Crisis Altering Wall Street as Big Banks Lose Top Talent

[Sgent]

Source: NY Times

...
There is an air of exodus on Wall Street — and not just among those being fired. As Washington cracks down on compensation and tightens regulation of banks, a brain drain is occurring at some of the biggest ones. They are some of the same banks blamed for setting off the worst downturn since the Depression.

Top bankers have been leaving Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and others in rising numbers to join banks that do not face tighter regulation, including foreign banks, or start-up companies eager to build themselves into tomorrow’s financial powerhouses. Others are leaving because of culture clashes at merging companies, like Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, and still others are simply retiring early.

This is certainly a concern for the banks losing top talent. But other financial experts believe it is the beginning of a broader and necessary reshaping of Wall Street, too long dominated by a handful of major players that helped to fuel the financial crisis. The country may be better off if the banking industry is less concentrated, they say.

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Vikram S. Pandit of Citigroup and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan, for example, say it will be harder to break away from taxpayer support if the workers most capable of steering their banks toward recovery walk away.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/business/12wall.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[snot]

1. brain drain? or parasite drain? and v. impt., where are they going TO--Who's hiring Them, for What?

[Duer 157099]

2. Sorta like Michael Scott leaving Dunder Mifflin to start his own company

Doh!

Yeah, these guys will show them! Just wait til they get their brand new jobs at McDonalds!

[depakid]

3. The Times has become absolutely shameless on this issue

perhaps it's due to the tireless effort to keep up with the Washington Post in the race to the bottom.

Then again- they've got to find big money somewhere soon, so why not pander?

Earnings reports released by the New York Times Company in October indicate that drastic measures will have to be taken over the next five months or the paper will default on some $400million in debt. With more than $1billion in debt already on the books, only $46million in cash reserves as of October, and no clear way to tap into the capital markets (the company’s debt was recently reduced to junk status), the paper’s future doesn’t look good.

“As part of our analysis of our uses of cash, we are evaluating future financing arrangements,” the Times Company announced blandly in October, referring to the crunch it will face in May. “Based on the conversations we have had with lenders, we expect that we will be able to manage our debt and credit obligations as they mature.” This prompted Henry Blodget, whose Web site, Silicon Alley Insider, has offered the smartest ongoing analysis of the company’s travails, to write: “‘We expect that we will be able to manage’? Translation: There’s a possibility that we won’t be able to manage.”

The paper’s credit crisis comes against a backdrop of ongoing and accelerating drops in circulation, massive cutbacks in advertising revenue, and the worst economic climate in almost 80 years. As of December, its stock had fallen so far that the entire company could theoretically be had for about $1 billion. The former Times executive editor Abe Rosenthal often said he couldn’t imagine a world without The Times. Perhaps we should start.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200901/new-york-times

[global1]

6. Our Newspapers In An Effort To Save Themselves From Obscurity Are Becoming Nothing More Than......

tabloids like the Star & National Enquirer we read in the super market check out lines.

[No Elephants]

4. I believe that the banks, etc. will be able to find fresh talent at a fraction of the price. It

takes a brain, yes, but it does not take a Leonardo Da Vinci. It's a big world with a lot of people in it and a lot of them need jobs now.

In other words, buh bye.

[Deja Q]

17. "talent" is being misued. The positions will be filled. Are they genuinely talented?

Depends on what they will be doing.

[tomm2thumbs]

5. brain toilet is more like it - Flush Twice - it's a long way to China

Let 'em leave the country - it's the best thing they can do for us after ruining our financial system. Hope they like lots of fish in their diet.

[riverdeep]

7. Sounds like a not so subtle ploy to bring back outrageous salaries

and bonuses. Maybe the banks can ship their jobs to China.



"The country may be better off if the banking industry is less concentrated, they say"

-jah think?

[corpseratemedia]

8. if they are responsible for this gigantic fraud to begin with, how are they "talented?"

their fraud failed and they're just worried the people who replace them might want to dig for the truth

[Demeter]

9. What Talent Is This?

Talent for bribing Congress and the Executive Branches?

Talent for co-opting and corrupting the accounting profession?

Talent for setting up illegal tax dodges at home and abroad?

Talent for inventing a dizzying array of useless "products" that enrich the "talent" and impoverish the purchaser?

Talent for foisting such crap off on an unsophisticated public?

Talent for lying about said products to everyone?

Couldn't run a decent criminal enterprise without it!

[L0oniX]

10. LOL ...yea they're all going to China.

[bemildred]

11. Well, I was thinking Atlantic City or Las Vegas, but yeah. nt

[BumRushDaShow]

12. The part of this article that makes me scream

is that some of the very idiots who helped destroy the world economy are either going to smaller companies or are creating start-ups to continue the very same dangerous practices that got us in this mess in the first place. They were thoroughly brain-washed in the business schools to become crazed zombies of failed theories that have now been exposed as fraudulent.

I agree with Sarkozy here - It's time for the world (and that includes the U.S.) to massively restrict this reckless risk-taking once and for all. These greedy gamblers haven't learned a lesson yet and refuse to stop. Every last one of them who continues to run around trying to "innovate" (a joke) the "manufacture" of worthless paper widgets that they sell for a profit to brain-dead managers of pensions, retirement funds, and governmental/corporate operating funds, needs to be in jail.

:argh:

[2Design]

18. that happens when any company going down the drain - enron and

all the others - the top rank get new jobs heading up other companies while the rank and file struggle with the perception left behnind

[natrat]

23. apparently obama admin is working to sidestep any new congressional regulation of the industry

[acmavm]

13. Brain drain? Is that the same as fleeing to avoid prosecution? Because

in a country that prosecuted liars, cheats, thieves, and frauds, that is what would really be the cause of their grand exodus to greener pastures.

They gamed the system, they lied and covered up their dirty deeds, and they brought down this country's economy, and they stuck the American people for their bad gambling debts.

This is called a brain drain now? Too bad. It should actually be flight to avoid arrest.

[mbperrin]

14. Uhh, it's obvious their brains drained a long time ago.

Indict. Convict. Imprison.

[newfie11]

15. What talent??

They don't have the track record I would want for a CEO. Good riddance.

[GeorgeGist]

16. The big rats abandoning the mother ship ...

in favor of little rat boutiques. Talented!

[fascisthunter]

19. hahahahahahaha... good one..."talent".... I Guess Criminals can Have "talent"

[lunatica]

They have a talent for remarkable stupidity

That kind of talent

[gratuitous]

20. The Times wants to blame the stimulus money

But the reality seems to be that we're watching the rats scrambling down the ropes and clinging to the floating debris as the ship lists, takes on more water, and eventually disappears beneath the surface.

There's a place in the financial markets for high-flying venture capitalism. Banks aren't that place. And high-flying venture capitalism isn't where you want to be investing the money you've set aside for paying the mortgage or buying groceries. It doesn't take a financial genius to figure that out.

[lunatica]

21. Our intelligence is assaulted once again

:puke:

[leftofthedial]

22. The top talent that was so good at destroying our economy?

Awwww.

[Odin2005]

24. Talent? WHAT talent?!?

:shrug: