Are we heading for a significant recession?

>will realise it's better to sell their stock at a lower price in order to shift it Historically, that's not what happens. Companies would sooner destroy stock than sell it at a lower price. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but that is what happens. Stock that can't sell, at least the stuff that sits in warehouses, will be destroyed. It would *make sense* for it to be sold at a huge discount in order to recover some of the costs and clear space. And yet, no. This is exactly what happens during a recession. Production is greater than people can actually buy, companies end up with mountains of unsellable products, this severely impacts profits and so companies cut costs by letting employees go which only worsens the broader problem of people not buying stuff, eventually companies reach a point where they can't cut further and go out of business putting even more people out work, the stock they held is destroyed or transferred to another company to continue the cycle. Eventually, after enough companies go out of business and enough stock is destroyed, productive capacity once again realigns with purchasing power and companies can begin to expand again until the whole cycle repeats itself. Like I said, it would make sense just to sell things cheaper, but companies (or rather shareholders) are short sighted and greedy. Having a bunch of high-profit items that you can't actually sell keeps the market inflated and share prices high. At least until until everything collapses. This also happens on a smaller scale outside of recessions. Food that can't be sold is often sent to landfill instead of, say, being given away to starving people. This is because if they started giving away food for free it would change the perception of what food is worth and they would have to sell it cheaper which would lower stock prices which is bad for shareholders. It's reached cartoonish levels of evil in the US where, as well as just throwing food in a bin, they will cover it in bleach to discourage people from "stealing" food from the bins.