Reebok gives 300 workers the boot

Each one of these job losses is potentially a personal tragedy for those laid off. We're seeing the next phase of this horrible economic downturn: The holiday shopping season was the final blow to the retail sector.

This was a disaster in waiting, the point at which people either couldn't or wouldn't go deeper into credit card debt to feed the buying frenzy.

We haven't cycled through the full brunt of this recession. It's like one of those WWII submarine movies -- the poor sub has been hit by a barrage of depth charges, it's close to hitting the sand but still sinking...and once it's settled into the sand it's going to take a lot of repairs and patience and courage to get the thing bubbling up again.