Layoffs and Economics

Sorry I haven't written as much. I'm in sort of a funny place, not really feeling like I have anything to write, I suppose. I don't want to be the endless whiner going on about "I cannot continue to find a job", because that just gets awfully boring awfully quick.

Although I did get some more sadness this afternoon. Sigh. I got an e-mail from An Dreathan Ruadh today that she had been notified that she, along with 3o of her colleagues, were being laid off in three weeks. Being herself, she said that she held it together until she heard that her sister was being laid off as well. (You should probably pray for her).

It's sad as well because of a Wall Street Journal blog that states out of 360 small biotechs surveyed (my industry), 120 estimated that they have less than 6 months of cash left, and an "expert" consulted expect over 100 of those to fail. And then you start doing the math, of all the things they won't buy, and then the things the people who sell the things they won't buy won't buy other things...and so it goes.

It's pushing me in some interesting economic directions for food for thought. Thoughts about the nature of economy, the nature of production, all the things we spend our money on versus what is necessary, the nature of producers and consumers.

A thought: If we only spent money on necessities, how long much longer would our money last? What would those who sold non-necessities do? Starve? Go into work that produces something instead of transferring something? The service economy (which we now live in) is essentially a new economic construct of the last 30-40 years - a blip on the timeframe of economic history. Do we truly know what is viable? Do we know what happens if it fails?

Riddles, riddles in the dark...