WONKESS

ThreatDown #5: BEARS

Polar Bear ATTACK!

I Want Some Tarp...

Cause they're givin money away for free...

Screw You [insert BigCo name here]...

Because it's clever, not because I share the artist's view.  It's not clear whether the singer was actually ever employed by Yahoo! herself.

Couple of points:

(1) If you are a business of any kind and your revenue stream just absolutely dries up, you really can't do anything but cut costs.  Which is likely to involve redundancies.  You might argue that companies should have been more conservative during the good times and built up a larger cash reserve, or that things like senior management pay and other frivolous costs should go first, but that's still not the same as saying that there is something inherently wrong with layoffs.

(2) The song suggests that everyone takes a paycut which would made the redundancies unnecessary.  I think this is interesting for several reasons: (A) from an economist perspective, this is the worst possible "solution".  One of the only things that's keeping this current recession from being a full on depression is the fact that wages have not fallen (does not take into account unemployment, where the individual's wage drops to 0 or so).  Because of the natural "stickiness" of wages, economists get really frightened when wages actually start to drop.  (B) This also touches one of those interesting economic psychology issues: that people are very sensitive to perceived loss.  For example, if you have 2 individuals, of equal caliber, knowledge, skill, etc... and one is given a salary of x to start, while the second is given a salary of x+y to start.  If you reduce the second person's salary to x at some later time, the second person is measurably less happy/satisfied than the first, though they are paid exactly the same.  (C)  Also, I believe that some amount of corporate bloatedness is inevitable.  Even in the most rigorous of law firms in the busiest of times, not everyone is being maximally used (even if we define maximally as reasonable, humane by European standards, hours) at all times.  I can't imagine that during the boon times, that many companies were in fact super-bloated.  Better profits, more managers jockeying to elevate their personal prestige, more hiring. 

Anyways, I bloviate.  Or blogiate, as the case may be.

Star Wars AND A Capella? What's not to love...

This is just too good not to share (h/t damomma, who is apparently related to the composer!)

And, yes, I admit it. I WAS an a capella nerd in college. (*hangs head in shame*)

Will Work for Bailout Cheezburgers...

From @Adrigonzo via Twitter

Damn Money Holes, Always Sneakin' Up On Ya...

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

Kitteh!

Not so timely, but still funny.

H/T Madame X

From Sinfest

Laid-Off by Lehman...

Not so timely, but still funny.

H/T Madame X

You Betcha Doggonit

Banktron...

From Sinfest