BofA Discussing About 40,000 job Cuts - WSJ

[Hissyspit]

Source: Reuters

BofA discussing about 40,000 job cuts - WSJ
Fri Sep 9, 2011 7:55am IST

REUTERS - Bank of America Corp officials have discussed slashing roughly 40,000 jobs during the first wave of a restructuring, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the plans.

The number of job cuts are not final and could change. The restructuring aims to reduce the bank's workforce over a period of years, the Journal said.

The newspaper said BofA executives met Thursday in Charlotte and will gather again Friday to make final decisions on the reductions, putting the finishing touches on five months of work.

- snip -

Banks are shedding jobs worldwide as stricter regulations and a tough second quarter for trading income take their toll on investment banking units in particular.

Read more: http://in.mobile.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-59238820110909?irpc=932

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[naaman fletcher]

2. a home is a bet:

It's a bet by the lender that the seller will repay the loan, and that the banker will make money on the loan vs. the cost of obtaining the cash that we leant out.

What happened that was different this time is that it used to be that the banker making the loan would suffer the consequences if the loan went bad. In the last bubble, the banker would make the loan.. then sell it off to Fannie or Freddie, who would package the loan and sell it to an investor. (also, they would be sold to big banks, who would package and re-sell them).

What happened of course is that if the lender doesn't care if the person actually repays the loans or not, the lender of course fudges the numbers on the quality of the borrower.

Fannie and Freddie rules were supposed to stop that, but Fannie and Freddie themselves had an incentive to get bigger, as the top dogs were all making a fortune off of it.

[JDPriestly]

3. +1, naaman fletcher

This is elementary contract law. You are absolutely right.

Every contract is a risk.

There was a lot of fraud or gross negligence in the mortgage industry, but it was to a great extent in the examples I have seen, the responsibility of those lending the money, the sophisticated parties in the transactions, to recognize the fraud.

In fact, there was such a pattern of fraud or gross negligence in the mortgage qualification documents and the appraisals -- and then the ratings by the rating agencies of the mortgage bundles and various financial instruments by which the mortgages were sliced, diced and served to the investors, that most of the fraud or serious, gross negligence has to have been perpetrated by the bankers. I say that not only because I saw examples of fraud and gross negligence, but because the banks were consistently, repeatedly and in many, many of the unwise transactions, parties. And certain banks were involved in them more frequently than others.

Most of the individual borrowers were not involved in repeated fraudulent or sloppily approved loans. Most of them bought one house and signed only one problematic mortgage.

Sorry for the BofA employees who had no part in the fraud and gross negligence. As usual, the innocent pay the price. That is just so sad.

[zippytheplatypus]

8. of course there is risk

But when I say it isn't a bet I refer to how morally offensive it is to create CDSs & CDOs & all the other derivitives & insurance products and leverage the housing market to oblivion. Do that on the IB side if you want but not with funds of publicly traded companies. Go ahead and turn markets into psychotic casinos full of garbage all you want but I'm not bailing jackshit out, I want no part of it ever and you leave every house in the country out of it too. When you lose you go to the fucking poorhouse & when you cheat you go to jail.

A persons home is sacred. If someone can't make the payments they lose it but it isn't about speculation h the value of it is tied to inflation & growth/deterioration of the area. It's an asset which needs protection against monetary & financial attack. Sure there's risk in mortgage banking but its nothing like investment banking & the two cannot be lumped together. It's incredibly stupid & unfair to responsible people with no interest in gambling.

[goforit]

4. After being bailed out, this is the crap BOA dishes out.

So much for the re-investment in our economy.

[rucky]

5. gotta make those executive bonuses n/t

[blueclown]

6. The public corporation is a pox on our country.

It is an anti-American institution whose only objective is to increase shareholder value at the expense of everything else. They accept subsidies and assistance, and respond by further cutting employees and services. There is very little redeeming about the public corporation in its current form.

[SoapBox]

14. Ditto!

...you said it well.

[aquart]

7. I guess you can't call them "job creators"

[Fed up in NJ]

9. Small Banks

That is why I use a small local bank. When CHASE screwed over their cleaners I dropped them quick. I just carry cash so I don't have to pay ATM fees to any of these scumbags!

[saras]

10. Credit unions are better. Any profit they make is yours, not the bankers'

Their stockholders ARE their customers, so there aren't two different groups with conflicting agendas.

[Initech]

11. How much will the executives make in the process?

:grr:

[Dreamer Tatum]

12. Earlier people were egging BofA on into bankruptcy, so I hope no one hand-wrings about lost jobs.

"Oh yeah...I guess bankrupt companies DO have to fire people. Hmmm."

[davidwparker]

13. In BofA's wake, many smaller banks will arise. It

deserves what it is getting. I feel for the turmoil of the people affected, though.

[oldbitty]

15. I'd put my money on them

slashing jobs here and sending them abroad. They can't have their tax cut, they'll cut jobs here. Should have let them all fail like they deserved. There is not a single institution in this nation to prop up a single person that gambles themselves into bankruptcy. If the corporate 'persons' deserve to be rescued, so does every individual bankrupted, foreclosed and otherwise harmed by their gambling.