April 7, 2026 | Recession Watch: Everything All At Once

Tech layoffs have become front-page news…

And the picture for this year’s class of graduating coders is apocalyptic. From Tech Layoff Tracker:

Computer science professor at a major state university just finished the worst faculty meeting in 32 years of academia

Department head dropped the placement statistics like a bomb at 2:47 PM on a Wednesday

2023: 89% placement rate within 6 months of graduation
2024: 67% placement rate
2025: 34% placement rate
2026 projections: 12% placement rate

312 CS majors graduating this spring. Industry contacts saying maybe 40 will find work.

The dean wants to know why enrollment is still climbing while job prospects crater

Faculty sitting there like deer in headlights because what the fuck do you tell 19-year-olds taking out $40k per year in loans

Half the curriculum is already obsolete. Teaching data structures while companies replace entire engineering teams with Claude and Cursor.

One professor suggested pivoting to “AI collaboration skills” and got laughed out of the room

Another said we should warn students. Department head said that would “damage program reputation and university revenue”

So they keep taking tuition money from kids who will graduate into a wasteland

Career services still posts those bullshit salary averages from 2022 when new grads were getting $140k offers

Now the same companies are hiring 2 senior engineers with AI tools instead of 12 junior developers

Every CS professor knows their students are walking into a meat grinder

But the university needs those enrollment numbers to hit budget targets

They’re literally selling degrees that lead to DoorDash drivingTech Layoffs,

Private credit is looking like this decade’s subprime mortgage bubble, except a lot bigger and more widespread:

Oil has gone parabolic, with multiple countries running out of crude, gasoline, and/or diesel:

And — no surprise — the bond markets are rebelling, with US 10-year Treasuries back to levels that imply 7% mortgages and 10% car loans:

It’s all coming to a head as this is written:

Trump warns Iran’s ‘whole civilization will die tonight’ unless deal struck

President Donald Trump on Tuesday sharply ramped up his threats against Iran, warning “a whole civilization will die tonight” unless the country’s leadership strikes a deal that involves reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

The threat came after U.S. forces overnight struck military targets on Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal, a White House official confirmed to CNBC.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” Trump wrote Tuesday morning on Truth Social.

“However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?” he wrote.

“We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”

Lots of Reasons Not to Spend Money

Pretty much everyone who’s paying attention will find a reason in the above to limit their discretionary spending. The result? A world where government deficits are soaring and private sector growth is minimal.

John Rubino April 7th, 2026

Posted In: John Rubino Substack

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