Wonkette
Not that we should put much faith in what Professional Auditors say, but a terrifying new report predicts that a fourth of America’s remaining publicly-traded companies may be gone by the end of the year. This means 3,600 shareholder-owned businesses are in “going concern” territory, or in serious danger of failure in the next 12 months — and this is just based on first-quarter reports, which are already up 9% vs. 2008 “going concern” filings, so, uhm.
Note, please, that this only covers companies that are publicly traded. Privately held businesses, whether massive multinationals or regional chains or the local small businesses in your dying shopping centers and strip malls, those aren’t included. Even though they’re failing at an astonishing rate, too.
In good news, the Dow was up 70 points today and the S&P up 1% and Apple is still selling lots of iPhones to those elitists with jobs. In bad news, Microsoft tanked and existing home sales dropped again and the only houses selling are $49,500 new tract homes that were selling for $350,000 in 2007. But in good news again, China will become the world’s biggest economy in approximately 10 years, which will really take the pressure off of us here in America, as it withers and dies, in the night.
Auditors: Nearly 25% of Companies May Not Be Going Concerns [CFO.com]
Something tells me one of those companies is NOT Smith and Wesson.
She’s a hundred, but she’s wearing something tight!
I smell an uptick in Hobo Bean futures.
You actually read CFO.com?
that’s scary
Can Charmin please be one of them? I still remember the first time I saw a Charmin commercial. It was the one of the cartoon bear taking a dump behind a tree where the mother bear comes up and hands him a roll of toilet paper the size of an airplane tire because the shit this bear is taking is just that epic. After showing how absorbent it is when you have the blue squirts, it ended with them dancing around while running toilet paper through their buttcheeks yelling “Cha cha cha!” I almost had a fucking seizure.
Good. There were too many publicly traded companies in America anyhoo. All those shareholders who don’t know crap about what they invested in, counting on 30 percent returns and combing through shareholder reports looking for evidence of teh gayz or support for abortion so they can boycott them. Let’s let good old private ownership take over again and leave these ignorant shareholders out.
Custerwolf: Win
So we’ll be seeing a lot more of that old ‘Jobless Men Keep Moving’ sign?
Custerwolf: Or any of the ammunition makers. Even here in relatively liberal Austin there have been runs on the stores that sell it. Today’s Statesman newspaper has pictures of the empty shelves. Kind of like the stores down on the coast being stripped of water and food before a hurricane hits. Prices on ammo have gone up almost 300%. Ignorance and greed are still a good business combination.
KTHXBAI:
That commercial always reminds me of my boyfriend…
I always knew this ‘American Capitalism’ thing was just a big fad…
Duh. The ramifications of sustaining the unsustainable has been echoing onto deaf ears for decades. Sounds like some of the usual GOP fear-mongering.
KTHXBAI:
Yeah, the Dingleberry Bears were pretty annoying.
Is one of those going to fail companies Gap? Because I used to work at Old Slavery and I was thinking of going back because I miss the discount and I am severely underemployed what with being laid off and everything…working there made me really good at folding clothes too. Also.
KTHXBAI: Guess what - said commercial is back. I saw it the other day. At first I thought it was some weird furry scat fetish thing.
MrsNateSilver: “working there made me really good at folding clothes too.”
How good are you at folding companies?
KTHXBAI: I miss Mr. Whipple, who is dead by now. If we can no longer squeeze the Charmin, the company should die. He clearly had issues, but we never had to envision him wiping his ass.
Blingee Contest Anyone? Larry Summers Snoozing
tmz.com
Who gives a shit. The Christian Right had eight good years, didn’t they? Outlawing that abortion precedure, roudin’ up all teh gayz into them reeducation camps (how did they miss Orrin Hatch, you ask?), protecting the sanctity of both Ronald Reagan’s marriages, making sure Terry Schaivo slept in her own shit for the next thirty years. Wasn’t that what it was all about when a pretty large minority of American shareholders twice voted to make the Connecticut Preppie Cheerleader Drugstore Cowboy our CEO?
I think it goes without saying that the only thing that can save us is cutting the capital gains tax. And if that doesn’t work, maybe we should cut the estate tax too cause I’m sure that will save us.
The question is…will the Chinese buy our meth? Nevermind, they’ll just cook it better and cheaper. There goes that plan.
KTHXBAI: President Beeblebrox: Was this the commercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IraXbvuXW7U&feature=related
Just as long as Thomas Friedman’s wife’s Mall corporation tanks and she is forced to give blowjobs to provide firewood for warmth, I’m good with it.
MrsNateSilver: I actually did see something in last Sunday’s NY Times about the Gap and while I can’t remember the details it didn’t sound good.
