谁扼杀了美国的民族品牌

在中国，我们经常听到保护民族品牌的话题。很多时候，我们可能会无意识地以为，只有有着五千年文明的古国才有民族品牌。实际上，美国也有自己喜爱的民族品牌，而且很多还是在世界上大名鼎鼎，牛哄哄和实力强大。美国的这些古老的品牌也和中国的古老品牌一样，在一个个的死亡和消亡之中。不同的，可能只是原因，相同的，则是结果。

这不，又一个民族品牌，倒下了。

这几天，我天天能够从电视新闻里看到人们悲伤的面孔：一个一直以来被人喜爱的品牌，一个经营业绩也还依然不错，也还有喜爱自己消费品的消费者存在的品牌，再也无力继续走下去，不得不以破产来告终和谢幕了。

到底是谁，和如何最终扼杀了这个食品品牌。

下面的归纳比较到位：

第一，就是美国工会的存在和强大。工会是为了保护普通人利益的团体，正是它的存在，让资本家们不得不多出血。而就是这些必须多出的血，最终让很多资本家自己被牺牲掉。换来的，则是普通人的失业和无望。得益的，则是那些工会的工头和领导者们。

大家可能不知道，即使就普通店面的装修而言，在普通的购物商业点，你支付的装修人工，大约比你在很多购物中心（Mall）时不得不支付的低一半甚至是更多。那么，你多支付了那部分，就是工会领导者的所得，而非工会工人的所得。当然，在这时候，工会工人通过这样的压榨，会获得多一点的利益。但是，价格供求关系的作用，最终，直接导致了对工人劳动需求的降低。最终受到伤害的还是工人自己——自己让自己缺乏竞争力。

很多时候，大量的工会工人宁愿选择非工会参与的工作。一位电工朋友对我说：同样的工作，我作为工会工人的边际利润比我作为非工会工人的低至少2%，而单位时间的要价却高出100%以上。而他一年做百万生意的净利润率也不过8%。

成本的增加，最终也将不得不被转移到消费者身上。而作为普通消费者的工会工人和他们的家属，也会站立在这个做出贡献的大军之列。

美国工会的强大，很可能就是让美国得以衰败的最大力量来源。

最近，沃尔玛已经开始起诉工会了。因为，时不时有大量的工会工人在它的店附近游行“闹事”，抗议它不允许工会力量在其内部的存在，对它的生意有负面的影响。

美国工会看来是到了该寿终正寝的时候了。他们已经搞垮了美国的汽车制造行业，也搞垮了像柯达这样的老牌，到什么时候，他们也会搞垮微软、谷歌这样的新型帝国，如果这样的帝国能够容忍，或者不得不容忍，这样的组织存在的话。值得庆幸的是，工会的力量，目前还多只是存在于比较“低层”的工人就业市场。

工会帮助工会工人“获得了”巨大的经济利益，其中之一就是丰厚的pension，只可惜，很多时候，这充其量也不过就是一个画出的大饼，没有几家最终有能力给工人兑现。给工人画大饼，借此让自己获得实惠，这就是美国工会组织的生意经——你获得遥远的不着边际，我获得近期的“及时行乐”。而且，很多时候，工会还是黑势力得以体现力量的另外一种表现形式。工会和黑势力交缠在一起，已经远不是什么秘密和新闻了。

随后，就是美国的贸易保护和由此给自己企业带来的更高的经营成本。

再者，就是被慢火煮着的青蛙们，在已经不能继续生存下去的时候，居然还大胆的造反——罢工。结果，被低估了的资本家一方，选择了更为强劲的破产和关门大吉。美国的工人真厉害，也真可怜和可悲。

当然，企业的不求进取，也是原因之一。问题是，对于一个必死无疑的企业，你又怎么样能够期望他求进取呢？它又能够从哪里搞到钱老搞这样的进取呢？从这点上看，中国的企业家比美国的老板过的实在多了。如果在中国，没有来自政府部门势力的压榨的话。

到底是资本家重要还是工人重要？对于工人利益的保护，到底该被限制在什么样的范围之内，恐怕是我们该好好想想的大问题了。在中国，这方面有点做的不足，在美国，则是走的太过头了。

 美国车是不是可信

日本到底低估了什么？

Who killed the Twinkie?

Monday, November 19, 2012

Many Americans approach Thanksgiving this year with a heavy heart. Oh, there  will still be turkey, there will be stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole and, yes, there will be pie. But there will be no nipping into the pantry Thanksgiving night for the how-could-you-possibly-be-hungry snack, the nightcap of HoHos. (If this didn’t happen in your household then perhaps you never had teenagers.)

While nutritionists everywhere are no doubt breaking out their dancing shoes for the Twinkie funeral, a piece of Americana died with the announcement last week that Hostess Brands of Irving will cease operations and liquidate. The decision came after thousands of union workers rejected management’s latest contract offer and went on strike, crippling the company.

Workers were unhappy with a contract that would have cut their pay yet again, a move that followedmanagement’s efforts to slash pension benefits. The company owed about $950 million to its worker pensions, which were unfunded to the tune of $2 billion.

While much of the backlash for Friday’s announcement of Hostess’s liquidation has been directed at the unions, the strike was merely the final nail in a well-hammered coffin.

Hostess had been operating in bankruptcy since January, its second reorganization in less than a decade. The company faced a changing market in which customers began to worry more about things like empty calories and ingredients that sounded more like they were mixed up in a chemistry lab than a kitchen. While the company still sold $68 million worth of Twinkies this year, Hostess’s sales have been flat or down slightly in recent years.

Management, too, deserves some of the blame. It tried to take its turn at the trough, padding executives’ paychecks ahead of the bankruptcy filing. While those pay packages were later rescinded, it didn’t set an amiable tone for talks with creditors or labor groups. It also spoke to a far bigger problem that plagued Hostess: a lack of innovation. The company for years simply relied on its well-established brands, ignoring rising consumer concerns about unhealthy snacks and mounting competition from other snack makers.

So blame management, blame labor, and blame consumers, but while we’re at it, let’s also blame Congress. Since 1934, Congress supported sugar tariffs that force U.S. companies to pay twice the global market price for sugar.This, by the way, also factors into the economics of ethanol, which could be made more cheaply from sugar if it weren’t for the import tariffs. The sugar lobby, though, is so powerful that, as the Christian Science Monitor pointed out, “when Hostess had to cut costs to stay in business, it picked the unions, not the sugar lobby, to fight.”

As is so often the case when a company fails, there’s plenty of blame to go around in Hostess’s demise. As for the fate of the Thanksgiving HoHo, fear not, Twinkie faithful. To help pay for the company’s liquidation, Hostess will no doubt sell its brands and recipes to another company that will keep churning out the snacks we need to survive the zombie apocalypse.

  美国车是不是可信

日本到底低估了什么？