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Speaker 1: You are listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, where

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you get valuable information you just can't find anywhere else

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to thrive in today's trying times. You need the Financial

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Survival Network now more than ever. Go to Financial Survivalnetwork

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dot com and get your free newsletter and gift. Financial

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Survival Network now more than ever.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Carrie, this is Robert Ian with conker Change dot com.

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Over the past thirty days, there has been a slow, steady,

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and escalating series of announcements about layoffs at major US corporations.

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Microsoft is laying off six thousand employees, approximately three percent

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of its global workforce. Facebook is laying off about five

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percent of its staff. Dell has announced a reduction of

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twelve thousand employees. UPS is laying off twenty thousand people.

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Oracle is laying off eleven thousand, which is seven percent

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of its workforce. Boeing announced just over two thousand worker

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cuts as it begins a planned company wide reduction that

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could total ten percent of its workforce. Southwest Airlines announced

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it would be laying off about fifteen percent of its employees.

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As these stories make their way into the news cycle,

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it's often sporadic and these stories tend to bypass most

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people's threshold of conscious awareness, unless, of course, they work

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at one of those companies or know someone who does.

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When you begin to look at the totality of just

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these layoffs over the last thirty days, plus all of

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the downsizing being performed in the US federal government by DOGE,

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as well as all of the small and mid sized

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companies that are in the process of doing the same thing,

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a picture comes into focus, representing a tale of two economies,

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the one often talked about by mainstream media, and the

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second economy, the one you are instinctively aware of that

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you feel in sense, which begins to emerge as we

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look at and understand the implications of these layoff announcements.

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I recall with great clarity the US economy as it

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headed into the two thousand eight financial crisis. Heading into

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and in the very early part of that crisis, there

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was much talk, very similar to the talk and act

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actions of today, about efficiency. As business began to contract,

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the first round of cuts were often necessary because they

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cut out the fat in an organization, duplication of services,

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unproductive projects, wasteful initiatives. Cutting fat is healthy in any

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economic scenario because it helps make an organization lean and mean.

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But as the two thousand and eight downturn deepened and accelerated,

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the second round of cuts moved from lean and mean

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to personal and painful, because now more and more people

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were being laid off. Cutting people from an organization is

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like cutting the meat away from the bone. The similarities

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between two thousand and eight and what's happening now are

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uncomfortably similar. People are being asked to take early retirement,

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there are job reductions, and the very incentives that attracted

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talented workers in the first place are being eliminated demographically.

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In two thousand and eight, it was often older workers

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in their fifties who lost their jobs, but in many

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cases they also lost a large portion of their retirement

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and even their homes. The signposts are in front of

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us again, we ignore them at our own peril. Extras

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and non essentials have already been cut. Employee layoffs and

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location shutdowns are now accelerating in two thousand and eight.

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In two thousand and nine, this process quickly escalated until

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those very sane companies began to cut the bone out

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of their organizations by cutting back on the very infrastru

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structure that made them competitive and functional in the first place,

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things like customer service and experienced sales professionals. There's two

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things missing today that seemed to exist in abundance five

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and six years ago. Optimism and certainty. Optimism about the

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future and certainty about one's chances for achieving success. For

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most people in families today, varying income levels even up

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to a few hundred thousand dollars depending on family size,

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are just a higher level of break even behaviors have

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changed over the past five years and continue to change.

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Instead of buying a new car, some people maintain an

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older one. Instead of buying a new recreation device, people

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buy something on Craigslist or Facebook for fifteen or twenty

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cents on the dollar that may only be a few

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years old. When people eat out, if they eat out,

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many do so when they can get specials like two

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for one appetizers and simply call it a day. In

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the struggle to survive day to day, week to week,

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and month to month, what many are missing is that business,

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the very lifeblood of our economy, is slowly being cannibalized

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once again. First the fat, then the meat, and soon

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the bone. Think about the financial and personal change you

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have experienced since twenty twenty. Now imagine the potential of

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that same degree of chain or more over the next

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five years. Think it can't happen. Think again, if you

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could go back in time just five short years, what

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decisions would you change that have impacted your life and

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the life of your family. Forbidden questions can lead to

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innovative thinking. They can result in groundbreaking answers. So ask

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yourself the difficult and challenging questions about your current situation,

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anticipate the future, act on it in advance, because five

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years from now you'll be glad that you did. And

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until next time. This is Robert Ian with conquer Change

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dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Carrie, thanks for listening to carry Less's financial Survival

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Network solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go

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to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network now more

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than ever,