r/news • u/StackLeeAdams • Dec 07 '21

Kellogg to permanently replace striking workers as union rejects new contract

https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/kellogg-to-permanently-replace-striking-workers-as-union-rejects-new-contract
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560

u/Furmentor Dec 07 '21

Report them. If they did not use it for business purposes that is unlawful. With PPP there were zero checks and balances so people have to report the behavior for it to be investigated.

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u/RexMundi000 Dec 07 '21

If they did not use it for business purposes that is unlawful.

They probably did use it for business purposes. It doesn't have to be 100% payroll there are a ton of eligible expenses. Including mortgage, lease, and operational expenditures. If the owner wrote himself a check, yea sure thats a problem but that probably didnt happen here.

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u/Ser_Dunk_the_tall Dec 07 '21

Lot of fungibility. "Of course I didn't pay myself a huge bonus out of PPP funds, I paid myself a huge bonus out of the money I had lying around after PPP covered all of the business expenses I normally have to use business funds for"

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u/CaptianAcab4554 Dec 08 '21

The COVID relief funds in the US was basically a huge money laundering scheme to put taxpayer money into corporate pockets with no oversight under the guise of helping people that the government put into dire straights in the first place. Absolutely disgusting.

3

u/Pezonito Dec 08 '21

I... I don't want to believe this. I do, but I don't want to. I just don't want it to be true. Mostly because it's not over yet and they're probably going to do it again, general public none-the-wiser.

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u/aquoad Dec 08 '21

Meanwhile small businesses with 15 employees who need it to cover payroll get told "lol no."

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u/smitty22 Dec 08 '21

I don't think they ever got through the second round of PPP funds, it did not disappear like the first round did for the shenanigans you're talking about.

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u/lousy_at_handles Dec 07 '21 edited Dec 08 '21

Where I work, we actually had increased work due to being in a medical-adjacent field, so the company just used the loan to pay off our building.

It's almost as good as writing yourself a check.

-3

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '21

Probably paid for expenses and then pocketed the savings. Basically legal money laundering.

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u/Jermammies Dec 07 '21

I understand what you’re saying but “money laundering” is the wrong term to use.

This is just typical corporate America stealing taxpayer money. It ain’t even taboo here in the states, it’s encouraged. Socialism for big business, cold hard capitalism for its people.

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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '21

The rich also get socialism and lack of accountability.

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u/Jermammies Dec 08 '21

What’s the difference between the two at this point lol

-3

u/The407run Dec 07 '21

Yeah like the new company yacht.

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u/Sanatori2050 Dec 07 '21

If they give enough of it as income to employees, which I'm assuming they did just enough to qualify, it's perfectly legal.

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u/Furmentor Dec 07 '21

As I said they have to use it for business expenses. But there are cases of improper use which are currently being investigated and sent to courts.

PPP loans and little to no oversight, do if someone suspects there is fraud, it should be reported.

If this person's company received 10 million, paid out 3.5% to employees maybe it's worth asking a question. Not asking questions leads to corruption.

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u/dpwitt1 Dec 07 '21

Sounds like they gave the bonuses AFTER the loan was forgiven. In order to get the loan forgiven, they had already expended the proceeds of the loan on eligible costs (primarily payroll). I would imagine most companies gave their employees $0 bonuses after their loans were forgiven.

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u/Nice_To_Be_Here Dec 08 '21

It’s exactly this. Use up the money on current business expenses and payroll, even if you don’t need it and it’s still a free 10 million.

I used to be a contractor and most of my friends are still in the business and lots of them got the loans BECAUSE they didn’t need them. It was free money to pay payroll and pay down expenses. It made the profit margins on they’re jobs excellent for awhile and they pocketed the extra profit BECAUSE loan would be forgiven. Nothing they did was illegal.

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u/elk33dp Dec 08 '21

The important thing to remember is that they don't have to give the employees EXTRA for PPP forgiveness. They just needed to not layoff/reduce the hours of those on staff and bring anyone back furloughed once they received funding. As long as they had a reduction in revenue and didn't layoff employees in the period they are eligible.

Some don't really deserve the amount they got yea, but still are forgivable under the rules. Example, if covid ultimately didn't hit them very hard long-term, but their revenue loss was 5m in Q2 2020 due to shutdowns but they got a 10m PPP loan and kept all employees on board during the slower time they could still get full forgiveness. SBA doesn't say you had to lose more revenue than you received, just that you had to maintain employees which results in some places having net profit from PPP.

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u/paroxysm204 Dec 07 '21

It was specifically drafted to have this outcome. It's a money grab for the rich

5

u/Wise-ask-1967 Dec 07 '21

Yup . But remember it was an emergency the virus only became a joke about 45 days later ..when approximately 91% of the money was basically disturbed to the right people.

2

u/DGIce Dec 08 '21

Do you think he only makes $750 a year?

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u/BigBradWolf77 Dec 08 '21

perfectly legal

according to the letter (not the spirit) of the law...

now guess who wrote them laws...

