Say goodbye to Twinkies (1 Viewer)

[DesertKajun]

Well if you can raise prices great. Sadly internet retail will not allow them to. Internet companies sell fish for $12 B&M stores have to sell at $20 already so you jump it to 25 and loose business making Raising prices not likely viable. Also since its a limited market customer base expansion is slow at best usually just replacing those that leave hobby.

But it sucks that everything costing more in the end will be shouldered by the little guys out there. Rich folks don't care about higher prices on goods, poor people however do. Makes that owning a house dream that much farther out of reach if it cost more to build or remodel a home.

 

[DesertKajun]

and a union had nothing to do with that ship sinking?

so, what you're saying is that it's possible that a group of overpaid, under-talented and underperforming corporate executives can ruin a business - or, sink a ship as it were - due primarily to their own collective incompetence in running a large corporation. Poor management, unabashed greed and self-interest, dishonesty, lack of vision, lack of talent, bad decisions, etc on the part of a small group of powerful execs can sink a ship - and quickly.



If you want to consider credit for the time you put into your job that exist outside of job hours, then perhaps you ought to reconsider your assumptions surrounding teacher "vacations."

I wouldn't presume to know what your hours are, unless you tell me. I wouldn't presume to know how much or little you worked outside of the hours your fishing store is open.

In return, I think it's only fair that when you start making generalities about other professions, that you are at least consistent on comparable points. If you think your extra work and dedication should figure into some evaluation of your job, then I think you need to be more open-minded when it comes to the professions of others, with less assuming that if it's not school hours, as an example, then teachers are free from work.

No union just bad bosses. Time Warner were libs too, Parsons took a 20 million raise after laying off employees to save 20 million. Seems thats a bi partisan problem.

I am for paying for better teachers that perform as long as they drop all tenure to get rid of the ones that don't. Its why I like my kids charter school. Bad teachers have been canned mid year at times. Good ones probably get paid more to stay.

 

[Tapxe]

Math is your friend when in business and if you can sell $45k per month at a 300% muf with rent and utilities less than $3k per month and a third of your time is spent doing service calls and installs at 120 hours per week then you're not charging enough.

It's not an Obama fault. It's not regulation. It's the owner and his model. And, to the person's post who made the claim that nobody, but him understands that that is what it takes to run a small business, my response is simple.

It does not take 120 hours to make a living in a small retail business. If it does, you're doing it wrong.

Problem is that he can't charge more. Salaries have been slashed so deep for the average worker, aka middle class, that no one has enough money to purchase from him.

But those exec's could, if only they'd buy 18 thousand times as much as the average person.

 

[Cosmic201]

Why did he just go get another job paying $16/hr?

?



I thought he was very clear.

He said it will be hard to replace the $16/hr job that he had.
It will not be hard to replace the $11/hr job they wanted him to take.

 

[dtc]

Well if you can raise prices great. Sadly internet retail will not allow them to. Internet companies sell fish for $12 B&M stores have to sell at $20 already so you jump it to 25 and loose business making Raising prices not likely viable. Also since its a limited market customer base expansion is slow at best usually just replacing those that leave hobby.

But it sucks that everything costing more in the end will be shouldered by the little guys out there. Rich folks don't care about higher prices on goods, poor people however do. Makes that owning a house dream that much farther out of reach if it cost more to build or remodel a home.

The litany of excuses continues, eh?

Why not build your own website? Why not support a policy by which states are allowed to charge sales tax to internet companies so as to level the unfair playing field?

Either way, you'd be better off post Obamacare than before. FYI.

 

[dtc]

Problem is that he can't charge more. Salaries have been slashed so deep for the average worker, aka middle class, that no one has enough money to purchase from him.

But those exec's could, if only they'd buy 18 thousand times as much as the average person.

Now, you're channeling that Scarcastic guy, huh?

 

[DesertKajun]

The litany of excuses continues, eh?

Why not build your own website? Why not support a policy by which states are allowed to charge sales tax to internet companies so as to level the unfair playing field?

Either way, you'd be better off post Obamacare than before. FYI.

The websites I speak of do not always handle the live stock, they push paper from the customer to a wholesaler. I was selling quality not unknown quality for cheap. Impossible to undercut them with the overhead and what happens to the local store when customers find said web site with cheaper prices since its a drop ship price? This has been tried and not well received....

Most states require people to pay tax on internet sales, its a voluntary field on the income tax forms. Impossible to enforce. We need a fed sales tax on the internet since state to state gets confusing then you will have states trying to double tax.

 

[You]

?
I thought he was very clear.

He said it will be hard to replace the $16/hr job that he had.
It will not be hard to replace the $11/hr job they wanted him to take.

And now he can go work for that company making $11/hour.

 

[Severum]

Obama's admin has have a lot of effects on importation of marine animals as well as the burden Obama care is putting on pet stores. Margins are not allowing them to keep employees with the fines. I know few places that offer health care and you cant really raise prices with internet competition having the upper hand already. Stores here are dropping staff or using 1099 for labor. In this climate I doubt I would have been able to sell the store at all. I saw this coming though, but again I sold to spend more time with kids and less with fish not that my business model was failing.

