LooptiStraw Seeks Government Bail-out Funding

Battle Creek, Michigan—As another sign of the beleaguered economy, LooptiStraw is on its way to Washington in an attempt to dip into the government’s bail-out money. “Consider yourself enjoying a soda at a restaurant and your server doesn’t refill your glass,” explained LooptiStraw’s CEO Kevin Kooshamuck. “You keep attempting to draw attention to your empty glass by sucking air through your straw and the ice. That’s what we’re doing. We’re down to the last financial drops in our Coke glass.” The company is expected to ask congress for $28.6 million dollars in loans to keep the company operable and provide the capital infusion needed to survive the economic downturn.

For years, LooptiStraw has enjoyed financial success, but now sales are down and there’s no sign of straw sales picking up. “It’s likely we won’t get any financial help because of our ties to Halliburton,” explained their CEO. LooptiStraw is a Halliburton spin-off from the early 1990s when they decided to get out of the straw business.

“If LooptiStraw thinks they can come into Washington and ask for a fat government contract, they’ve got another thing coming,” explained a President-elect Obama’s spokesperson. “First it’s straws, then it’s credit cards, and student loans, well we will do all that but straws are at the bottom of the list.”

Some within the straw industry question the reasoning for bailing out LooptiStraw. Until recent years, senior executives have enjoyed parties and social events in places from Las Vegas to Europe and Mexico. “They have spent so much money on parties without investing into research and development,” said an executive from a competitive straw company. Meanwhile, Japanese straw manufacturers have developed straws that are less expensive to produce, last longer, and have streamlined production plants to produce products with few defects and with production efficiencies.

Other foreign straw companies have placed pressure on the Michigan-based LooptiStaw with offering more straw designs that are popular with kids and Generation X parents. Some within the industry point to Loopti’s high salaries for senior executives, lack of capital investments into their straw factories, and dealing with a unionized workforce with extreme medical an other benefits, have created a financial strain that they are just now attempting to deal.

Economists say that the $2.84 billion dollar annual straw industry is an important part of the national economy. With the possibility of LooptiStraw’s demise, it will affect some 8,000 straw producer workers from the industrial belt of the U.S. to foreign operations in Mexico, Canada, and Argentina. The company also operates a customer service line based in India. “Just like all the other companies going under, LooptiStraw is likely to be listed with Washington Mutual, Mervyn’s, and all the other great companies who can’t survive our economic downturn,” said Cecil Myer of the think-tank Economic Reality.