Nickelback Ruined America

That's right. The tanking economy, the flat lining Dow, dried up credit markets, plummeting housing values, banks fleecing the government for bailouts; it's all the doing of that thoroughly crappy band Nickelback.

Let me explain.

This time last year, Citigroup Inc's stock was trading at just about thirty dollars a share. That was down quite a bit from a year previous to that but the stock still had value. At this time (around April of 08), some ad wizard at Citigroup decided to partner with Nickelback in a nationwide promotion. Here is a commercial for that promo:



"Enter to win a three city tour with Nickelback? It's a can't miss!"

Immediately after this commercial started airing Citigroup's stock tanked. Last week it bottomed out at 1.05 a share. As in, "Would you rather have a five piece Chicken Nugget from Wendy's or Citigroup stock?" I'll take the Chicken Nuggets, thank you very much. At least the nuggets won't turn into shit until a few hours after I buy them.

Listen, Citigroup. Is it a coincidence that upon equating your brand with a terrible, terrible band that peaked in 2002 and hasn't been a blip on any music scene since and whose lead singer looks like an Afghan Hound that your company's value plummeted? Absolutely not. Nickelback is a cancer. Everyone knows this. The second those commercials started airing nationwide, any confidence in your corporation was betrayed. Your share holders immediately said to themselves, "How can such an important financial institution show such inexcusable judgment by thinking that Nickelback is anything but a punchline? They must be fudging their balance sheets. I mean a bank would have to be insolvent in order to make such a terrible decision. I'm selling my stock."

Boom! Citibank goes down igniting the credit crisis we have now. Banks stop lending, company's stop spending, massive layoffs and the Dow drops below 7,000. Thanks a lot, Nickelback. You dicks.

At this point I would like to mention that I am in no way an Economist. In fact of all the Economics classes I took in College, I never did better than a B-. But I never let a complete lack of qualifications stop me from spewing out opinionated nonsense based entirely on irrational prejudices. If MSNBC can do it, so can I.

I say that the US government needs to take its $300 billion it "invested" into Citibank for their bailout and hold Nickelback completely responsible for paying it back. Since it is entirely their fault that it was needed in the first place, it only seems fair. Of course there is a limited amount of tone deaf fools that actually like this shit band enough to buy their CD's and concert tickets. And of those tone deaf fools, I would guess there are a pretty limited amount that are gainfully employed. That's a pretty dry well to begin with. So Nickelback can tour all they want, they're never going to make a dent in that 300 billion. That is why, after having their entire financial worth seized by the US Government, Nickelback must be thrown in jail. Doesn't that image make you smile? Wouldn't you love to see this guy wearing an orange jumper picking up trash on the side of the freeway? I realize that Nickelback is Canadian, so there may be a few legal complications. But most Canadians are good, honest, nonsucky music loving people, so I don't think extradition will be much of a problem. Such an idea makes me believe America will soon recover and be back on the right track. YES WE CAN!

Note: this is the third time I have ripped on a Canadian band. Nickelback joins Rush and the Bare Naked Ladies to receive my misplaced scorn. But I want to make it clear that I am in no way Anti-Canuck. I share a lot of common ground with Canadians. Maple syrup is my favorite pancake topping. I think mooses (mease?) are neat. I love The Guess Who. (At least I like the only four songs anyone knows by The Guess Who. Who doesn't love These Eyes? Oh Randy Bachman, you are my favorite Mormon 70's rocker.) I thought Rick Moranis was funny in Ghostbusters. I think Pamela Anderson used to be hot (like the 1993 Snapdragon Pamela Anderson, before she turned herself into a living breathing cartoon) . Like 95% of Canadians, I hate French speaking people. I wish no specific harm to the metric system. I once ate french fries with gravy and kind of liked it. I pretty much worship William Shatner. See Canada? We're buddies! And outside of the three previously mentioned rock groups, I can't think of any other Canadian band that totally and completely sucks. Except Avril Lavigne. And Celine Dion. And Sum 41. And Snow. And . . . well, let's just stop there.

Update: My buddy Spencer sent this link that further illustrates just how sucky Nickelback is.