Bloody Monday: 68,000 Job Losses Announced Today With More to Come

Yup. That's exactly what they're doing. Same thing happened at my Dad's company. An announcement of a record year and then slashing jobs. These corporations are just looking to axe jobs even if they're highly profitable. One of the great benefits to a 'global economy' is the elimination of the middle class--world wide.

 

Times are tough indeed, but I'm expecting the trough to come sometime here in 1H09. But we're still a long way from economic recovery, and anyone expecting a snap-back in 2H will be disappointed. It's going to take some time for credit markets to unfreeze, and for consumers to delever.

 

Baker Hughes laying off people now too (no I don't work for them).

Lots of bad, bad signs if you're in oil and gas.

 

Yes they are.

 

I can't help but think that, in the long-term, there is going to be massive inflation thanks to all this money being thrown around.

Maybe I should move into a bigger house now and capitalize on this potentiality. Thoughts from economic wizards?


Sorry for the thread derail.

 

That would depend on how fireproof your income is and how strong your belief is that some return to normalcy will occur within your investment horizon.

As I've stated before, I believe the world has lost the wealth creation engine of the American housing bubble, global competition has cut the profit from most businesses, the information age has peaked it's growth arc, and we are in a downward spiral that probably won't turn up again until we have something we can't see yet promises a brighter future. (Fusion energy? or counterintuitively, a return of mild inflation)

But, no risks, no rewards

 

I would agree that it has hurt the middle class in the United States. But looking at countries like China and India, globalization has helped rapidly increase the middle class in those countries.

 

In theory, if my income is reduced to ashes, I'd be hosed regardless of any real estate maneuvering I partake in at the moment. From the standpoint of investments, I'd wager that many homes (maybe not so much in Houston) are now undervalued, because of the enormous supply available.

One of my buddies just refinanced his home to 4.875, tacked on 4 more years of loan, and is getting an enormous pool put in at a dirt cheap price because they are desperate for business. His theory is that inflation is inevitable, so he'll make out like a bandit as the value of his loan detiorates.

What am I (or what is he) missing?

 

They added Texas Instruments and their 3400 layoffs to the list.

 

I guess I'm thinking more in terms of elimination of our upper middle class (like 100-250k jobs) to replace them with lower middle class(by our standards) with 30k jobs overseas.

Whatever you want to call it, our standard of living here in the US is going to change drastically to be more in line with the rest of the world in the next 15 years. This recession will see to it.

 

Were the last 10 years normal?

 

If the world becomes a jumbled mess of random stimulus and begger thy neighbor policies, deflation or worse could be a real danger. But at that point...

 

I don't think there will be much inflation eventhough the government is pretty money at a record pace since the banks aren't creating money out of thin air anymore. The banks were leveraging at 30 to 1 which means that for every dollar they had in their vault, they lent out 30. Now that they are deleveraging to normal levels which used to be 10 to 1, there should be much less money actually in circulation even with the trillion dollars the government is printing. The fear right now is deflation. The real risk is that the government can't print money fast enough the counteract the shrinking money supply from deleveraging.

 

Also, the expectations of the street to continue producing positive results quarter after quarter adds to the pressure. Companies are trying to meet these expectations and in a down economy, they're getting lean to do just that. It's a shame, but in this scenario, previous success looks to be leading this round of layoffs/downsizing.

 

New CBO Report hints at Depression...

 

Ha I guess you have a point. What is normal?

You had the depression, then the post war industrial boom, then stagflation then the dot com boom, the dot com bust softened by interest rate policy, that led to the housing boom.

If Globalization is the opposite of Colonialism, I think I want to go back to dominating the world. Maybe a democratic CIA and State Department will revert back to economic subversion and subterfuge. The good old days!

 

Being recently out of work, I have to agree that hiring won't begin until late this year or early next, depending on your field of expertise...money makes the world go round and with fewer people spending, less money in circulation and thus layoffs (a bit of an oversimplification, but it gets the point across)...

Hopefully people have saved and put money aside for a rainy day because its pouring...