The Way We Live Now: With the shame of the defeated. We're too dumb to even figure out how to make our biggest companies go bankrupt properly. But we will obstinately stand on the power of our "luxury" brands until they sink in the financial muck and drown us, triumphantly!

What's the problem with GM declaring bankruptcy, besides the solidifying of our hollow fears that America's empire is crumbling? It's that we don't even have enough bankruptcy lawyers to make it happen. Not enough bankruptcy lawyers! We'll be forced to outsource our own demise! At last, this is the final indignity of the recession, is it not?

No, of course not. There will be many more. That good old American refusal to accept defeat is now coming back to bite us right on our defeated asses. For example: Luxury hotels like the Four Seasons (okay it's Canadian, JUST AN EXAMPLE) refuse to cut back on amenities or lower room rates, because "doing so may hurt the brand's image." And there's this: "To add insult to injury, in the current climate no business traveler wants to put the name of a high-end resort on an expense report." Now, one might say: Lower the rates and then business travelers won't have to worry about staying there so much, problem solved!

Just goes to show you don't understand the science of branding, you cheap whore. The Four Seasons isn't afraid to go bankrupt to protect its bankrupt brand image—there are no lawyers to do the bankruptcy, anyhow, remember? And screw customers—they're all just trying to use something once and return it, anyhow. When the nuclear winter of this recession has passed, brands will be the last remnants of our once-mighty culture. Brands. And Pringles, which are made from the toughest substances known to man.
[Pic via]