Introduction

Today, as I sat down at my computer to write, I scanned www.cnn.com as I often do. Monday January 26, 2009, was the day that many large corporations were announcing fourth quarter results for 2008 and the public had already been forewarned not to expect stunning news. But, as I scrolled through the headlines I noted that Home Depot was laying off 7,000 employees, Sprint was laying off 8,000, Caterpillar a further 5,000 (for a total of 20,000), Pfizer was buying Wyeth and planning to lay off 10% of the workforce or about 5,000 people, and ING had cut 7,000 positions. By the end of the day, Monday January 26, 2009, had been labeled Black Monday with a total of 71,400 jobs lost in just one day and over 200,000 since the start of the year — not to mention the 2.6 million jobs lost in 2008. The most jobs lost in one year since the end of World War II.