Henk van de Goor's Bloggers@large

Well folks, I've got to hand it to the banking world: when they mess up the whole world shares the pain. Yesterday 68.000 people got fired worldwide. In Holland ING, Philips and Corus are going to cut jobs: ING: 7.000 people, Philips: 6.000 and Corus 3.500. Hunter Douglas, producer of Luxaflex: 80 jobs in Rotterdam. Canon announced it will close it's European headquarters in Amstelveen: 226 jobs.

In the rest of the world the situation isn't any better. The biggest lay-off so far will be at Caterpillar, announcing it will cut 20.000 (!) jobs. Pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced it wants to take-over competitor Wyeth for 68 billion dollar: at the same time that will cost 8.000 jobs, but but Pfizer said that it eventually even might add up to a whopping 20.000 jobs.

Is anyone keeping count? Sprint Nextel: 8.000 jobs. Home Depot: 7.000 jobs. Texas Instruments: 3.400. IBM: 2.800 jobs. General Motors: 2.000 jobs (not that many for a company that is virtually bankrupt). Also production will we cut in thirteen factories in the US and Canada.

The joke of it all: the common man is paying for the years of greed in Wall Street and the board rooms of all banks. "Joe the plumber" picks up the bill. Live now, pay for it tomorrow.

And the worst is yet to come.