Goldman to cut 15% of workforce

[AtW]

You can't really regulate against booms and busts - it's the way of capitalism. You might as well try to legislate making stupidity illegal.

You can - current "boom" was riding on cheap interest rates that are controlled by the central banks.

But fundamentally something needed to be done about casino style games in the City and other places - these guys are not playing with their own money, heck, turns out they don't even have any money - using huge leveraging they achive massive potential to make money from nothing, but if market turns against them then they have massive potential to lose a lot of money that they don't have, so they go down taking pension funds, real world companies, savings (via inflation) etc.

That kind of reckless behavior is criminal and should be viewed as such.

[AlfredJPruffock]

Subprime Rhapsody


Is this the real price?
Is this just fantasy?
Financial landslide
No escape from reality

Open your eyes
And look at your buys and see.

I’m now a poor boy
High-yielding casualty

Because I bought it high, watched it blow
Rating high, value low,

Any way the Fed goes
Doesn’t really matter to me,

Mama - just killed my fund
Quoted CDO’s instead

Pulled the trigger, now it’s dead
Mama - I had just begun

These CDO’s have blown it all away

etc

[AlfredJPruffock]

Banks like GS dont like to lay off people only to rehire them again in six months time.. so if this is true they expect the slowdown to last some time..

I think the next IT downturn will begin in April and probably last a year or two.

Yes and yes.

Banks are shedding staff like autumn leaves - a Hard Rain's a gonna fall ...

[BlasterBates]

In the Economist I read they think the banking sector will shrink and stay shrunk, because the growth before was due to a credit bubble. Apparently Investment banking has been a high growth sector since the 80's. Looks like it might have come to an end. Might just become another "normal" sector.

[51st State]

The following Banks have already been nationalised :

Northern Rock
Bears Sterns (5th US investment bank)

HBOS soon ...

Hahahahaha - you absolute noob; HBOS is an old rumour being investigated by the FSA. On what basis are you mistakenly trying to rehash it?

[Dow Jones]

Another one

Sappatz - another Russian moron along with TwAt- they seem to know more about the British economy than we do. Maybe they think they are too clever because of their hacking and phishing 'skills'.

[max]

I think the next IT downturn will begin in April and probably last a year or two.

Begin in April?

It's here already.

What makes you say it'll last a year or two? Just a guess?