Why cultivate friendships without turning a profit? Make your social life work for you! Anyone near and dear is an unrealized opportunity with the Plunder Funnel. It's not a pyramid scheme per se, but rather its inversion. That's legal, right?
The seemingly-populist, very evil Bank of America is a hive of rat bastards, and anyone that's ever done any kind of business with them will understand this sentiment. But they're now taking mercy on their sad, recession-hit customers.
Happy (in a somber way) Veteran's Day. If you're a young American aged 17-24, you might consider honoring the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform by joining the United States Army yourself! Sounds good, no? We all know the Army has been having some recruitment problems lately, what with the hopeless wars we're…
Jesus Christ, while you weren't paying attention Disney has been busy insinuating itself into every niche of your consumer lifestyle. Do you consider yourself a fashionable person with fancy urban tastes who would never be caught dead wearing the winking Goofy sweatshirts and Tinkerbell baby-tees that are so popular…
The Jesusphone is no longer just for privileged white folks. "The strongest growth in users is coming from those earning less than the median household income, particularly since the launch of the iPhone 3G." So says a report from ComScore, which concludes that "lower-income mobile subscribers are increasingly turning…
This economic downturn has, surprisingly, not killed the "branding" industry, which exists for the sole purpose of allowing graphic design majors to soak clueless corporate behemoths out of millions of dollars for what amounts to a few tweaks of a computer design template. We salute you, brand consultants! You are the…
Neel Kashkari is the intense young man tapped by the Treasury Department to lead our nation's financial bailout. The national media could paint only the most basic picture of him: a high-achieving Republican ski bum who rose quickly from Wharton to Goldman Sachs to, today, a position of national import. But guess…
Although companies can measure how many TV commercials, radio commercials, and internet ads you're exposed to, it's just not enough. What about snatches of radio ads overheard through the windows of passing cars—do they affect your shampoo-buying habits? When you were at the gym and walked briskly past a television…
Who's to blame for this mess? That's what the American people want to know, right? Nobody wants to hear about intricate economic factors that combined in unforeseen ways to predicate an economic collapse. We want scapegoats! The media, politicians, and plain old dumb people on the street who don't know what the hell…
Unpatriotic dissenters are expressing doubts about Neel Kashkari, America's new young bullet-headed money whiz who's been tapped to lead this great nation out of the pit of financial despair. How dare they! It was almost humorous how little anyone knew about the 35-year-old AC/DC fan when the Treasury Dept. assigned…
Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a class action case accusing the tobacco industry of fraud for its marketing campaign aimed at convincing the public that "light" cigarettes are safer. This just shows you how far we've come: 50 years ago, we would have had to call the Supreme Court to determine which…
The economy's in trouble. Have you heard? Banks would be much happier if you hadn't, but alas, that dude who was repossessing your car probably said something about it. So now our financial institutions are faced with their toughest challenge: deciding what kind of ads to run. They can't do anything about the actual…
This is reportedly the (real) first post-collapse ad from failed bank WaMu, and it's very... direct? "WaMu has a bright new future, thanks to the stability of JPMorgan Chase (and their nearly trillion dollars in customer deposits). [ETC.]" says the fine print. The failed institution deserves credit for confronting its…
The Wall Street Journal abandoned its restrained front page design just in time. The staid business newspaper has captured the month's growing financial alarm—and contributed to it—with dramatic headlines often stretching across all six columns of the front page. The growing point size of the headlines is a graphic…
"Most banks are grey," read the colorful little tagline on Washington Mutual's website last week. "That's just not our style." Then WaMu catastrophically collapsed, ha. After the jump, their new homepage ad now, which is just so perfect that I demand you click through to see it:
Everyone wants to figure out what happened to the market last fortnight! Which is why the week of September 14 marked the highest ratings in CNBC's nineteen year history, the New York Times reported today in a story about how people keep tuning in to the business news network looking for answers on What It All Means…
We're not even officially in a recession, and already the culture czars over at New York have dubbed the economic crisis precipitated by our financial system's collapse The Greatest Depression! Such hyperbole, I know! So what makes the tag feel so goddamn right? Other than the fact that I think it is really great I…
Tom Brokaw of all people has a funny column in today's Journal about all the distressed assets 'Main Street' types would like to sell Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. For instance, Barney "Big Un" Baumgartner of Wyoming — a real person, I checked — is offering an 80% stake in his gambling debts and taxidermy business…
The collapse of capitalism is actually too damn overwhelming for most journalists — much less their readers — to grasp. So how to approach? With a tried-and-true socio-anthropological take on What It Really Means In America As Told To Some Narrow Niche Of Society. Let's start with strippers!
Could the current US economic meltdown destroy expensive coffee shops, as penniless consumers abandon Starbucks in order to huddle in unheated apartments brewing cheap coffee filtered through a sock? Folgers sure hopes so! The middlebrow coffee roaster is about to debut a big new ad campaign, hoping that now that your…
