you still might hear them. get a jump on the job search.

I'm afraid we're going to see a lot of this.  Its common as dirt during a major inflationary period.  It was very common during the Jimmy Carter days when we had 20% inflation before.  

What happens is people get use to a standard of living and try to maintain it even though decisions beyond their control took it from them.   We all, people and companies, like to think we're in control of our destinies.   To a point we are but like now a 20% loss of income due to inflation is a big hit but just enough of a hit, many are reluctant to make major changes.  This actually impacts the middle class the hardest.  They are the ones in society that make the largest financial commitments such as a home mortgage, car loans, and carry the most credit card debt.  A fair decision when interest rates are low and inflation below 3% can become a disaster when they are high and inflation high.   Your cash flow buffer can simply disappear. Fixed debt simply has to be paid.  Banks are no more forgiving now than they were in 1929.  You got this long and they take the farm. Refinance can be a decent tool when interest rates are going down but its not when its going up.  We've just come off a very long period of good times and now its over.  Yes, the time to put back for hard times is during the good times.  

I'm retired now and this I can tell you.  Not even my generation had the American dream, get a job, stay there till you retire, live paycheck to paycheck until its all paid for.   That ended with my fathers generation.  Twice I lived through my companies in financial trouble and once a total unexpected loss of income.    If I had to name the things that helped me the most through those times, it was three.  First and most important is knowing what really is important in life and its not material things.  Its family.  Family is way higher on the life's priority list than job.  This leads to the second.  The second is to look for trends and be willing to make big decisions.  This was not just willing to cut back expenses but willing to change jobs and even relocate states away to maintain an income level.  Last is actually putting some back.  Its putting some back that allows the second but I put it last because its a temporary measure at best.   The real thing is the timing and knowing its time for the big decision.  Forces into the big decision by circumstance is the worst time because you have lost control.  

Now for some personal advice.  To do so, I will need to tell you my background  a little.   I was in corporate America for 30 years of my career working my way up to a VP in a Fortune 500 company and I ended my career operating my own business.  Companies don't operate without people.  Payroll then is by its nature an essential cost.  I've never known a company that is factoring payroll to pull out of it.  Factoring is going to the bank to get payroll by leveraging your receivables.   What that means is your company has already exhausted its operating credit line.  It almost always ends one of two ways.  The company is sold in which case if its a investment bank, God help everyone, because they really don't know how to manage a company only how to position it for resell and they will gut it. They are the masters of the hostile takeover.  They are the masters of restructure but its never grow the company but downsize. If its another company, the company may survive but it too will be downsized but still may be simply dissolved, moved, and absorbed.  Did this a couple times myself.   The other is bankruptcy where most Chapter 11s end up Chapter 13s because judges don't know how to grow a company either.   No matter what, you are better off having a job lined up.  Fantastic you have some money put back.  Just keep in mind, unless you want to end up like those you talk about, it takes money to change jobs.  

Good luck and good planning.

Tj

   

This.

Be careful though, I was told on this very forum by  a supposed freedom loving patriot/gun owner/wanna be survivalist that "anyone that has over $50. in cash IS a drug dealer" .
LOL

Yes, have CASH (FRNs) for many reasons- paying bills without access to the bank, no power for cards, flee in the night, etc.

It's not going to be Mad Max on Day 1.

If your investor promised a payment/monies and then refused to pay/invest and your company already spent the monies expecting that payment AND if they are already invested, that is the definition of the conditions for a leveraged hostile takeover.  

The next move will be your current owner won't be there anymore and their guy will be.   That's when it can go all sorts of different ways,  Typically none of them good for the folks already working there.  Best scenario, they are willing to invest more money but there will be conditions, cost cutting conditions.   The worst is total bankruptcy with assets sale against the debt.  How likely the worst case depends on a ton of things like how successful they are at their goals but it is most likely the larger the investment firm the more likely.  Large enough, they can leverage the loss against their tax burden.  

I've been there.  

