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If the downturn is receding, why is my mood indigo?

By Stanley Bing

FORTUNE — Spring has sprung. The grass is riz. So it’s reasonable to ask where the birdies is. Because I don’t know about you, but I don’t see no birdies. I’m tense. I’m nervous. I guess you could say that my consumer confidence is sort of … leaky. Why should that be? All signs point to a slow MORE

No taxation without obfuscation. It’s the American way.

By Stanley Bing

FORTUNE — This document will help you understand the United States Internal Revenue Code, Title 26 of the U.S. Code (26 USC) as you prepare to file your 2011 returns. Fitting this service onto a single page has necessitated abridgements. The actual tax code is more than 3 million words long and would fill 7,500 pages if printed on letter-size paper. For MORE

Will the next generation of MBAs be up to the task of running our great commercial enterprises?

By Stanley Bing

FORTUNE — I dropped by a famous business school the other day to do what death eaters do when we go to feast on the souls of the young. We talk to them about our industry. We tell them how we got where we are today. Where am I today? At my desk, MORE

What happened when the farmers tried to protect their chickens: a fable.

By Stanley Bing

FORTUNE — Once upon a time there was a farm that produced high-grade eggs for the entire world. This farm, nestled in the hills on the southern end of the very western coast, was small considering the quantity of eggs it produced, but it was successful and proud of its output. The proprietors had grown fat and prosperous, MORE

Does your employer belong in the pantheon? Could it be that the answer depends on where you stand?

By Stanley Bing

FORTUNE — We’ve done our best to identify corporations that are a pleasure to work for. But we couldn’t possibly list them all. Maybe your company, too, is a party on a half shell! Take this quiz and find out.

When I go to work in the morning, I …

A. Smile MORE

Remember the old days, before we had even moved government into the Cloud? How did we get anything done?

FORTUNE — Happy 2022! No, that’s not a typo, although it sure seems like it could be. 2022! For a while there it didn’t look like we were going to make it, did it? But I think it’s fair to say that with the destruction of the last fleet of Nebulons and MORE

I don’t ask for much. A stable euro. An economic recovery. A new Congress. And a Vitamix.

FORTUNE — Dear Santa

Hi again. It’s me, Stan. How is Mrs. Claus? And the elves? Still on leave from Wharton? How about the North Pole? I hear it’s melting. That can’t be good. Anyhow, enough about you. This is about me, and all the good things I want to find under my tree this MORE

Whatever you’ve got, it’s obviously contagious. So until you’re feeling better, hasta la vista, baby!

FORTUNE — So I came into work this morning, and before I even had a chance to butter my muffin, I watched our stock take a nosedive. And we weren’t alone. The whole market was bleeding. “Drat,” I said, although that was not the word I used. I called Tupper, our IR guy. “What’s up?” I MORE

What plutocrats can do to take Wall Street back from the occupiers

FORTUNE  — Order! Order! All right then. This meeting of the Ultra-Secret Super Committee to Defeat the Wall Street Occupation is now in session. And let me just say how nice it feels to be back together after the hiatus of the past several years. Let’s not let our agendas lapse that way ever again, gentlemen. It’s too much MORE

If you want to play Angry Birds, get an iPhone. But if you need to do business, stand by your old friend.

FORTUNE –When I was 12, my family moved from Chicago to the suburbs of New York City. The first day at my new school, I slipped on my customary outfit — clean white T-shirt, Levi’s, and desert boots — hopped on my bike, got there on time. Nobody was MORE

We’ve all been lucky to live in a world where there was a person with such an imagination.

I want to take this opportunuity, before time and our common mortality rob me of the chance to do so, to thank you, Steve Jobs, for all that you have done for me. No, I never had the privilege of meeting you, or had a chance to get yelled at by you in MORE

The business fundamentals are actually pretty healthy. So why is the sky falling?

Things were going until last week. Or maybe it was the week before. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now. All that value destroyed. And it was so unnecessary. Revenues were up. People had a shaky belief that the economy was doing okay. The market was reaching for 12,000. Our stock was growing plump in the sun. But none MORE

It’s been a busy season for the brave men and women who keep a lid on funny business.

Police blotter, July 28 (Suspicious Circumstances)

Business police received report from angry resident that his neighbor, an investment banker, had been awarded a huge bonus from a company whose advice had cost the complainant tens of thousands of dollars. Officers were dispatched to the investment bank’s location and discussed matter with executives there. Undisclosed MORE

Take our quiz to find out if you might be at risk of public humiliation.

As we wait for the next idiot in politics, business, or sports to, in a word, expose himself, let us pause to consider this increasingly familiar cultural rite. When our public figures put their smutty little sex lives inadvertently on display, we — the collective mob — exclaim, then chuckle, then explode with outrage. But who MORE

A cloud is a plume of vapor. Is that really where I want to keep my personal digital treasures?

It being a slow summer workday, I may have been asleep. But there they were, suddenly, three celestial beings hovering over my shoulder, each having descended from one of two rather imposing clouds.

“Go away,” I said. “I’m archiving to my local storage solution.” They all shook their heads with condescension.

“Behold the Microsoft MORE

Just when I was getting ready to enjoy my retirement, a goon with a clipboard showed up.

I was about two full days into my dream retirement when Hobbes showed up. It was, like, 7:15 in the morning, and I was just rolling over for my second tranche of shuteye when the doorbell rang and there was some pounding with the knocker and so I got up to see who the MORE

When big meets little: A morality tale on corporate envy.

Once upon a time there was a little corporation that, due to circumstances mostly beyond its control, had fallen off the Fortune 500 list. Its revenue was a bit flat. Cost cutting during lean years had left the little corporation less able to compete in a robust operating environment. While it had for some years proudly claimed its status as one MORE

Buying a car from you was a thrill. But I’m just not ready for the kind of relationship you seem to have in mind.

Dearest,

I write this with a heavy heart, but in the knowledge that it must be done. It’s become clear over the last months that I am simply more important to you than you are to me. This must end before one or both of us gets hurt. MORE

My new book is out in a couple of days. It’s called Bingsop’s Fables, and it chronicles the work of Aesop’s younger brother, a fellow storyteller who worked in a long-dead corporate culture. His “little morals for big business” still speak to the confused, wretched and terminally employed in all of us.

The book is most splendidly illustrated by New Yorker artist Steve Brodner, who brings the CEOs, HR managers and MORE

Greetings everybody.

This week I’m rolling out my new website, which, unsurprisingly, may be found at stanleybing.com. I’ve missed talking to you every day (well, almost every day) and look forward to continuing my dialogue with you over at Bing’s new second home.

This week on stanleybing.com, I’m all in a swivet about the Royal Wedding. My invitation seems to have been lost in the mail, but I’m not going to let that stop MORE