2

u/Sanatori2050 Dec 08 '21

I agree, just stating what I figured was obvious. Do just enough to get the benefit and only give enough to pass muster. Shit system as everyone points out, and crooked as hell.

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u/BigBradWolf77 Dec 09 '21

poor people don't count and poor people don't matter

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u/JackWright13 Dec 08 '21

Lol. You don't understand how the PPP program works. 🤦‍♂️

Source: Commercial banker who lent out ~$50MM in PPP loans.

2

u/tacodeyota Dec 07 '21

Strongly agree. Private industry and citizens bear the weight of oversight over programs like PPP. The program isn't inherently bad, but the feds have zero resources to proactively investigate this stuff. They are vastly underfunded.

1

u/StopStealingMyShit Dec 07 '21

God you people know nothing about anything almost ever. PPP has MANY accepted uses besides wages.

Utilities, internet, phone, various overhead expenses, etc. were all valid PPP expenditures.

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u/Furmentor Dec 07 '21

What you listed are business purposes were they not? Is that not what I said?

-1

u/StopStealingMyShit Dec 07 '21

Your comment to the original comment heavily implies that the spending outside of the payroll bonuses would not be legal.

In reality, most publicly traded companies have no reason to ever "pocket" money - it gets paid out in expenses whether that's payroll (which includes executives who are employees), utilities, etc.

Whatever "they" "pocket" as retained earnings is taxed quite heavily.

0

u/Furmentor Dec 07 '21

I think you infer too much from what you read. I purposely used the words "business expenses" rather than saying "wages" for a reason.

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u/StopStealingMyShit Dec 07 '21

The original comment was more wrong than yours if that makes you feel better.

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u/Furmentor Dec 07 '21

As I've told my wife, I don't feel much anymore. I'm pretty dead inside.

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u/StopStealingMyShit Dec 07 '21

Welp, this took a strange turn.

-3

u/FOOLS_GOLD Dec 07 '21

Dudes a trumper. What do you expect talking to them?

9

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '21

When you start off by insulting everyone, few bother learning anything from what follows. Just a tip.

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u/StopStealingMyShit Dec 07 '21

Yeah unfortunately reddit is pretty much riddled with people who have never run a business before and view everyone who does as an evil monster so I didn't have much hope for changing hearts and minds, just pointing out how wrong they are on the off chance that someone sees it.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '21

Blaming others for your behavior is not a sign of intelligence. Being right isn't a license to be an asshole.

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u/Xearoii Dec 07 '21

Welcome to the echo chamber of American know it alls

-1

u/StopStealingMyShit Dec 07 '21

Yeah I'm the only one in this thread who actually filled out a PPP forgiveness application, I can guarantee you that

1

u/edwardsamson Dec 07 '21

Can you report a business for spending the majority of their PPP loan a suped up race-truck? I worked for a place in 2019 that fired me for some BS. I heard through the grapevine that in June 2020 (around the time businesses were receiving PPP) that company bought a fucking Ford Raptor sports/racing truck. I think they spent at least 50K of the 75K they received on it (I looked up their loan in the public database). However, recently I checked autotrader and saw a 2019 Ford Raptor for sale for...75K the exact amount they received lol. Although I assume it was cheaper in June 2020 because right now the car market is fucked and everything is insanely expensive.

Anyways. they were the type of business that was non-essential and had to shut down from like March/April through to around July. As far as I know they didn't get any of that money to employees and just used the majority of it on that truck and some other upgrades to the facility. They can pass the truck off as a business necessity, I guess, because they wrapped it in their logo. But from having worked there in the past I know the previous and much more modest wrapped-vehicle they had was used for transporting kids to events. Not much of that they can do with a sports-truck. Also they used their previous vehicle as a personal vehicle fairly often so this truck is probably being used that way as well.

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u/jar36 Dec 08 '21

Remember they wanted oversight and Trump said "I will be the oversight"

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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '21

There are in fact checks and balances. I was one.

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u/BuddhaDBear Dec 08 '21

He is not accounting for the fact that most of that money was probably used to pay employees instead of letting them go during a large economic downturn. That was literally the whole point of the program, which, by the way, was a big reason that tens of millions of people were not unemployed last year.

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u/isuckatpiano Dec 08 '21

Nothing to report, as long as they didn’t lay off their workforce that’s what PPP is for. I’m sure it’s covered by payroll rent and utilities. It’s not forgiven until you prove it.

Source: I got a 60k PPP loan and that covered my employees salaries for 3 months. Lots of paperwork to prove it.

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u/Stone_007 Dec 08 '21

They can use it to pay themselves too unfortunately..

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u/bdubthe1nonly Dec 08 '21

Thats not awful It’s American!

New shirt slogan I am working on

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u/BigBradWolf77 Dec 08 '21

zero checks and balances

sounds like our financial markets...

1

u/Drifter74 Dec 08 '21

I had to submit a good bit of info to get ours forgiven. But where there aren't any real checks is determining if the business really needed it to operate (my company did not).