The Wonder Years

Today were the first round of 'layoffs' in the country. Of course the company did not call it that. They preferred to call them 'resignations'. They were just 'asked' to look for jobs else where.
The last few years have been characterized by an excess of jobs. I graduated from a class, where on an average, people had at least two job offers. Believe it!!! because I still can't. We grew up in an atmosphere of optimism. We witnessed the Dot Com boom (we were too busy studying in 2001/2002 to notice the bubble burst.) We witnessed the stock markets march from 2500 in 2003 to dizzying heights of 20,000. We expected pay hikes every year, irrespective of our performance- they were called industry corrections.
These were without doubt, The Wonder Years.
Currently, oil prices at at a record high. Food prices have never been higher. Metals - gold prices -are at their highest ever. There is a massive credit crunch. The full extent of losses from the sub prime mortgage fiasco in the US are yet to be fathomed.
Looks like the worlds biggest customer has run out of credit.
To use Alan Greenspan's words, this is "stagflation", a combination of economic stagnation and inflation. If we have ever had the chance to prove ourself, this would be it. The wonder years are over. We are on the threshold of our first recession . It was the housing boom that saved us when the dot com bubble burst. Who's going to save us now?