Or, as I am thinking of it ... FIRED!
I'm not the only one who got the news this morning.
Light manufacturer Eaton announced 5200 cuts, in addition to the 3,400 cut last year.
Specialty audio manufacturer Bose dropped 1,000 workers, or ten percent of employees.
Bank of America is tossing 4,000 more employees onto the trash heap, with thousands more certainly to follow.
Mobile phone maker Ericsson is getting rid of 5,000 workers, of which an unknown number are U.S. employees.
And for a really interesting list, check this out.
My, oh ... my.
Financial pundits keep shouting that Americans need to save more.
Save more of what?
Anyway ...
This morning, I turned on CNN and I saw that they financial "people" on the show already have the right-wing spending and deficit hawks on tap and they are dominating the discussion.
Quick, emergency bailouts for the banks!
But when it comes to spending on every day people, suddenly we have to worry about budgets, borrowing and inflation.
I have news for CNN:
There is not going to be any inflation in an economy like this one.
Spending power for the average American might decrease. This is because of the rate at which jobs are being destroyed. People will run out of money.
But there is no way that this is an inflationary environment.
As far as I'm concerned, a year or two in austerity mode has given me a pretty okay buffer. Savings, unemployment insurance and my personal network mean that I'll be okay for quite some time.
It's hard to believe that everyone is going to be this lucky.