THE WEEK THAT WAS

Still playing out: several sites carried casting suggestions for what is an inevitable outcome of the Petraeus Affair and attendant misdemeanors: a movie. Suggestions for "King David": Daniel Craig or Nicholas Cage. Ms Broadwell, Ms Kelley (interchangeable brunettes): Marisa Tomei and Sandra Bullock. General Allen: Bruce Willis. Mrs Holly Petraeus: Judi Dench.

Twinkies, a "delicacy" to which I was introduced briefly by my husband eager to display the dubious delights of his US childhood to a newly arrived Brit - are no more. Texas-based Hostess, makers of Twinkies, and other, equally dubious delights, is reported to be shutting up shop. The shut-down will put 18,500 workers at 33 bakeries and 565 distribution centers out of work. The company blames a bakers' strike. Cynical others (myself included) suspect the following 4-point plan:

1.Ensure company will soon be on the rocks.
2.Force a strike by threatening a variety of unacceptable changes to worker conditions
3.At a moment politically ripe (Democrat returns to White House) file Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings
4.Blame union.

Without a union, Walmart staff are once again cranking up action in readiness for a huge walk-out on Black Friday - the day after Thanksgiving.
More power to them !

In today's Huffington Post: Walmart's Internal Compensation Documents Reveal Systematic Limit On Advancement.

AND an excellent post at Cannonfire What to do about Walmart

A CEO, John C. Metz, who owns numerous franchises - most in the restaurant business in Florida - best nationally-known being several Denny's diners has decided to
levy a 5% surcharge on his menu items, tell customers it is to cover the increased costs of the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare. Not a hanging offence and understandable in one way, if a rather excessive amount. But then he also intends to decrease many of his his employees' hours, so as to avoid having to provide health care cover and pay those costs for which he is charging his customers.

"If I leave the prices the same, but say on the menu that there is a 5 percent surcharge for Obamacare, customers have two choices. They can either pay it and tip 15 or 20 percent, or if they really feel so inclined, they can reduce the amount of tip they give to the server, who is the primary beneficiary of Obamacare," Metz told The Huffington Post. "Although it may sound terrible that I'm doing this, it's the only alternative. I've got to pass the cost on to the consumer."

Metz is the franchisor of Hurricane Grill & Wings, which has 48 locations, five of which are corporate owned, and president and owner of RREMC Restaurants, which runs approximately 40 Denny's and several Dairy Queen locations. He planned to use the 5 percent surcharge tactic in all his restaurants starting in January 2014, when Obamacare is fully implemented.

Interesting comment under the HuffPo article:

I have no problem with these right wing fools pushing this BS. This has the potential to push us in two directions. One is of course a push towards a single payer (health care)system, a system that will be much better for the vast majority of our country. The other less obvious one is a push towards working class solidarity that could really lead to the fundamental changes we need to see in our entire economic system. Perhaps even a push to replace the current capital driven system with a worker owned and worker driven system. Look if we get rid of these non-producers at the top of these organizations, people who earn their living off of doing nothing other than exploiting the sweat and effort of others and put the producers (i.e. the employees) in charge then we can get rid of this exploitation cost and put that money in the pockets of the working people of this country, people who will be much more concerned about social outcomes than these current financiers that care only about how much money lines their pockets