Purrmaid, EVERYTHING was made better and with quality 25 years ago! The 2 beds I have had replaced are the top of the line pillow top and all they do is leave deap body impressions and have caused us nothing but grief. If they did make a good quality bed they don't now and I will be lucky if my bed makes it 5 years! Sarah B.....LOL :-)

Zoom, read! "Even with the bankruptcy, Thomas H. Lee Partners still has profited from its Simmons investment, The Journal said. It paid itself two dividends of $375 million after it bought Simmons with an equity investment of $327 million."

Also, I know what a Chapter 11 is. It does not matter what form they file for you to apply what I said. If you consider a "dividend" part of your expenses, then when you fail to pay the other debt only to go into a Chapter anything it is deceptive. It is essentially like a business taking all revenue and relabeling them dividends or profit, paying all of the money to the owner of the business, and then telling all debt holders they are broke.

Janesvillean, we are not talking about Chap 7 or 13. You are correct in saying no real reform was made to Chap 11. Bankruptcy reorganization does not disallow paying dividends. Who do you think the shareholders are? You are also correct about the taxes as priority debts. However nobody was talking about taxes. In fact, the debt may be with suppliers, shippers, real estate, and or banks. Just stick to the facts of the original argument and you will be better off.

There is so much misinformation in this thread it isn't funny.
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First of all, bankruptcy in no way "forces the taxpayers" to cover anyone's debt. In fact, unpaid taxes are priority debts. There is no provision in bankruptcy law for public money to be used to pay debts. (The auto company bankruptcies were special cases where the government deliberately took equity in the surviving companies.)
http://www.ch13wla.com/node/27
http://www.moranlaw.net/priorities.htm
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Second, a bankrupt person or company has strictly limited ability to transfer/protect assets in the period leading up to a bankruptcy filing. I'm not really sure how a company "pays itself" to begin with (I have two pockets, I can take money from one and put it in the other, but they are still in the same pair of pants), but if this is money that is properly owed to creditors, the judge can dismiss their bankruptcy and responsible parties can be charged with bankruptcy fraud. The question of what is legal is in the hands of a federal judge. Believe me, if anyone has an objection, it will be raised in court by a creditor who feels stiffed.
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Finally, bankruptcy laws were reformed in 2005 under a Republican President and Congress. They have not changed since. I do not believe significant changes were made to Chapter 11 in any case -- the concern of the credit industry was abuse of personal bankruptcies (Chapter 7 and Chapter 13).
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As to TARP, that is a complex program that is intended to increase the liquidity of healthy banks. It is not a bailout for unhealthy banks.

Maybe the first thing they need to do is cut the payroll for these employees.The pay range there is from the teens to almost $40.00 an hour. Simmons does make very good bedding but realize that about 25%of the price is wages.They currently have some of the highest wage jobs left in the city but on the other hand since 2003 the quality of the product has suffered and you are now mostly paying for foam inside that mattress as they cut costs.

If you will recall, changes to the bancruptcy laws went into effect under a different administration. You cannot blame President Obama or this administration for the economic woes of this country. He pretty much aquired a pile of poo and now has to figure out how he can change poo into a masterpiece. Whether it can be done is yet to be determined, but let's not blame everything that happens in America on him.

Have had a Simmons pillow top in the guest room for 25 years and everyone who has slept on it comments on how wonderful it is. It was the high end model and expensive, but obviously now worth every penny. Hope Simmons fixes their problems and becomes profitable once again.

I had to have 2 beds of theirs replaced by them and the last one is still horrible so no wonder they are broke. Maybe make a bed that doesn't suck and you would be ok.

Zoom, if they defalt on their loans, the banks will take advantage of the TARP money as the loan to Simmons would be considered toxic assets.

spuds4gov, where does the article say Thomas H. Lee Partners payed themselves the dividends "just before" filing Chapter 11? They aquired Simmons in late 2003.

Uuhhh, Chapter 11 has nothing to do with government bailouts. Try again.

Spuds, I have to say it sounds like you have figured this out! I was thinking the same thing as I read this, it seems to be the way now with our current Goverment in place andif you don't approve (and I don't either)shout out your vote in 2010! The only way things will cange in our country is if our goverment is changed from its current power! Stamp out the madness in 2010 thats how we can start to get things turned around, the left needs to be brought a bit closer to the middle (when you consider who tricked us into voting him into the white house)! We need a CHANGE, not to be left with just change in our pockets! Think about it our wages are going down in the current economy yet our taxes are going to go up! If your fine with that then PLEASE PLEASE Don't even vote this next time around. I should change my nae to ARE YOU EVEN THINKING!

So, let me get this straight. Simmons is owned by Thomas H. Lee Partners, who uses investor monies to buy a company so that it can pay itself a return on investment of a little over 100% as a "dividend" just before they file bankruptcy? A bankruptcy that allows the debt to be “restructured” forcing the taxpayers to essentially cover that dividend.

Is this the equivalent of the banks taking record profits just before the crash of the market they created? That is the equivalent of the banks taking those profits and then taking huge bailouts of taxpayer money?