Goodbye to Twinkies?

Somehow, I really don't think so.

Over the weekend, I've been hearing a lot about how the Hostess Confection Company, the maker of many popular snack cakes here in the US, has gone bankrupt and therefore out of business as a result of an unresolved labor dispute. Labor disputes aside, I really doubt we've heard the last of our good, dear friends known as Twinkies, Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, Snowballs, and other such things.

See here's the thing.  Even though I've never really cared for such things myself, as those who know me very well might confirm, all those snack foods I mentioned above are way too popular and iconic to just disappear off the shelves here in the US.  Granted, Hostess may be out of business, which means they won't be making them any more.  And this will certainly mean they'll be in short supply, at least for the near term.

But like I said, all these things are way too popular to just go away, and in a nation of fatties like myself, there's just too much money to be made off selling stuff like that.

What all this means, if I understood the one economics course I ever remember taking, is that there's at least one other company out there with a good wad of cash out there ready to go buy up all Hostess's old assets now that they're bankrupt so this new company can start making the money that Hostess won't be any more.

Sure, there's going to be a short supply of Twinkies for awhile, but in a year or two, it'll be like nothing ever happened.  We'll survive this so-called crisis somehow.  I think we'll be OK.

And really, if the worst thing on our minds right now is a shortage of Hostess Cream-Filled Cupcakes, maybe we should take the time we would have spent eating them to reconsider our priorities a bit, wouldn't you say?