Nerve-wracking Friday
Mar. 15th, 2008 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
connaticYesterday at work, everybody was nervous as we saw the Bear Stearns meltdown. I work at one of their competitors, and we too have had big write-downs (and may well have more), and we too could well suffer from a crisis in confidence among our customers - and then we, too, would be gone.
For all the indignant talks on the web on how Bear Stearns is being bailed out, make no mistake - that company is gone. Its name may live on, but its days as an independent firm are numbered (and in the low double digits).
Wall Street is a small circle. We all have high-paying, high-stress jobs, and people move around from company to company, so everybody nows each other. Early last year, when the going was still good, some of my colleagues moved to BSC and got a nice raise out of that - I'm sure they are regretting this now. Some of my current colleagues moved in the other direction and are relieved not to be working at BSC right now.
This whole thing has also made me look at my finances again. I can live well on my base salary, and don't need a bonus (though it sure is nice in the good years); but a lot of my money is tied up in stocks and mutual funds, and if my employer goes down that'd be tied up for a while as well as being worth a lot less (or outright worthless). We keep about six months of expenses in savings accounts, but it looks time to spread those around multiple banks. But if everybody does that, or if people start taking out actual cash for emergencies, the system will fail.
Add to this the continued lay-off rumors (in my firm another round in two weeks, then a third one in May) and the mood is getting grim.
For all the indignant talks on the web on how Bear Stearns is being bailed out, make no mistake - that company is gone. Its name may live on, but its days as an independent firm are numbered (and in the low double digits).
Wall Street is a small circle. We all have high-paying, high-stress jobs, and people move around from company to company, so everybody nows each other. Early last year, when the going was still good, some of my colleagues moved to BSC and got a nice raise out of that - I'm sure they are regretting this now. Some of my current colleagues moved in the other direction and are relieved not to be working at BSC right now.
This whole thing has also made me look at my finances again. I can live well on my base salary, and don't need a bonus (though it sure is nice in the good years); but a lot of my money is tied up in stocks and mutual funds, and if my employer goes down that'd be tied up for a while as well as being worth a lot less (or outright worthless). We keep about six months of expenses in savings accounts, but it looks time to spread those around multiple banks. But if everybody does that, or if people start taking out actual cash for emergencies, the system will fail.
Add to this the continued lay-off rumors (in my firm another round in two weeks, then a third one in May) and the mood is getting grim.
