NY Times: Change Arrives, With a Sense That Wall St.’s Boom Times Are Over

[marmar]

Change Arrives, With a Sense That Wall St.’s Boom Times Are Over

By LOUISE STORY and EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: September 15, 2008


The old Wall Street is giving way to a new one.

As the tectonic shifts within the American financial industry shook the world’s markets on Monday, many experts predicted that events of the last 72 hours heralded a new period of painful change for Wall Street.

The predictions were sobering. Investment banks will be smaller. Their profits will be leaner. Jobs in finance will be scarcer. And the outsize role of Wall Street in the nation’s economy will shrink.

That is the extreme case. But as investors tried to comprehend the abrupt downfall of two of Wall Street’s mightiest firms — Lehman Brothers, which spiraled into bankruptcy, and Merrill Lynch, which rushed into the arms of Bank of America — even optimists said the immediate future would be difficult. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and the Federal Reserve are paving the way for the few strong survivors to lead an industry turnaround, while letting the weaker ones fail or be subsumed by larger rivals.

“We’ve gone from a golden era of banking and financial services,” Kenneth D. Lewis, the chief executive of Bank of America, said in a press briefing on Monday, as the bank he heads prepared to buy Merrill Lynch.

“It’s going to be tougher,” Mr. Lewis said. “There are going to be fewer companies, and we are going to have to be better at what we do.” ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/business/16future.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

[Writer]

1. I hate to be so cynical, but there was a BOOM??? n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. You think? Perhaps this will change things in some ways

that we cannot even imagine yet

[The Traveler]

3. I feel sorry for the financial services guys

They might actually have to learn to actually produce something besides financial vapor ware.

[whistle]

4. Nonsense, McCain/Palin are publishing a book titled "Dow 45,000 by 2012" that will be

...a best seller for the next four years