The Hostess bankruptcy case is an excellent chance for all of us to get in on the ground floor into the fact/factoid elevator/lift! Because in a very, very short time you can tell a person's political stance from what that person believes the reason for the bankruptcy must be. That's my prediction, unless strong evidence pointing to a single main cause crops up shortly.
This article gives you the basics:
Irving, Texas-based Hostess filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January for the second time in less than a decade. Its predecessor company, Interstate Bakeries, sought bankruptcy protection in 2004 and changed its name to Hostess after emerging in 2009.
The company said it was saddled with costs related to its unionized workforce. The company had been contributing $100 million a year in pension costs for workers; the new contract offer would’ve slashed that to $25 million a year, in addition to wage cuts and a 17 percent reduction in health benefits.
Management missteps were another problem. Hostess came under fire this spring after it was revealed that nearly a dozen executives received pay hikes of up to 80 percent last year even as the company was struggling.
Republicans are going to go for the unions as the evil destroyer, Democrats probably for the evil management missteps which were, nevertheless, rewarded.
I haven't done the necessary research to say anything more meaningful about the causes of the bankruptcy, although selling something akin to the dwarf bread in Terry Pratchett's fantasy books might be a biiiig part of company's troubles, given that people are getting more health conscious and so on.
Sorry for the aside. The point is that there's a very narrow window before the beliefs about a particular event ossify**. Sorta like Twinkies. This happened with the mortgage crisis, for example, so that after some time had passed it was impossible to agree on the facts of the case across the political aisle.
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*The title is based on the legal use of this term. Twinkies are one of the products of the bankrupt company.
**Might not happen with this example, but it happens a lot recently, and that fact/factoid ossification makes real debate about many political issues essentially impossible. It's as if we all have our separate holy books.