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I hope people are aware that the layoffs reported in news/media are just the tip of the iceberg. All the layoffs aren't exceptions, they're the current norm. I

I hope people are aware that the layoffs reported in news/media are just the tip of the iceberg. All the layoffs aren't exceptions, they're the current norm. In case you're unaware, the world is currently going through the early stage of a global economic meltdown, which is why there's so many layoffs happening right now.

mschuster91 4y ago
I would not be so truly pessimistic. The current issues are mostly short-term issues (Chinese lockdowns disrupting delivery chains and the Russian invasion of Ukraine plus sanctions driving up gas and oil prices), and the currently reported layoffs tend to be startups that are trying to cut burn rates now that the flow of extremely cheap VC is drying up.
- yonaguska 4y ago
  I'm sorry but the Russia invasion of Ukraine and related sanctions aren't what have been driving inflation or gas price hikes, at least in the US. It's poor domestic policies being blame shifted to Putin. We're finally feeling the inflation from global lockdowns and gas prices have been steadily increasing since 2020, before Putin's invasion. These issues are not going to be short term either, as the current administration is celebrating the increased prices as a means of accelerating a transition to green energy, all while having no plan to really implement more green energy via increased nuclear capacity. So we have an administration that is unwilling to increase gas production and can't get an audience with OPEC to increase imports. Just be ready for the shock this fall when meat prices skyrocket. As Union Pacific has been restricting fertilizer shipments specifically during the critical planting season, and farming is highly dependent on Diesel usage. But at least we're subsidizing more ethanol in our gas...a less efficient fuel source than.. actual gas. In summation, my pessimism is off the charts. What we are going to see is going to destroy large parts of the middle class, poor people, especially children in America(doubly so for less wealthy countries that depend on America's economy) will starve, and any tech industries targeting middle class consumers are going to shrink. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, and I welcome any perspectives that alleviate this pessimism. https://www.freightwaves.com/news/fertilizer-maker-faults-union-pacifics-plan-to-reduce-congestion https://www.freightwaves.com/news/fertilizer-maker-faults-un... “[When] it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over,” Biden said during a press conference in Japan following his meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
  - kwertyoowiyop 4y ago
    For a different perspective, stop reading the “doom and gloom” web sites and go outside. Or maybe just read their stories from five years ago, predicting crises that never happened. The world isn’t going to end. Things will turn out alright.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      I do get their point re/ tax base though. There is a ton of stuff to do: decades of deferred maintenance, resilience to climate change in existing infrastructure, building out new climate friendly infrastructure, prepare society for the inevitable job losses due to automation (e.g. trucking, warehouse jobs)... all of that will cost a lot of money over the next decades, the current administration doesn't have the political majority necessary to raise taxes, and it is highly likely that the Republicans and with them their constant "defund the big state" destructionism against public institutions will be in the political majority by end of this year and in Presidency in two years. The result will not be nice.
      - kwertyoowiyop 4y ago
        There will certainly be big problems to deal with, and terrible events. I grew up in the 1970s with headlines dominated by wars in the Middle East and many other places, terrorism, inflation, the threat of nuclear war, apocalyptic cults, ‘malaise’ and cynicism, pollution, violent crime, political corruption…and basically everything you mentioned too. With all that, things worked out OK.
        WillPostForFood 4y ago
