Of course, Mike is being a little willfully ignorant here, since “chemical-laden” obviously isn’t intended to mean “filled with chemicals of any conceivable sort”, but rather “filled with artificial preservatives and similar compounds that in ingredient lists are given complicated names because they’re too new to have traditional ones”.

But even then, not all such chemicals are necessarily bad for you, and often they’re feared purely because they sound dangerous rather than because of any actual evidence.  And making comparisons between artificial preservatives and _Dachau and Bhopal_ is just stupid.  Especially since those both involved _literal pesticides_, chemicals _designed_ to kill.  (And the fatal components of Zyklon-B weren’t even anything that fancy; it was basically hydrogen cyanide, a poison you can literally extract from fruit if need be.)

They only want people they know have the skill of changing tires to change tires.  They do not want to pay skilled labor wages to unskilled labor.  Simple enough, right?

Now back to the labels:  persons hired as laborers are labeled “unskilled”.  Persons known to have the skill of changing tires are labeled “mechanics”.

This isn’t entirely unwarranted.  I worked in a tire shop for a couple years and I saw a remarkable number of cars damaged by people changing tires without tightening the lug nuts, causing the lugs to shear and the wheel to come off the car at speed.  Seriously!  Lots of people cannot change a tire safely.

The problem is that the corporate masters have substituted a rules system for common sense and adequate management on the spot.  They are trying to hire the cheapest, least competent people possible, by moving the intelligence out of people’s heads into rule sets.  You see this behavior everywhere.

Huh?

I’ll stop at the first one; Why on God’s green earth would a worker monitoring a largely automated baking process leave a station to move finished product anywhere?

So that everyone could stop and watch them do it?

Maybe pat them on the back and high-five them on driving the forklift/pallet jack/lifting a bin so well for a baker?

Rayburn - 

Is a member of the board of directors, aside from being CEO, and has wrangled from the bankruptcy judge a fairly free hand for awarding retention bonuses to management during wind-down operations. 

He gave up about 1.5mil in “bonuses”, but that is meaningless paper sacrifice given he has the ability to make it up as CEO and member of the board after people look away. 

Is the one who imposed the 8% across the board cut to all salaries but his own.

Anyone who thinks the high management or the board took a hit or even agreed to take a hit collectively or individually in order to try and save the company, jobs, pensions or otherwise is somehow blowing smoke up their own butt.

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/26/hostess-twinkies-bankrupt/

This of course says nothing of the role of hedge fund managers in all this.

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/26/hostess-twinkies-bankrupt/?iid=EL

“The Balkanized nature of its empire gave Hostess a piecemeal labor situation, including a matrix of 372 collective-bargaining agreements, a dozen separate unions, 5,500 delivery routes, and no fewer than 40 multi-employer pension plans that are despised by management.”

plenty of blame to go around…

So blame gets spread evenly, whereas bonuses go directly to the people who need (and deserve) them the least.

That’s unrealistic because (select one)

A. Profit!

B. but she’s in a union!

C. 9/11!

D. The economy!

E. The executives took pay cuts! (oh wait…)

F. Every CEO’s favourite, All of the Above.