"I wish I knew who the suckers were who forked over the cash for payroll so they didn't get padlocked."
Yeah, this is circling- or swirling down- the drain time. Cash and cash flow tell the whole story... as in, if you have precious little left, the rest disappears very rapidly.
As the famous lines from Hemingway’s "The Sun Also Rises." go:
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.”