Uhhhhh…ummm…USA! USA! USA!!
KTHXBAI: me too on that. I live in a small town in Jamaica and the only quality tp sold here is Charmin so I have to go with the local brand of rough quality cause I just can’t buy Charmin. I hated their ads.
Blingee contest? Summers pooped out:
http://blingee.com/blingee/view/89228549-Asleep-At-The-Deal
Gawd, you people and your ass fetishes.
Oh, right. Sorry.
I wash my ass after pooping. Of course I don’t have a job where if you poop you have no choice but to smear feces all over your hairy butt crack in a feeble attempt at cleanliness.
I’d be all for the complete & utter failure, death & burial of capitalism if it didn’t mean so much misery in the interim. Why can’t we just Go Swedish overnight and take care of each other?
Oh, right. Sorry.
hobospacejunkie: I’m betting I’m the only one in my tiny little backwoods town who actually has a bidet. A motherfuckiing bidet, can you believe it? Of course, since most of my house fell in the river all I’ve got left is a goddamned bidet.
Nerdalicious: A+ on the Blingee!
Is that Victor Garber sitting next to Hopey?
chascates: Shares of the GAP dropped 40% in the past year and the guy who ran it lost $600 million so there goes another place to go work when unemployment runs out. How are we supposed to survive a recession by working crappy service jobs if there’s no crappy service jobs to work at?
hobospacejunkie:
Tanks :). Summers is just blobbed out. Yeah, it’s Victor Garber, sittin’ next to the titanic which is sinkin’
Custerwolf: I don’t have a bidet. I just crouch backwards in the shower & use the faucet. Saves much discomfort and $$ on spot remover for u-trou.
hobospacejunkie: there ya go.
hobospacejunkie:
Does that mean I win an IPod with no guts, or something like that?
hobospacejunkie:It’s good to have a hobby.
Where has Joe Biden been? Was he sent to a gaffee re-education camp? We luv you Joe!
Custerwolf:
You French Euro-Elitist!
My sister Bootylicious was on Shrunkin Head Banality Death Puppet’s show tonight.
Nerdalicious: What can I say - it came with the house!
When we rebuild we’re actually thinking of turning it into a kitty fountain.
Custerwolf:
Cool! How Euro! I guess I don’t want to get into too much “detail” on that particular subject…unlike “others” Hobo????????????????????????????
Hooray For Anything: You are supposed to have the good sense to peddle the ass God gave you.
Winsome: You are a man of principle.
Aurelio:
Spitzer’s last words, before resigning from the Governorship.
By the by - that’s got to be THE happiest ‘Going Out of Business’ sign I’ve ever seen.
“if he dies, he dies”
Custerwolf: Of course, since most of my house fell in the river all I’ve got left is a goddamned bidet.
So what you’re saying is you live in a real shithole?
KTHXBAI: Speaking of my earlier post, I am also fine with the following companies stock prices punching through zero and plummeting to the molten core of the planet, soley based on their commercials.
Burger King
Fanta
Nutrisystem
The Scooter Store
Ensure
Beano
Pepto
Verizon
Little Tree Air Fresheners
Whichever tampon company it is that wishes me a happy period.
Old Navy
The Obama Coins
Jitterbug
Sham-Wow! will be permitted to stay in business, but solely due to the prostitute incident. Also.
Aurelio: Aw man, I don’t want to have to put on the red light
Lascauxcaveman: Thanks for the reminder.
ooohhhh..so thats where teh unemployment is comin’ from. duh.
What have they done to the Earth?
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her.
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn.
Tied her with fences -
And,
Dragged her down!
There’s always a silver lining. Fewer companies means fewer places where wingnut lunatics can kill a bunch of people. So there’s that. yay?
KTHXBAI: Always wishes you a happy period. I want to smack the person who came up with that. Actually, a single smack probably wouldn’t do it. It may take repeated bludgeoning to express my rage fully.
Nerdalicious: Ipod, yes, defenestrated & gutless. Minus the case. Also.
Aaron Schock (R-Closet) is the newly-elected 27 year-old Congressman from the 18th District of Illinois, the portion of the state that is also known as “Downstate” or “The part that doesn’t matter.” He is an arch-conservative tool but is the hottest piece of ass that’s ever entered the Capitol. He’s our new boyfriend. Or hatefuck. Depends on when he comes out.
KTHXBAI: Do yourself a big favor & buy a DVR so you can skip commercials. You will thank yourself for your sanity later.
So there’s a happy ending?
