The trouble is that there's been a revolution going on, where corporations (or 'corporates', as it's now popular to call them) 'outsource' work to China or India or South America, where there are graduates who can work for a fraction of northern-hemisphere or western-hemisphere wages because of a lower cost structure.

However, it hasn't occurred to these corporations until now that the consumers who buy their goods did so with the wages that they and their brothers-in-arms paid.

Take me: normally I'd buy a few electronic toys each year. Not this year; I may buy a backup hard drive, but I'm thinking long and hard about it. No iPods, no fancy phones, no new scanners or cameras or TVs or DVDs. And I'm typical.

Sure, the Chinese and Indians will buy these goods, but not for the same prices charged to the westerners. The corporations are about to find that by outsourcing their work and wages, they've just downsized their profits too.