Please make it stop. I cannot believe the magnitude of the layoffs the financial sector these days. The Bank of New York Mellon just announced it would cut 1,800 jobs. JPMorgan and Goldman are each eliminating 3,000 jobs. American Express is cutting 7,000 jobs.
But nothing compares to Citigroup’s bomb this week that it would cut which announced plans to cut more than 50,000 jobs.
New York Governor David Paterson said in late October that Wall Street job losses would top 45,000. Lately there have been reports that it could hit as much as 70,000. The people I know at many of these financial firms say management is no longer cutting out fat -- they’re cutting wide swaths of lean muscle.
It’s troubling for me, because living in Manhattan, I know so many people losing their jobs.
I know it’s depressing here, but what about where you live? What’s the mood like? Are you, like me, struggling for what to say at cocktail parties these days to newly laid off acquaintances? Am I supposed to pretend I have holiday spirit at corporate parties?
But, I can tell you one thing -- my family has plenty to be thankful for this Turkey Day.
Comments
Boohoo 45,000 jobs lost on Wall Street. What about the millions of middle class manufacturing jobs lost in the last 8 years [and I am sorry but a low paid Walmart job isn't a replacement].
Steal a loaf of bread and your vermin, steal billions, and you simply misinterpreted the rules.So the people who destroyed our country expect pity...please. Try visiting Flint Michigan or any other blue collar town in the Midwest.
The real question is why haven't these corporate kingpins and their political hand puppets been prosecuted?
A perfect example of this two tier legal system is the 50 billion ponzi scheme guy [Bernard Madoff] getting house arrest. House arrest.
Are they overpaid? Are they greedy? Most Americans are, regardless of what business they are in. Can't it be that everything has become too expensive for everyone? Is it right that very few hold/are in charge of the universal wealth and are only getting richer thanks to Friedman economics. We live in a corporatist world- all of us- & we're all enslaved.
It used to be if you were willing to heavily invest in higher ed, years of on the job training, and a considerable amount of determination & commitment the rewards would follow. Now, not so much any more. You should remember, not all of these people losing their jobs are from well to do families who got a free ride through an Ivy League. Some are like the before mentioned, hard & smart working.
All down the drain for what? If people can no longer benefit or even profit from taking the right path then I'd hate to see what kind of world this is going to turn into once we find the path of least resistance the most compelling. Not very progressive are we?
Higher ed should be given away for free or practically free (like in Europe) and that the only way at least 88& of the students attending Ivy League or the Top 35 get in is through vigorous testing (on their own merit) while allowing the rest who can afford to, to pay dearly for the privilege.
It should not be that those who run the country have all the money, as it is. It should be the brightest, best, and most willing to put their necks on the line.
To Erika Miller - I may sound insensitive, but if any group of people ought to take a hit from this mess, it's the greedy robber barons in the financial industry on Wall Street. Certainly those of us who splurged on credit or bought more house than we could afford on a risky ARM ought to feel some pain too. Still, most of us will never see the kind of money that even mid-level managers have been getting for years on Wall Street - and for what? Moving money around? Buying low and selling high? Being really clever? Finding loopholes? This is what happens when a country tries to maintain an economy based on financial services and consumerism rather than on real production. Most of the blame goes back to the Reagan voodoo economics of the 1980s in which we first began to worship at the altar of unregulated capitalism... It was all good until the unthinkable happened.
I am so having a hard time feeling bad for some folks. OK, it's THE WALL STREET GROUP. I am just a lowly investor, I am not rich, I gave up things to invest in a retirement account. I paid my bills on time, I have no credit card debt, now I will retire with nothing but Social Security. Yup, when you get down to it, I am mad. You can start with Standard and Poor, Moody, and Fitch, they rated the repackaged worthless junk, AAA. Some one on Wall Street found this out, had their junk rated AAA, sold it for a huge profit, and thus made sure the bad real estate loans would continue. I am glad at least some on Wall Street and Washington are suffering with us poor folk. Look around guys, what went wrong on Wall Street has this nation in trouble. Go to any town in America, see for yourselves. Our jobs, our savings, our homes, our lives all gone. I'll make it, I can live on beans, and maybe produce my own natural gas. It is hard to do on caviar.
My husband has sold Motor homes for 23 years. Sales have literally stopped. Lay offs. Our income has been cut by 75%. We were three years from retirement and now we find out social security will not be enough to live on.
Our HOA at our paid-for condo have risen to over $450 and we lost all of our 401K. We lived within our means all these years with paid for cars etc.
But the result for us has been a very uncertain retirement and perhaps perpetual-poverty in our old age.
We followed all the rules----yet Wall street followed their own greed and have killed us 'down here'.
Christmas will be no gifts except one for each grandkid.
Greed must be punished and not allowed to get away with.
SAM
The greedy execs that created new financial instruments intended to go around the rules, paid themselves huge salaries just because they could, should be dragged through the streets so the public can spit on them.
If this were China, they would all have bullet holes in their heads by now.
Greetings,
I'm in Washington State. My company has us on reduced hours and today laid off 9 people. One of my coworkers was asked why he was having a turkey sandwich before thanksgiving, and he said they had cooked their turkey early because his family was low on food. No kidding.
We don't have any trouble knowing what to say at cocktail parties, or perhaps beer and wine parties. Everybody talks about the hard times, and there is a growing sense of being in it together. I lost 1/2 of the value in my 401K and our familiy is bringing in less than we need. We'll do what we have to do but I think we will get through, not by hunkering down, but by being more conservative with our finances, without comepletely freezing up, and by supporting our local economies and helping each other. This can happen in NYC too. I lived there for a number of years. Just think of it as a blizzard.
all the best,
mf.
Here in Minnesota, one of our local car dealerships just closed 7 stores, and laid off
400 people. I drive around the state for my job, and every small town I go through, has businesses that are either closed or going out of business.
I think it's time for everyone to strap on their
helmets and hunker down.
I work for one of the larger public software companies. I'd say we're on the road to layoffs. Mandatory vacation, office consolidations, hiring freeze...
We're trying to stay positive, though, in the trenches.
It's indeed a shame that so many are paying for the greed-based decisions of others. And it seems like, for the most part, the perpetrators have taken the money and run. Then, as usual, the perpetrators, and the apologsts for the perpetrators, blame the victims. Then we hire the perpetrators to fix it all. Gotta love America's unique spin on capitalism.