Sodomy: A prime example of what’s wrong with #ALpolitics

A dear friend who is a long-time retiree, aged 78 years, entire subsistence is from a meager pension (earned from a lifetime of work in a unionized organization), supplemented with a paltry Social Security check.

She’s lived through breast cancer surgery (mastectomy) & reconstruction, other major surgeries (knee replacements) and procedures, and lives in a trailer which she owns, situated upon a lot which she rents. She has resided there many, many years.

To save money, she recently

Investigation: Twinkies maker Hostess Brands stole employee pension funds.

It’s been amazing to me to hear that many who have followed this issue – or even had some passing familiarity with the story – have been so blatantly ignorant of the abuses and frauds perpetrated by the corporate executives of the Hostess Corporation. Frankly, those who demonized the unfortunate demise of this iconic American enterprise blamed unions, and completely overlooked corporate malfeasance. However, this enterprise, which, in the course of their operations, once treated their employees well, was miserably raped by greedy and incompetent executives. Why they have not been charged with theft or fraud is beyond my comprehension.

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Hostess Maneuver Deprived Pension

By JULIE JARGON, RACHEL FEINTZEIG And MIKE SPECTOR

• Updated December 9, 2012, 8:03 p.m. ET

Hostess Brands Inc. said it used wages that were supposed to help fund employee pensions for the company’s operations as it sank toward bankruptcy.

Ryan Nicholson for The Wall Street Journal

After nearly 22 years at Hostess, former forklift operator Craig Davis is pondering his future on the front porch of his home in Emporia, Kan.

It isn’t clear how many of the Irving, Texas, company’s workers were affected by the move or how much money never wound up in their pension plans as promised.

After the company said in August 2011 that it would stop making pension contributions, the foregone wages weren’t put toward the pension. Nor were they restored.

After nearly 22 years at Hostess, former forklift operator Craig Davis is pondering his future on the front porch of his home in Emporia, Kansas. Ryan Nicholson for The Wall Street Journal

The maker of Twinkies, Ho-Hos and Wonder Bread filed for bankruptcy protection in January and shut down last month following a strike by one of the unions representing Hostess workers. A judge is overseeing the sale of company assets.

Gregory Rayburn, Hostess’s chief executive officer, said in an interview it is “terrible” that employee wages earmarked for the pension were steered elsewhere by the company.

“I think it’s like a lot of things in this case,” he added. “It’s not a good situation to have.”

Mr. Rayburn became chief executive in March and learned about the issue shortly before the company shut down, he said. “Whatever the circumstances were, whatever those decisions were, I wasn’t there,” he said.

A spokeswoman for Hostess’s previous top executive, Brian Driscoll, declined to comment.

Hostess hasn’t previously acknowledged that the foregone wages went toward its operations.

The maneuver probably doesn’t violate federal law because the money Hostess failed to put into the pension didn’t come directly from employees, experts said.

“It’s what lawyers call betrayal without remedy,” said James P. Baker, a partner at Baker & McKenzie LLP who specializes in employee benefits and isn’t involved in the Hostess case. “It’s sad, but that stuff does happen, unfortunately.”

The decision to cease pension contributions angered many employees. After the bankruptcy filing, Hostess tangled with

Q: Where in America can you retire at age 23? A: Bain Capital

“…distributions may be made to a participant who has not separated from service, provided the participant has attained age 23 years old…”

The bigger question is this: Can or will Mitt Romney give all Americans the same opportunity? Can or will his ideas and policy make everyone as rich as Croesus?

Forget “rich.”

Let’s settle for “eliminate poverty.”

I think we know the answer to that one.

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Bain’s Unusually Young Retirement Rollover Age: 23

April 2, 2012, 2:19 PM ET

By Mark Maremont

Bain Capital, the private-equity firm that Mitt Romney used to run, appears to have an unusual early-retirement age: 23.

That’s the age at which, according to a federal filing (PDF, page 25), Bain employees are allowed to roll over their retirement funds from a Bain profit-sharing plan into their own individual retirement accounts, or simply withdraw the money.

Federal law allows employees in such profit-sharing plans to roll over their funds into an IRA only under certain circumstances, such as when they leave their jobs, when they’ve been in the job a certain number of years, or when they reach a specified age, pension lawyers said. Normally, that age is something close to retirement, such as 50 or 55 years old.

“I’ve never seen or drafted a plan permitting a distribution as early as 23,” said Charles M. Lax, a pension attorney at Maddin Hauser in Southfield, Mich. He said the Bain arrangement

We promised to pay your retirement pension, but now, we won’t. Sosumi… you bastards!

For those “in the know,” “Sosumi” is the name of a computer sound which Apple Computer of Cupertino, CA created and has used for quite some time.

I love Apple Computer, well, not genuinely “love,” but have always believed them to be the best – bar none – computer operating system, superior in every way to Microsoft’s Windows OS. Folks used to say, “Oh, the Mac is good for graphics,” and other such nonsense, even when the Mac OS was in v7.x.

Today, I ask folks, “What’s the Internet all about?” Graphics, graphics, graphics, and media, media, media.

And still, some folks continue to use the infection-prone Windows. Oh well. Some folks never learn.

On to Sosumi.

If you’ve ever heard of the “Beatles,” (and who hasn’t?) you should be aware that

Trouble from Huntsville Hospital

NOTE: I share the following with explicit permission.

A dear, elderly and retired friend of mine will, in coming days, be scheduled for surgery. Most likely, the procedure(s) will be performed at Huntsville Hospital.

Because my friend is retired, she receives a modest (meager would be more appropriately accurate) private pension, supplemented with Social Security income. Altogether, she has monthly income of under