So why did are companies laying of 100s of thousands of people, 400k in SWE alone in 16 months during a bull market where equities and profits are at all time highs? How come the January jobs report was so terrible, January is historically the best month for jobs, its downhill from here.

Do you walk around with a blindfold on? Are you extremely privileged? Sounds like it. Tell this to the 25% of new college grads that have been unemployed for 12 months, or working as a barista with 100k in debt. Eventually they'll be knocking on your penthouse/mansion door.

How much of the big tech layoffs were because of over-hiring and, in some orgs at least, large numbers of employees "resting and vesting"? Elon took an axe to Twitter and his chums saw that it chugged along well enough so Google, Amazon and friends did the same.

I haven't seen the same firing sprees outside of FAANG and their wannabees.

People tend to vastly underestimate how much a functioning governmental model lead to the companies of 60 years ago not repeating what's happening now. And forget the blood shed to reverse the actions from the last time this tried to happen. The largest attack on US soil from the past century was from union busting attempts.

At best, some people expect all this to work out, so they sit back unaware of weight of these battles. Worst case is plain ol' ignorance of what's going on around them.