Daily Archives: April 11, 2011

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Georgia Company Rescues TastyKake

Good news for the Tasty Baking Company and TastyKake lovers all over this land. Three months ago the company was facing bankruptcy. Late on their mortgage payment and $133 million in debt. The state of Pennsylvania loaned them about $40 million in one way or the other just to keep them going until a buyer could be found.

They found one. Flowers Foods, Thomasville, Georgia, bought the company for $4 a share. More than double what it was worth yesterday, and more than three dollars lower than the $7.73 per share high in the trailing 12 months. Too bad you didn’t buy any shares at the end of last month when it was at the low of $1.58. But at $4 now, it’s still a good buy now that they gain the distribution system of Flowers.

It looks like a good purchase. Flowers gains a popular and quality snack food line, and has the distribution system in the South that Tasty Baking Co. lacked. And Flowers picks up a northeast distribution system that they lacked.

Hopefully soon, I’ll be able to get my TastyKakes from the local Flowers distributor instead of having them shipped to me from Philadelphia. A three-week ordeal.

As a TastyKake lover myself, here’s hoping it all works out. Under the right management, it seems like a sure thing.

Link:  Tastykake sale: Plants stay open; buyer to repay PA

Economy, Politics

Budget Battle, It’s All Political

You have to laugh at Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) when he says that Republicans’ spending cuts are “political.” As if Democrats’ spending, bailouts, and takeovers are not.

Once we get past the part that the government spending is, was and always will be politically motivated, it makes the hard choices much easier. It is the administration’s plan to use the current spending level as the baseline from which their spending is based. A baseline inflated by stimulus spending. So from that standpoint, the budget battle is not only about money, it is routed in ideology. A big government limiting freedom and liberty vs a limited government that protects freedom and liberty.

It is the Republican’s idea to recognize that all that stimulus spending was temporary, and to revert back to spending levels of the 2006-2008 range. A place that, compared to 2011 standards, represents real and fiscally responsible spending levels and, coupled with entitlement program reforms, puts the country on the path to reducing and eventually paying off the debt. Leaving future generations of Americans a country they can be free in and proud of.

Link: Deficit Commission And Debt Ceiling Sleight Of Hand