on November 15, 2012 at 6:21 PM

You should hire all the workers being laid off by other businesses, then, just to show them how it can be done.

Oh wah, wah, wah. These people have been making their profit lines by exploiting workers. Its time to quit robbing peter to pay paul (themselves) and start showing responsibility for their employees.

libfreeordie on November 15, 2012 at 6:21 PM

Wow. Who ties your shoes? Oh, that’s right, you’re a pencil pusher. You know they’re called “loafers” for a reason don’t you?

I think wing-nuts like this one didn’t hear people screaming “we’re not stupid” on Nov6.

lester

Kind of like when criminals caught in the act scream “I’m innocent”, lol.

I’ll go you one better. I think that health benefits should be taxed like regular income (which they are). Health care cost in the U.S are absurd and if people actually felt like they were paying for them, they’d be more amenable to attempts to curb costs.

urban elitist on November 15, 2012 at 6:55 PM

with the above post pointing out that perhaps you are stoned, let’s explore health care costs…Medicare gave the industry a “blank check” to spend tons on facilities and experimental medicine. and then we get a profession that monitors every move ready to take 40% of the take.

After a hearty meal and the check comes, Medicare determines that it forgot its wallet…

so the check gets spread around everybody else in the restaurant that has money in their wallet. People that came late find that they ordered a 6 shrimp dinner but only get 3 shrimp and the menu price doubled.

So let’s expand that concept to the rest of the population.

Do you run a business?

ReaganWasRight

He’s a liberal….he runs EVERYONE’S business.

Its time to quit robbing peter to pay paul…

libbrainfree

A lib thinks it’s time to stop robbing, lol. How ironic.

E-R

Lester’s a professor too?

22044 on November 15, 2012 at 6:57 PM

Unfortunately not. Then again, non of your business.