Tj Storytime "The death of Robertshaw"

Robertshaw once was the number 1 controls company in the US.   It was a household name.  Owned by the Reynolds Brothers who owned Reynolds Aluminum, it was a cash cow.  The aluminum industry crashed and the Reynolds Brothers need cash, billions, to keep it afloat so they sold the corporation to an English company.   If I recall and don't hold me to it, it was $1.8 billion.   My division was $128 million.   The English company back then called Siebe had this big plan to move all the manufacturing to third world countries, mostly Mexico back then.   What they couldn't move because it required skilled labor, they sold off. That was bad enough but it got way worse.  They did some real unethical shit.  For example, any pensions they could kill they did and they sold themselves all the physical capital assets like buildings then leased it back making bad even worse.

What business was left in my division was bought by two really great guys.   I really like them, still do, and they were real sharp.  They bought three business segments.  During the sale, they were not allowed to talk to us employees.  Day 1, it was my sad duty to advise them one of those segments was dead.  They supplied parts to the segment that moved to Mexico and there's no way they'd continue sourcing us.   I thought they would shit right there.   When it did, what was left was a company that was paying all of its bills, however only interest on the buyout loan not the principle so the guys came up with this actually good idea to buy out our largest competitor to make everything healthy.   They went to a mezzanine banker in Maryland for the funding.  They actually paid some and we bought the competition and actually successfully moved it.  It was right then when we're all scrambling working only stopping to sleep or eat,  they reneged on the last payment putting us right back where we were, just with a lot more sales volume that we couldn't ship on time because we didn't have the monies they promised for the move.  It was even more working night and day, downsizing, etc.  The stress was so high, you could cut the air with a knife.  Its then they forced the buyers out and their investment was just gone.  

They sent in their two hatchet guys and suddenly all of those who were there before now were seen as part of the problem. It took me awhile but they finally realized I was an essential asset.   It was then they come up with this big plan to kill the union.  They sent in their union breaker who did some real squirrelly shit like cooking the books to make the company look worse than it was like not showing commitments on the books only order releases and began singly the BS blues to the union.  I actually got on a plane and flew to meet that room of Harvard MBAs to tell them our workforce due to the English downsizing mostly over 50, all had pensions, and most of them owned hotels and resorts in Gatlinburg.  Hard to tell some arrogant asshat living in dying city some parts of the country are growing.   Trusting me now to be honest, which I've always been.  Honor is not something you give up.   The CEO tells me now their big plan is to Chapter 11 to kill the union and if I continued to work all those hours and travel four weeks a month, I'd only have to take a cut in pay and loss of benefits but I'd have a job like he was doing me a favor.   I tell him right then to his face "I'm one of the guys you pay a premium to go through this shit." and he literally says to me, "You will because this is a nice area, have roots, and won't want to move."  All I had to do is lie to my employees and lie to my customers.   Talk about pissed.  I don't know how these people sleep at night.  

I didn't look for a job.  I simply took those calls I had avoided for years and in one week I had two job offers, one more money than I had ever made, working for myself, and I didn't have to move.   I walk into asshats office and resign.  He freaks, yells at me, and tells me "You signed a non-compete." I just smile that shit eating gotcha smile and reply "I came to work for this company 30 years ago and we didn't do that shit then."   Right then in front of me he calls HR and orders them to pull my file.  HR director, a very good person, walks in a few minutes later and says "He's right he doesn't have a non-compete."  

The last years of my career were hands down the best of my career.  I was hooked up with some great guys very ethical men, traveled the world, was very successful, and instead of eating stress like it was candy had the time of my life.  Heck, the guys still stay in touch with me.  Man, did we have some great adventures.  

It wasn't done though. I still got a surprise.  When I signed up for Social Security turns out they didn't pay mine in due to bankruptcy. This impacted my payout, not much but it did.

Business advice, always more upward not even stagnant let alone backwards.   It starts with understanding you have value.  It takes being willing to do whatever it takes short of selling out your honor.

Tj  

 

 

Greatest sales gimmick ever is "Don't look at the price.  Just look at the payment."  

If everyone got paid once a year, it would be a different world we live in.  That interest payment would stick out like a sore thumb.