Twinkies.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff
• Position: RUNDLES wrap up

I'M TURNING 60 THIS MONTH AND LIKE A LOT OF people in my situation I am wondering about my future. I suppose everyone is wondering somewhat about their future, even young people, but the concerns are different.

Young people are wondering about their careers and family plans, while foremost in my mind are retiremeni and old age. With the perspective of now-looming old age. can say with some assurance that it is the young people who should change focus.

Truth be told, when we were your age promises were made. "They" told us not to worry, that Social Security and company pensions would sustain us in our Golden Years, and like the naive guppies we were, we bought that BS hook, line and sinker.

What got me thinking about this in more detail just now was the announcement in January of the bankruptcy filing for Hostess Brands Inc., the makers of Twinkles, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread. What I Wonder about is how all of us in my generation were are such Twinkies and Ding Dongs for believing in corporate America that much. They say you are what you cat, so maybe that's it; when I was a kid Wonder Bread was touted as "Building Strong Bodies 12 Ways," which excited me until they changed it to "Eight. Ways" and I Wondered what part of me went lacking. Turns out, it was probable my brain.

Hostess isn't unlike many of the other iconic American companies that have filed or yet may file for bankruptcy General Motors. American Airlines, Kodak, Sears, et al. What comes through in almost all of these financial unravelings and/or reorganizations are such "legacy" obligations and liabilities as unfunded pensions. And we're not talking about insignificant pension funding problems: Hostess listed more than S950 million in shortfalls on its pension obligations to workers and previous workers through two of its labor unions. Pretty much all of these old-line cor-porations listed such pension liabilities as their largest unsecured creditors.

Of course, these pension liabilities would be nonexistent or at the very least much less of a problem if the corporations and for that matter school boards, cities, states, and the federal government through Social Security had simply funded the...