Why zombies are taking over the economy

— -- Have you noticed that there's a slow, shuffling feeling of dread and impending doom in this economy?

"We are in the midst of a zombie-craze. Zombies have reached never-before seen heights of popularity, appearing widely not only in film but also in comic books, graphic novels, literature, video games — major cities across North America have become home to organized zombie walks where sometimes hundreds of people dress as the risen dead and wander en masse creating gruesome flash mobs," Chris Moreman, an assistant professor of comparative religion at California State University East Bay, wrote in his research paper, "Dharma of the Living Dead: A Meditation on the Meaning of the Hollywood Zombie."

Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—that bastion of protection against infection, disease and doom—put out a Guide for Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse.

And the references to zombie banks, zombie capitalism, zombie economy and all sorts of zombie business are piling up like bloody coats at a zombie Christmas party.

In "Zombie Capitalism," author Chris Harmon, who started the book several years before the last recession started, argues that capitalism is simply insatiable and asks, hauntingly, "who can overcome?"

A "zombie bank" is as "a bank or financial institution with negative net worth," according to Investopedia. And yet, "they continue to operate as a result of government backings or bailouts that allow these banks to meet debt obligations and avoid bankruptcy. Zombie banks often have a large amount of nonperforming assets on their balance sheets, which make future earnings very unpredictable."

"The large banks which dominate most of the lending in the United States are effectively zombie banks," well-known banking analyst Meredith Whitney said this summer. "You've got an expense structure that just doesn't match the revenue structure. So it's a classic issue of negative operating leverage. You don't buy institutions that have negative operating leverage."

And the zombie references aren't just infiltrating the global financial system, they're right in your backyard.

In "Zombie Economics: A Guide to Personal Finance," authors Lisa Desjardins and Rick Emerson write that a "zombie economy" is "any financial situation that puts your stability and future in jeopardy."

"In a zombie economy, there is a self-perpetuating sense of doom — the feeling that there is no solution; that the sickness is unstoppable and the predator unkillable; the fear that even those in command have little idea how to fix things," they say.

So where does all this moaning, groaning and brain-eating come from?

The concept of zombies comes from Haitian folklore and voodoo mythology and has been closely associated with slavery, as Haiti was a hub for the slave trade.

"The idea is that a sorcerer, who, through his magic, can turn someone into a zombie and use him to do work for him. Zombies would be used to work in fields," Moreman explains.

So, it didn't originate as some monster in the backyard or Michael Jackson video, so much as being turned into a worker drone against your will.

"Today, people talk about turning someone into a zombie to do data entry!" Moreman says.