How many pet stores in your area have 50 or more full time employees? I've never seen a LFS that did enough volume to justify that many employees.

The websites I speak of do not always handle the live stock, they push paper from the customer to a wholesaler. I was selling quality not unknown quality for cheap. Impossible to undercut them with the overhead and what happens to the local store when customers find said web site with cheaper prices since its a drop ship price? This has been tried and not well received....

Most states require people to pay tax on internet sales, its a voluntary field on the income tax forms. Impossible to enforce. We need a fed sales tax on the internet since state to state gets confusing then you will have states trying to double tax.

In Louisiana my aquarium related purchases were almost exclusively online since the late 90s. Sales tax wouldn't have changed that since I saved 50-75% off local retail and could choose from a much larger selection online. Mail order livestock and plants were usually much higher quality as well. Luckily we have a better LFS here that I'd be inclined to support, but mail order and local clubs would still be my preference for most purchases.

 

[GeauxSaints53]

There may be hope for Twinkies after all: Hostess Brands Inc. and its striking union agreed to a mediation that will forestall the company’s planned liquidation for the time being.

Twinkies hope? Hostess puts off liquidation, agrees to mediation - latimes.com

 

[RussTKD]

How many pet stores in your area have 50 or more full time employees? I've never seen a LFS that did enough volume to justify that many employees.



In Louisiana my aquarium related purchases were almost exclusively online since the late 90s. Sales tax wouldn't have changed that since I saved 50-75% off local retail and could choose from a much larger selection online. Mail order livestock and plants were usually much higher quality as well. Luckily we have a better LFS here that I'd be inclined to support, but mail order and local clubs would still be my preference for most purchases.

Ever shopped at Aquarium Imports on either Jeff Davis or Causeway?

I may have sold you fish.

 

[Severum]

Ever shopped at Aquarium Imports on either Jeff Davis or Causeway?

I may have sold you fish.

Never made it by there. I did most shopping in North Louisiana, particularly Monroe, which lacked any great stores. A couple tanks of common cichlids was as good as it got when I was in the market.

 

[You]

I wonder if the buyer will re hire the union workers back?
I'm guessing they're already snapped up by the higher paying employers in the area so maybe a moot point....

 

[PayOrPlay]

Another perspective:

Hiltzik: Poor management, not union intransigence, killed Hostess - latimes.com


Let's get a few things clear. Hostess didn't fail for any of the reasons you've been fed. It didn't fail because Americans demanded more healthful food than its Twinkies and Ho-Hos snack cakes. It didn't fail because its unions wanted it to die.

It failed because the people that ran it had no idea what they were doing. Every other excuse is just an attempt by the guilty to blame someone else.

***

. . . . Just before declaring bankruptcy for the second time in eight years Jan. 11, Hostess trebled the compensation of then-Chief Executive Brian Driscoll and raised other executives' pay up to twofold. At the same time, the company was demanding lower wages from workers and stiffing employee pension funds of $8 million a month in payment obligations.

Hostess management hasn't been able entirely to erase the paper trail pointing to its own derelictions. Consider a 163-page affidavit filed as part of the second bankruptcy petition. There Driscoll outlined a "Turnaround Plan" to get the firm back on its feet. The steps included closing outmoded plants and improving the efficiency of those that remain; upgrading the company's "aging vehicle fleet" and merging its distribution warehouses for efficiency; installing software at the warehouses to allow it to track inventory; and closing unprofitable retail stores. It also proposed to restore its advertising budget and establish an R&D program to develop new products to "maintain existing customers and attract new ones." None of these steps, Driscoll attested, required consultation with the unions. That raises the following question: You mean to tell me that as of January 2012, Hostess still hadn't gotten around to any of this?

****

The record shows that Hostess' unions were willing to talk with management at virtually every stage to keep the firm alive. There are plenty of companies and industries in which such talks have been fruitful, including the auto industry. But they can succeed only when everyone is confident that the guys at the other side of the table are committed to the same goals.

In this case, the unions finally realized that the Hostess strategic plan started and ended with extracting yet another round of cutbacks from employees. To argue that capitulating might at least save thousands of jobs is to accept the corrosive mind-set that manufacturing workers should be glad they've got any job at all and take what they're offered. The union members could see that their supposed management "partners" hoped to rescue their own investments by placing workers on a glide path to life on a minimum-wage existence, without pensions and without healthcare, after they had given and given again. You want to claim that they should have accepted the latest management demands as better than nothing instead of voting it down, OK. But you should ask yourself two questions: Where do you think this trend would have ended, and how much would you take?

 

[cdogg]

My company, Flowers, just bought all their bread brands, Merita, Nature's Pride, Wonderbread, etc., pending approval. Not the cake. I'm already making $600 more a week since they went under, hoping this adds some more cash in my pocket.