In the hostile takeover business there is this thing called The Poison Pill Defence, where the target company usually comes up with a plan to thwart the hostile takeover. Whats happening now is very similar, except this isn’t a corporate game, its become a simple matter of survival! So when the magnitude of this “thing” finally manifested, au naturalle, everyone cut back = Poison Pill Defence. Cut back spending on just about on every possible bogey on the radar.