        It worked out, but just took like ten full years of pain.
        yonaguska 4y ago
        I do appreciate hearing that. My parents aren't as worried as I am either, but they've also turned their backyard into a very large garden just in case. They also lean heavily on religion as a means of assurance, which I find less comforting.
- littlestymaar 4y ago
  There are short term issues causing a supply shock, which in turns is causing inflation, triggering central banks credit tightening that will cause a medium term contraction. But government deficit have been high for a long time (because of lax taxation on the wealthy individuals and global companies) and debt is high: with interest rates rising and economic downturn, government budgets will come under pressure. Then you can have two outcomes: an massive tax increase where the money is, or public spendings will be cut and the economy will tank even more, spiralling out of control (the Greek scenario). Unfortunately, I expect the second scenario to be much more likely than the first one…
  - HideousKojima 4y ago
    Solely taxing the rich and corporations isn't enough to stop deficit spending, spending cuts would be needed as well. In the US, if you taxed the top 1% at 100% (and it somehow didn't have massive second order effects) you would only generate about $800 billion in tax revenue. Current federal tax revenue is about $3.7 trillion, and a decent chunk of that is already coming from the wealthy and corporations. The current federal budget is around $6 trillion. And individual states, counties, cities, and other entities like school districts and water boards also still need tax revenue too, mind you. Regardless of one's feelings on raising taxes, solely raising taxes is simply not enough to get rid of deficit spending. Pretty much all governments (and all western governments especially) spend far more than they can bring in as revenue. This ends up getting paid for long term by the general public in a lot of different ways, such as inflation, bankrupt retirement and healthcare programs, and more.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      > Pretty much all governments (and all western governments especially) spend far more than they can bring in as revenue. No, they tax the rich and corporations way too low. Back in the 70s/80s, in Germany almost every little village had enough tax base to fund the construction and operation of swimming halls, there were massive buildouts of all kinds of infrastructure from railways over highways to gigantic airports, everyone got decent streets, electricity, water, phone lines and other utilities. All funded with taxpayer money, as investors in infrastructure simply were not a thing, not even legal. Then in the 90s, neo-liberal privatization vandals sold off everything to the highest bidder, and now the owner class keeps skimming off profits while socializing losses (e.g. by having the government pay for Kurzarbeit/paycheck protection programs) in crisis time. Additionally, the CEO wage gap exploded - from 20:1/1965 and 58:1 in 1989 [1] to 670:1 last year [2], and on top of that comes crap such as share buybacks which only serve to benefit the elites. [1] https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/ https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/ [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/07/us-wage-gap-ceos-workers-institute-for-policy-studies-report https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/07/us-wage-gap-...
- markus_zhang 4y ago
  The Russian invasion is the tip of the iceberg. I regard it as the frist (large) crack of post cold war world order and plainly the United States, who built that order, either doesn't care of its fall or even wants to cut it down.
altdataseller 4y ago
No they are the exception. Most of these layoffs are happening primarily in funded startups, not big companies.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > these layoffs are happening primarily in funded startups, not big companies Or small businesses. Labor conditions are still historically, if no longer extraordinarily, tight [1]. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FRBKCLMCIM https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FRBKCLMCIM

