this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by Beep@lemmus.org to c/comicstrips@lemmy.world
 
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[–] Xerxos@lemmy.ml 55 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Many of these "business geniuses" do the following:

  • buy struggling business cheap
  • reduce expenses (biggest expense is always salaries, so fire a lot of people)
  • on paper, the business is making money (while the rest of the staff frantically try to survive without enough manpower and with a lot of loss on knowledge and experience)
  • sell doomed business before it collapses (remember: on paper, it looks healthy)
[–] luciferofastora@feddit.org 3 points 6 days ago

It's a Bigger Idiot Scam: buy company, make it look valuable, sell it for profit to a bigger idiot, until someone is left holding the bag.

Except that someone can usually still gut it, sell its assets and push the cost on those that weren't lucky enough to land a new job ahead of time.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 58 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Yep. Survived such an idiot.

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Did the idiot make more money from that endeavour than you?

(Bcs unfortunately both can be true, financial gain is not exactly related to economic success or sense.)

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[–] Flames5123@sh.itjust.works 33 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I love that the guy’s tattoos change constantly:

  • snake on right arm
  • snake moves to the left arm
  • apple gets bite taken from it as snake is now a real creature

So many little details in this comic!

[–] PhoenixDog@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Thing.

Homer Simpson.

Professor Bunsen.

Brain from Pinky and the Brain.

[–] tamal3@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

Deathbed regret is not working more! Text too small to read! Fighting demonic forces!

[–] Johanno@feddit.org 2 points 6 days ago

There's also a body hiding in the floor in the first panel

[–] Tattorack@lemmy.world 28 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

What... The heck... Is going on in that factory!? What's with all the random changes and references?

[–] HikingVet 13 points 6 days ago

Seems like they used the cracked magazine approach.

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago

People were fighting demonic forces before the end of their turn, what obviously disrupt the factory's work.

[–] brianary@lemmy.zip 22 points 6 days ago

This is how private equity MBAs have ruined everything.

[–] AffineConnection@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] AffineConnection@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I know about the other hidden characters in the comic, but what is this guy?

[–] AeonFelis@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago

That, my friend, is a weezotski.

[–] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 16 points 6 days ago

So many oligarchs and wannabe oligarchs to choose from...

[–] LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 10 points 6 days ago

URGENT: ALWAYS COMPLETE YOUR SHIFT AND CLEAN YOUR AREA BEFORE FIGHTING DEMONIC FORCES

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago

Thomas Pickety lays out the mechanics of this transference in Capitalism In The Twenty-First Century.

He establishes a comparison between the domestic rate of economic growth (typically measured in GDP) relative to the average return on investment (typically measured by bond rates or annualized stock market asset inflation). He finds that when GDP < ROI, wealth aggregates into the hands of a small pool of elites. Meanwhile, when GDP > ROI, wealth diffuses to the general public (the so-called Trickle Down Economics promised by Reagan).

These leveraged buyouts are only possible when private lenders can generate a compounding return in fictitious assets that outpaces a return investing in material capital and labor improvements. And the compounding return is, at its heart, a consequence of unpaid wages, bad debt, and unaccounted depreciation.

Picketty concludes that the most straightforward remedy to rebalancing GDP and ROI is to tax capital gains. This effectively forces down the ROI, while redirecting cash flow to public investments that boost GDP without triggering an inflationary spiral.

But what he can't answer is how to address the social dynamic that allows taxes to fall and predatory business practices to accumulate. Media manipulation, imperialist plundering, and the exploitation of domestic lower social castes can't be solved with tax policy. Who actually stops the Business Genius from wrecking the factory? What are the real material functions of the economy being controlled? And how do a handful of individuals successfully rent-seek from them without triggering a public revolt?

[–] Mrkawfee@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago

A wild Homer Simpson appears

[–] apftwb@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago

I bought the company and I will short the stock.

[–] AffineConnection@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I live how the title is misspelled.

Edit: My own typo above is unintentional, but too funny to fix.

[–] mvilain@fedia.io 7 points 6 days ago

Classic plot of most of the Reddit revenge and Youtube channels.

[–] LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

"THIS TINY TEXT IS WAY TOO SMALL TO BE READ, SORRY!"

So there's Homer, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, and Brain (From Pinky and the Brain).

Did I miss any other reference?

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