And you think your parents are bad? This Is It comes out this weekend. To celebrate, Joe Jackson isn't remembering his son's life. He's telling Extra that Michael Jackson's worth more dead than he is alive.

One thing we learned from the case of the Philadelphia woman accused of trying to trade sex for Phillies tickets is that the underground ticket game is hard. This veteran ticket scalper we talked to certainly reinforced this lesson!

The Way We Live Now: Tip-top! "Wall Street on Track to Award Record Pay." Meanwhile, we're cutting the pay of non-Wall Streeters in half, and lowering the minimum wage. The rational market at work!

Sometimes you just want to grab The American Consumer about the shoulders, and shake him, and yell: "Hey, stop being such a sucker!" Because...OMG a fuzzy wuzzy baby seal! I must buy so much Dawn® brand product, or he dies.

Yuppie entrepreneurs across brownstone Brooklyn are uniting to protect their communities: Instead of competing, why not have all the cheese shops, wine shops, coffee shops, and yoga studios band together, as a chain? Keep out those dreaded other chains!

Whoops! Newt Gingrich accidentally named a porn producer "Entrepreneur of the Year." For like a day. Then he rescinded it, the bastard. Why does he hate capitalism?

Back in 1918, when a flu epidemic brought America to its knees, there weren't many innovations in the way of germ-fighting tactics. Well, this is the 21st century, which means there are plenty of new, inventive ways to encourage prevention.

Months after Barack Obama's election, America is still as deeply embroiled in the Snuggie Wars as ever. As Snuggies and Slankets fend off guerilla attacks from Sealpelts and Lippi Selk bags, the Wearable Towel is making its dumb, ruthless move.

American Entrepreneur, have you heard of Dubai? It is a capitalist paradise! A veritable Galt's Gulch of the Gulf. A playground for the wealthy built on cheap foreign labor, oil, tourism, and real estate speculation? What could go wrong!

In what has to be one of the more interesting internet finds in the history of blogging, Webnewser's Hunter Walker has stumbled across an official North Korean CafePress page where you can purchase brutal totalitarian regime-themed mugs, T-shirts, caps, etc.

Now this is a useful website: HowToNailAnInterview.com. Some guys with secret cameras taped dozens of people interviewing for a job, and culled the wisdom for you. Example: don't reveal that your husband's a Sasquatch hunter.

Having no money: it may cause stress! Insightful insights like this from scientific experts are just one of the recession's silver linings. (Linings now made of lower-cost aluminum).

Stocks are down this morning, on concerns about the health of the financial sector. But the foreclosure business is booming, on optimism of more and more and more foreclosures!

Here is your flat-world global economy: Siemens, the German engineering conglomerate, just paid $1.6 billion in fees for all the bribery they've been up to since the end of World War II, back when they were Nazis.

Are you ready to sit at home eating leftovers and viewing the internet? The Friday after Thanksgiving is Buy Nothing Day! It's the day when lefties around the world celebrate being broke by abstaining from capitalism for a day and feeling superior, while the rich run wild on pre-Christmas sales. It's a nice thought and many of you would probably theoretically support it, but, you know... sales. This year, however, the anarchist types have an extra incentive: nobody has any money to spend anyhow!

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal featured a story about Lehman Brothers wherein the paper sent a reporter out to eavesdrop around the bank's headquarters. "It's over, man...unless we get bought out in the next 24 hours, it's over," they quoted a "young man" as saying to someone on his cell phone. Then over by a "fast food cart" the reporter quoted one of three men wearing Lehman badges discussing the future of all capitalism in the event that the government decides to stop printing money to rescue banks whose stocks have been mercilessly pointlessly attacked by all those greedy/fearful predatory/lemminglike enemies of capitalism known as "capitalists," asking: "At some point, where does it stop?" Well here's where it stops, bro: your egg and cheese. They don't serve them with a "side of digital recorder" around here anymore.The food cart guy knows that whispers like the ones he hears outside are self-fulfilling prophecies in an irrational era like the modern ones, so he's shutting off the coffee spigot to reporters descending on the area to cover the Lehman crisis! You gotta wonder why he cares though. I mean, sure the impending layoffs at Lehman will have some "trickle-down" effect. But in lean times won't a larger percentage of bankers be eating from the food cart in lieu of whatever fancy hotels they've been patronizing on the company dime? Ha ha ha, or maybe that's just how I wish "lean times" worked at publicly traded companies. In any case I have another theory: the food cart guy is trying to buy Lehman Brothers. Sure 24,000 employees is a little ambitious, but Lehman stock is off 93% and at least you can read the food cart's balance sheet. Or maybe the food cart guy is just a decent guy. Photo Of The Day [Portfolio] Credit Crisis Strains Government's Options [WSJ]

Media companies are all facing a fundamental quandary: They have to throw lavish, expensive events to impress advertisers, even as they slash editorial budgets in ways that upset longtime employees. Well, it's only a problem if the corporate suits are worried about perception issues, which they may not be. But you have to admit that it does look bad when People editor Peter Castro (pictured, at left) and other execs are partying it up in the Bahamas "getting a massage, being given a wii fit, jamming with some old dudes, being on vacation" at a fancy sales meeting while the company faces a hiring freeze. Hey, that's capitalism! Angry email from an insider, after the jump.

See these flip-flops? They're not just any flip-flops. They're high fashion, "Married to the Mob" flip-flops, and they cost $42. Can you spot the reason why this is stupid? That's right: you pay ten times what you would pay for a plain pair of flip-flops, in order to have a brand name which is covered by your foot when you are wearing them. I imagine fashion snobs must just hang these flip-flops jauntily over their shoulder instead of slipping them on their feet, so that the logo can shine freely. In fact, the entire idea of paying extra for name-brand flip-flops is a bit ridiculous. But the price tag can get much, much worse than $42. Allow us introduce you to PechePlatinum—the "World's Most Expensive Flip-Flops."

Pop culture is always a step behind the real cutting-edge culture that defines what's cool in the current zeitgeist. And mass media advertising, with its drive for universal appeal, is generally made from an even weaker brew than pop culture. What that means for us is that these ads from the 1950s and 60s—which lack not only today's sense of political correctness, but also their own era's sense of cool—are an entertaining lens through which to view the age of beatniks and free love. Groove your way to the hippie party with a 1969 stereo in your new General Motors automobile! Six classic examples [via Flickr/ Coudal], after the jump.

The blogfest that is T magazine's website has taken a turn for the greedy, as the staff has begun posting "holiday wish lists" that might as well be coded solicitations for publicists! "Fashion magazine editors may have it worse than the general population. Every day we find ourselves surrounded by beautiful objects," say the supposedly tongue-in-cheek bloggers, before going on to solicit Brunello Cucinelli wool flannel travel jackets and the harlequin dress from Miu Miu's Spring/Summer collection. ATTENTION PUBLICISTS: I WOULD LIKE A NEW PAIR OF SHOES, BECAUSE THESE HAVE HOLES, FOR SERIOUS. SEND THEM TO 76 CROSBY STREET, NY NY 10012 BEFORE MY LAST DAY, 12/31. KTHXBAI!