Twinkie CEO Admits Company Took Employees Pensions and Put It Toward Executive Pay

Hostess company continues to screw over its workers.

December 11, 2012

Twinkie-maker Hostess continues to screw over its workers. The company is in the process of complete liquidation and 18,000 unionized workers are set to lose their jobs. More troubling – they could lose their pensions.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal , Hostess’ CEO, Gregory Rayburn, essentially admitted that his company stole employee pension money and put it toward CEO and senior executive pay (aka “operations”). While this isn't technically illegal, it's another sleazy theft by Hostess executives - who've paid themselves handsomely while running their company into the ground. Just last month, a judge agreed to let Hostess executives suck another $1.8 million out of the bankrupt company to pay bonuses to CEOs.  

If there's no way to recover the money for the Hostess pension plans for workers, then the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. will have to foot the bill to make sure workers get at least some of the retirement money they paid in.

Hostess shows us clearly what Bain-style predatory capitalism is all about: big bucks for the very few rich executives, layoffs and poverty for the workers and their communities.  READ MORE

For Kodak, nuclear reactor and weapons-grade uranium proved useful

An Eastman Kodak facility had a small nuclear reactor
and 3½ pounds of weapons-grade uranium for more
than 30 years. (Associated Press / May 14, 2012)

By Matt Pearce

May 14, 2012, 3:01 p.m.

Kodak has the bomb.

 … OK, not really. But according to a report from the Rochester, N.Y., Democrat and Chronicle, an Eastman Kodak facility had a small nuclear reactor and 3 ½ pounds of weapons-grade uranium for more than 30 years.

Kodak. The company that makes cameras and printers.

“It’s such an odd situation because private companies just don’t have this material,” Miles Pomper, a senior research associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington, D.C., told the Democrat and Chronicle.

No kidding. A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told the Los Angeles Times that the company had enriched 1,582 grams of uranium-235 up to 93.4%, a level considered weapons-grade. Good thing Kodak isn't in Iran; that’s the kind of thing Israel’s been threatening to go to war over.
The company was using the reactor to check its chemicals and perform radiography tests, the commission said, and had upgraded to its in-house system after using one at Cornell University, according to the Democrat and Chronicle. It was reportedly guarded and monitored carefully.
Kodak, not known as one of the world’s nuclear powers, filed for bankruptcy protection in January and has been shedding some of its holdings.  READ MORE

Homeowners deserve protections afforded businesses

Earl Blumenauer

Friday, February 17, 2012

It's a curious and unfair system that homeowners face, with those in debt expected to meet the original terms of their mortgage loan even as we're seeing a cavalcade of misdeeds, shortcuts and in some cases outright fraud by their lenders. Nowhere is this pattern clearer than in Thursday's report from San Francisco auditors that 84 percent of foreclosures examined contained at least one violation of the law by the foreclosing party.

The report is only the latest in a series of incidents involving bad actors in the foreclosure crisis. Last year, I called for a moratorium on home foreclosures after Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo signed affidavits initiating foreclosure against borrowers without verifying the information they contained. In fact, problems have been so rampant that banks now require many buyers of foreclosed homes to sign contracts absolving the bank of liability should irregularities appear with the original foreclosure.

In light of these negligent practices, the $26 billion settlement last week between the U.S. Department of Justice, state attorneys general and the major banks raises as many questions as answers. For instance: If a house is illegally foreclosed upon and subsequently sold by the bank, who owns the home? The new buyer or the original owner? Untangling this mess might require new consumer protections, not just a payout from the banks accused of wrongdoing.

The best way to prevent foreclosure problems, however, has always been to prevent foreclosures in the first place. Offering families facing foreclosure the same bankruptcy protections enjoyed by business speculators is one place to start.

As it stands today, a single family that buys a home in a housing development is treated differently in bankruptcy court than a businessman who bought 10 units in the same project. If and when the housing bubble bursts, the underwater speculator is able to seek bankruptcy relief on all 10 units, while the owner of the single home is left out in the cold. There is no good reason that homeowners should face this discrimination in bankruptcy or be treated differently than commercial interests. If it's good enough for business, it should be good enough for homeowners.   READ MORE

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on the impacts of the financial crisis on homeowners, click here.

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The article is incorrect. Homesteads are exempt from $25000 in Louisiana to value of home in Florida.

Here is a not-up-to date listing of exemptions: 

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Bank of America Death Watch: Moody's Downgrades B of A Credit, Signals Bailouts Less Likely

The most interesting thing about the credit rating agency's decision to downgrade Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup wasn't the downgrade in their credit rating itself: it was the signal, reported by the New York Times, that the federal government is not going to step in and save the big banks from themselves this time: The downgrades were driven by Moody’s conclusion that the federal government was less likely to step in and provide support for a faltering big bank the way it did after the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers, when Washington executed a series of actions including capital infusions and credit guarantees to halt the spreading panic. Read more