What opened the layoff floodgates?

Headlines in just the last few days:

Cox Communications and Sony Electronics cutting 900 local jobs
Best Buy to lay off 2,000 U.S. managers
IBM Union Expects Mass Layoff to Hit Workers (15,000 possible jobs gone)
Layoff Bells Toll at JPMorgan Again (8,000 jobs)
Teachers, students protest potential layoff of 1,000 educators at meeting
Indiana Limestone Co. to close, lay off 166 workers
Boise call center to lay off 1,600 workers in April
What will KentuckyOne layoffs mean for patient care?
Poland's Alior Bank to lay off 4% of staff (Poland, but still)
Westside manufacturer to lay off 133 workers
Sikorsky announces 600 layoffs over next several weeks
PHH Mortgage to lay off 135 workers in Amherst
Cenveo to lay off 133 in Jacksonville
U.S. Steel announces layoffs at Lorain Tubular Operations
GenCorp to lay off 61 in Rancho Cordova
City layoffs loom in Poughkeepsie (25 jobs)
Budapest Transport Company To Lay Off Over 900 Bus Drivers
City of Lebanon to layoff employees (10 jobs)
Endomines to lay off 18 employees
PepsiCo in Abilene to Lay Off Workers

Layoffs from earlier this month:

UNO to lay off as many as 30 employee
Deere to lay off 120 in East Moline
Mass layoff at Kaiser Permanente Hawaii (100 jobs)
Windstream to lay off 67 in Arkansas, 400 nationwide
Falling enrollment for online classes leads Everest to lay off 105 in Colorado Springs
Novartis to lay off 92 from East Hanover office, among hundreds nationwide
Eastern Michigan University layoffs: Majority of full-time education lecturers get notices
Disney Interactive expected to begin layoffs
Layoffs could happen at Detroit Metro as Delta switches work contractors
Challenger Report: Layoff Announcements Soared 47 Percent in January
Rumor Has It Dell Is Planning To Lay Off 15,000 Employees (Some layoffs, but probably not that high but Dell won't say)
OfficeMax, Specialty Foods (Nathan's Hot Dogs), and many more announce layoffs (1,000+ jobs)
Sony to sell PC business, reform TV arm, layoff 5,000 employees
Sprint to lay off 91 in Bellevue, Kirkland
500 layoffs expected today at Time Inc.
East Cleveland, on notice to cut spending, sends police layoff notices
Kodak to lay off 35 employees (Yes, I was amazed that Kodak was still in business too)
Barclays Stock Hammered, Bank Will Lay Off 820 Managers

Maybe it is just me, but this does not sound like a healthy economy. In fact, the fact that no one in government is commenting on this torrent of layoffs is VERY scary

Third prominent banker found dead in six days

Bloomberg is reporting this morning that former Federal Reserve economist Mike Dueker was found dead in an apparent suicide near Tacoma, Washington.

Dueker, 50, a chief economist at Russell Investments, had been missing since Jan. 29 and was reportedly having troubles at work.

Normally HousingWire wouldn’t cover deaths in the industry, but what’s strange is that Dueker is the third prominent banker found dead since Sunday.

On Sunday, William Broeksmit, 58, former senior manager for Deutsche Bank, was found hanging in his home, also an apparent suicide.

On Tuesday, Gabriel Magee, 39, vice president at JPMorgan Chase & Co’s (JPM) London headquarters, apparently jumped to his death from a building in the Canary Wharf area.