Which level of Hell are we are living in?

I’m going to rant for a bit here — I personally have had an absolutely shitty 2023, and I was employed for slightly more than 1/2 of this year. I know there are people going on a full year now with hundreds of job applications going unanswered, dozens of interviews and rejections and now desperate for anything that brings in money since their unemployment and severance is running out. Dignity loses when shelter and food are in jeopardy.

I’m going to represent here for a short time — I’ve investigated what I’ve written below and I would say for the most part its truth saying. But still read on with critical eye, regardless of how you may or may not agree with what I’m writing.

2023 is the year that had sooo many people laid off from what they thought were secure jobs — many who actually had excellent performance reviews and were highly regarded (including myself) but yet by the luck of the draw or some other method were laid off into a wasteland of broken spirits and poor job prospects.

2023 is also the year that job listings across the board reduced their salary offerings significantly, some actually posting a job requiring someone with 10+ years hard core experience for a salary less than 1/2 of what was the going rate in 2022. And I’m not talking 1/2 of $500k — some Sr TPM roles I see here are offering $80k-$110k/yr where they would be $160k — $220k/yr roles in any other situation.

I sympathize with you recruiters when you’re tasked with trying to fill roles that are spec’d like that. You’re ultimately going to get a completely desperate and bitter short timer who wont put the effort in and leave for the first decent employer offering something that their compromised expectations can accept.

Employers — the salary train will return to where it was in a year or two. You’re not going to get the best and brightest since those people will either found their own companies or be snagged by companies who appreciate their talent.

Shareholders — this short term financial reward will bite you in the ass in the next few quarters as productivity nosedives, the consumer base your company’s products rely on no longer have a ton of expendible cash to throw around, resulting in your balance sheets looking worse than they would have had companies come up with better more creative ways to cut costs. I guess it doesn’t matter to you anyways, since with Q3 and Q4 profits on all the players being up you just need to sell high and then invest in bonds at 5% until the world comes crashing down.

I have been noting the patterns in the time since I started caring about stocks — early 2000’s and the dot com crash; 2008 and subprime and junk bond crash; 2013/14 and a market downturn that hit real estate hard again; and now the last few undulating years from the 2020 Trump crash and massive layoffs, through the last few years with the supposedly hot economy that has 300k high tech workers laid off and driving for UberEats to put food on the tables. The only people doing well right now are the investors and uber rich — how is that going to go for the 99% of the population who are taking service industry and general labor jobs regardless of education level?

There hasn’t been a balanced economy for this country since 1981 and especially 1986, with Reagan’s big tax reform acts that gave so much money back to the rich that the government needed to borrow from the Social Security war chest, and started taxing seniors’ SSI payments.

For all the talk of small government and reducing taxes, or bringing fairness back to taxation through reform. Or shit — just simply being able to buy a house if you are so inclined? The affordability index is at the lowest level in decades, and with how it’s going it ain’t gonna get better anytime soon.

Reagan screwed up the tax system so yeah you can blame him. But in all the years that followed no president or legislature even bothered to revisit and maybe fix it… and that’s both the Dems and the GOP. And then it got worse with the Orange Shithead and his giveaway to corporations and real estate investors, reducing corporate tax to 15% from 32.15% and driving the deficit and debt up like crazy. Because he believed that he was able to escape his debts by declaring bankruptcy, then the USA could easily do the same — ignoring that the borrowing is coming from citizens who bought government bonds and would lose everything if the government could actually do that.

As I said just above — it ain’t gonna get better anytime soon, at least until we get a Congress who are truly serious about fixing the financial situation for the country and decide that everyone should pay their fair share at every income level.

Am I wrong or just deluded?