mschuster91 4y ago

I would not be so truly pessimistic. The current issues are mostly short-term issues (Chinese lockdowns disrupting delivery chains and the Russian invasion of Ukraine plus sanctions driving up gas and oil prices), and the currently reported layoffs tend to be startups that are trying to cut burn rates now that the flow of extremely cheap VC is drying up.

yonaguska 4y ago
I'm sorry but the Russia invasion of Ukraine and related sanctions aren't what have been driving inflation or gas price hikes, at least in the US. It's poor domestic policies being blame shifted to Putin. We're finally feeling the inflation from global lockdowns and gas prices have been steadily increasing since 2020, before Putin's invasion. These issues are not going to be short term either, as the current administration is celebrating the increased prices as a means of accelerating a transition to green energy, all while having no plan to really implement more green energy via increased nuclear capacity. So we have an administration that is unwilling to increase gas production and can't get an audience with OPEC to increase imports. Just be ready for the shock this fall when meat prices skyrocket. As Union Pacific has been restricting fertilizer shipments specifically during the critical planting season, and farming is highly dependent on Diesel usage. But at least we're subsidizing more ethanol in our gas...a less efficient fuel source than.. actual gas. In summation, my pessimism is off the charts. What we are going to see is going to destroy large parts of the middle class, poor people, especially children in America(doubly so for less wealthy countries that depend on America's economy) will starve, and any tech industries targeting middle class consumers are going to shrink. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, and I welcome any perspectives that alleviate this pessimism. https://www.freightwaves.com/news/fertilizer-maker-faults-union-pacifics-plan-to-reduce-congestion https://www.freightwaves.com/news/fertilizer-maker-faults-un... “[When] it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over,” Biden said during a press conference in Japan following his meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
- kwertyoowiyop 4y ago
  For a different perspective, stop reading the “doom and gloom” web sites and go outside. Or maybe just read their stories from five years ago, predicting crises that never happened. The world isn’t going to end. Things will turn out alright.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    I do get their point re/ tax base though. There is a ton of stuff to do: decades of deferred maintenance, resilience to climate change in existing infrastructure, building out new climate friendly infrastructure, prepare society for the inevitable job losses due to automation (e.g. trucking, warehouse jobs)... all of that will cost a lot of money over the next decades, the current administration doesn't have the political majority necessary to raise taxes, and it is highly likely that the Republicans and with them their constant "defund the big state" destructionism against public institutions will be in the political majority by end of this year and in Presidency in two years. The result will not be nice.
    - kwertyoowiyop 4y ago
      There will certainly be big problems to deal with, and terrible events. I grew up in the 1970s with headlines dominated by wars in the Middle East and many other places, terrorism, inflation, the threat of nuclear war, apocalyptic cults, ‘malaise’ and cynicism, pollution, violent crime, political corruption…and basically everything you mentioned too. With all that, things worked out OK.
      - WillPostForFood 4y ago
        It worked out, but just took like ten full years of pain.
      - yonaguska 4y ago
        I do appreciate hearing that. My parents aren't as worried as I am either, but they've also turned their backyard into a very large garden just in case. They also lean heavily on religion as a means of assurance, which I find less comforting.
littlestymaar 4y ago
There are short term issues causing a supply shock, which in turns is causing inflation, triggering central banks credit tightening that will cause a medium term contraction. But government deficit have been high for a long time (because of lax taxation on the wealthy individuals and global companies) and debt is high: with interest rates rising and economic downturn, government budgets will come under pressure. Then you can have two outcomes: an massive tax increase where the money is, or public spendings will be cut and the economy will tank even more, spiralling out of control (the Greek scenario). Unfortunately, I expect the second scenario to be much more likely than the first one…
- HideousKojima 4y ago
  Solely taxing the rich and corporations isn't enough to stop deficit spending, spending cuts would be needed as well. In the US, if you taxed the top 1% at 100% (and it somehow didn't have massive second order effects) you would only generate about $800 billion in tax revenue. Current federal tax revenue is about $3.7 trillion, and a decent chunk of that is already coming from the wealthy and corporations. The current federal budget is around $6 trillion. And individual states, counties, cities, and other entities like school districts and water boards also still need tax revenue too, mind you. Regardless of one's feelings on raising taxes, solely raising taxes is simply not enough to get rid of deficit spending. Pretty much all governments (and all western governments especially) spend far more than they can bring in as revenue. This ends up getting paid for long term by the general public in a lot of different ways, such as inflation, bankrupt retirement and healthcare programs, and more.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > Pretty much all governments (and all western governments especially) spend far more than they can bring in as revenue. No, they tax the rich and corporations way too low. Back in the 70s/80s, in Germany almost every little village had enough tax base to fund the construction and operation of swimming halls, there were massive buildouts of all kinds of infrastructure from railways over highways to gigantic airports, everyone got decent streets, electricity, water, phone lines and other utilities. All funded with taxpayer money, as investors in infrastructure simply were not a thing, not even legal. Then in the 90s, neo-liberal privatization vandals sold off everything to the highest bidder, and now the owner class keeps skimming off profits while socializing losses (e.g. by having the government pay for Kurzarbeit/paycheck protection programs) in crisis time. Additionally, the CEO wage gap exploded - from 20:1/1965 and 58:1 in 1989 [1] to 670:1 last year [2], and on top of that comes crap such as share buybacks which only serve to benefit the elites. [1] https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/ https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/ [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/07/us-wage-gap-ceos-workers-institute-for-policy-studies-report https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/07/us-wage-gap-...
markus_zhang 4y ago
The Russian invasion is the tip of the iceberg. I regard it as the frist (large) crack of post cold war world order and plainly the United States, who built that order, either doesn't care of its fall or even wants to cut it down.

altdataseller 4y ago

No they are the exception. Most of these layoffs are happening primarily in funded startups, not big companies.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> these layoffs are happening primarily in funded startups, not big companies Or small businesses. Labor conditions are still historically, if no longer extraordinarily, tight [1]. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FRBKCLMCIM https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FRBKCLMCIM