It’s easy to shrug off the sharpest productivity decline in 40 years and the worst non-recessionary industrial production contraction in US history because… well it’s the new economy, stupid and you just don’t get it. But when ‘new economy’ networking giant Cisco is reportedly set to announce it is laying off a record number of employees – 14,000 representing 20% of its global workforce – surely it is time to question the “everything is awesome” narrative.