So this shitty little mom & pop fireplace & barbecue store closed down by me a few months back (it’s a ‘mixed’ neighborhood, by that i mean it’s got poor people & artists & it’s next door to the gay people neighborhood). They had this sign up that basically said, ‘no one wants to buy a fireplace, so we are closed.’ underneath, in much bigger letters it said ‘god bless America,’ now–if one of my friends said that, I’d be able to hear ironic quotation marks, but there were none, and there was a great big American flag painted next to it, so I took it as sincere. & when I’d pass it, I’d think ‘the person who put up that sign is either some kinda enlightened mother fucker or a goddamn sap.’
Crow T. Robot: Artists, poors and gay people aren’t into buying barbecues these days. Or anything else. Microtrends.
(On the bright side, my wife and I are considering buying our first new car *ever* - either a Honda Fit or a Pontiac Vibe - if she gets to keep her job next year. It’s looking about 50/50 at this point
)
Crow T. Robot: I think you can look at more like how like the band on the Titanic played “Nearer, My God, to Thee” as the ship went down.
Hooray For Anything: You remind me of the cheery greeting the American intelligence guys used to shout to each other as they arrived at work during WWII at Benchley Park in England… “Is Anything All Right?”
The real trick to “trickle down economics” is that the poor get poorer so that the rich are richer. That is how it is supposed to work, right? Long live the GOP and conservative economic elite who use wedge social issues to get those working class right-wingers to vote against their economic interests! Race issues, feminism, abortion, homophobia - they really have led to the downfall of our society, but not the way the right wingers think they have.
Crow T. Robot: All your gentrified-icated neighbors went out to the ‘burbs to buy their ChiCom-made firepits and ChiCom-made “Aussie” propane grills at Tahr-zhay, obs.
Urban Bobby Flay haz a sad…
I would like to see a lot of those ‘gift’ shops that sell beenie babies fail.
“Professional blogger” sounds more and more like a relatively lucrative career choice.
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
Twain
I would like to see the failure of restaurants like Cheddar’s (there is no one named ‘Cheddar’,) Chili’s (ditto,) Applebees (fictional surname obviously,) Bennigan’s (already failed?) and any similar establishments named after fake people. The fake people should also be executed live on CNBC.
Once I had a railroad, made it run;
Made it run on time.
Once I had a railroad, now it’s done;
Buddy, can you spare some Trucknutz?
I want Olive Garden to fail with its slop passing for Italian food… Besides everyone knows that olives don’t grow in a garden, they grow in a GROVE!
hobospacejunkie: To quote Edie Falco in my favorite episode of Will and Grace ever…
“You and Grace have a lovely co-op. We’d hate to have a needle exchange open up next door. Or a Bennigan’s.”
Ruby Tuesday was once a nice hippie burger place in Knoxville. Chili’s was a good, cheap taco place on Greenville Avenue in Dallas. Now they should go away — unless of course my 401k’s are invested in them.
i’m keeping my eye on radio shack
But we’ll still have McDonald’s, Burger King, Roy Roger’s, Arby’s, Hardee’s, Wendy’s, Sonic, Five Guys, Carl’s, In and Out Burgers, Popeye’s, International House of Pancakes, Romano’s Macaroni Grille, Applebee’s, Olive Garden, Kenny Rogers, Boston Market, Red Robin, TGIF, Bennig–oops, sorry, no more Bennigan’s, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Papa John’s, Taco Bell, Outback, Famous Dave’s, and about 200 other fast-food and chain sit-down restaurants!!
engulfedinflames: They have bomb-making supplies for returning vets, so they will be doing a (heh-heh-heh) booming visit.
Uh, “booming business”. Can…not multi…..task.
hobospacejunkie: Yeah, give me those real authentic down-home cooking dives any day. Like the diner where I used to work called “EAT.” I kid you not. We had to keep it simple since we were serving mostly the local rednecks.
(who actually weren’t that bad…tasted alot like chicken)
Custerwolf: I love the ‘Chat and Chew’ in Havre de Grace and teh ‘Eat Good Food’ in Middlebury.
Been meaning to try the ‘Bad Ass Bar-b-que’ right off the highway.
Bright note: sales are booming for the iPhone “Shake the Treasury Secretary” app.
sati demise: For the best - and I mean BEST - cornbread in the USofA you have to go to NYC’s ‘Good Enough to Eat.’ Let me tell ya, it is nothing short of a buttery slice of heaven. MMmmmmm…..droool…
Who’d have thought that an economy based on people buying shit they don’t need with money they don’t have in a manner that the biosphere can’t sustain would collapse? Who could have predicted this unforeseen tragic tragedy?
Mad Farmer Manifest: It takes folks awhile to realize they’re backing the wrong horse.
Oh, forget all of this. I just want some malt liquor and World of Warcraft.