the tindog coffeehouse

Yahoo Finance has a list of 15 companies that might go belly-up before year-end. Some, like Chrysler and Blockbuster, are obvious candidates. But Six Flags?

Six Flags. (SIX; about 30,000 employees; stock down 84%). This theme-park operator has been losing money for several years, and selling off properties to try to pay down debt and get back into the black. But the ride may end prematurely. Moody’s expects cash flow to be negative in 2009, and if consumers aren’t spending during the peak summer season, that could imperil the company’s ability to pay debts coming due later this year and in 2010.

OK, so the numbers don’t look too good. But as someone who worked there for three seasons while in high school and whose kids beg almost daily to go back, I’m really hoping they’ll be able to ride out the next couple of years (no pun intended). Not that anyone expects them to be profitable, but then again, who is these days? (I mean, other than Exxon.)

Despite the grim forecast, I think Six Flags actually has a lot going for them in a down economy. After all, if you live reasonably close to a Six Flags park, it’s a lot cheaper for a family to buy season tickets than it is to shell out a ton of money for airline tickets to fly somewhere. That’s what we did last year, and it worked out great.

And besides, how can you possibly trust a list of soon-to-be-extinct companies from Yahoo when they themselves aren’t on the list?

’Nuff said.

Previously:
What I did on my summer vacation
Better than Fair