lehmann [sic] bank is scary

[zippitippitoes]

..oh dear

Its hardly unexpected, though is it.

I work in a fairly unstable industry (high tech), and part of my job description is protecting myself from the next recession.

"who's next?" is the question we were all asking ourselves when lehmanns controlled the company where I worked.

One guy, whose wife didn't work, and had children, told me that he felt like vomiting every time the double doors at the end of the office opened, because that's how they used to announce the (regular) redundancies.

Sorry to hear that Aero, hope he finds something soon.

Sorry Aero , hope you get some better news today .

Who else is going to lose their jobs ? My sisters job went on Friday went XL went down .

x

Oh dear... That's horrible.

Oh God.............my blood is running cold this morning.

Dh has left early. Am waiting for a phone call.

By Nighbynight on Mon 15-Sep-08 07:07:51
well I worked for a company that was done over bought by them some years ago and all I can say is ha ha what goes around comes around.
pity that the big cheeses are probably saving themselves unlike the ordinary workers.

Fair point NBN, but dh just works there to support us and this looks catastrophic for our family. I can't see anything funny about that, but I take your point re the big bosses.

Good luck with today Aero - I posted on the other thread as well, but I've got everything crossed for you. It doesn't look good out there, and DH has just texted me a list of all the banks who've gone tits up and the speculation about others. It's bad. Very bad. [bad]

Good luck with today Aero - I posted on the other thread as well, but I've got everything crossed for you. It doesn't look good out there, and DH has just texted me a list of all the banks who've gone tits up and the speculation about others. It's bad. Very bad. [ad]

Aero, hope you at least get a few weeks' leeway to allow your DH time.

The impacts of this may be devastating... I am glued to the news...

Aero, is he a qualified accountant? At least that means he has something he can fall back on.

nigh makes a very good point, but accept that teh consequences for individual employees and savers is a great worry.

Banks had the capacity to make plans to save themselves in teh lean times.

Eggs. Baskets. Oh god I am going to shut up now.

I just want to know, in a very simplistic way, how can these giant financial institutions suddenly find themselves lacking , say, 40million dollars...Did Gloria from accounts not say something last year? Year before? Along the lines of ''Do you know, I think we are spending a bit too much on bonuses...''

Aero, and anyone else directly affected right now, I am so sorry, wishing you good outcomes.

Though it will affect all of us one way or another.

In a very simplistic way, they probabaly had a lot of money tied up in mortgages and now that the house values have crashed, have nothing but paper that goes in the recylcing bin. All the ones in a bad way are investment banks/divisions NOT 'real'/retail banks. (Yet)

A bit like us actually, with our huge mortgage not worth the house we're living in....

Because the mortgages were sold to effectively risky customers who ultimately were never good for repayment. ie the sub prime market. (A bit like banks here queueing up to give 125% plus mortgages to 12 year olds on low incomes.)
Then the whizz kid bankers wrapped these up into 'sexy' financial instruments which got traded in the way shares are traded (sort of), so no one knew how risky these investments really were. This is now all coming home to roost because the risky customers predicably defaulted on their mortgage repayments in the US, meaning these financial instruments are worthless. The results of this are now appearing in the UK because of the global nature of financial mrkets.

Sorry if that was boring, but I believe that's the root of the current crisis in a nutshell.

And this government should never have bailed out Northern Rock, only doing so because of the constiuency base of the northeast and because they were planning an election at the times.

Can you share the speculation Zebs? I have very little idea of the potential wider implications of all this.

Wishing aero & everyone involved good outcomes though.

Message withdrawn

hope today goes as well as possible, aero. i used to work in the same building as lehman - i've been thinking a lot about the poor staff today - most of whom will have had no say in the decisions which have led to this sorry state of affairs.

btw - i heard months ago that lehman could go to the wall. i've been racking my brains this morning to think who it was who told me. anyway, if i knew that (not a markets person), then all the clever markets people at the other banks should have been hedging/closing out/writing down lehman before now...

agree with littlelapin. the vast majority of people in the banking sector are not on telephone number salaries and bonuses. certainly not to the extent that they could have just decided to pay off their mortgages this year in case the credit crunch bit them...

The worst thing about this is that the people who caused it are going to keep their jobs and vast salaries/bonuses and will be advising us all how to stay afloat in the mess that they made. There needs to be much more accountability and transparency in the financial sector.

I also agree that lots of people on here have been saying for quite a while that it was all unsustainable so why the f**k didn't Gordon Brown (the supposed best chancellor we've ever seen) do something about it?

sadly, i think there will be a large degree of schadenfreude that the "wealthy bankers" have got their well-deserved comeuppance at last

Is this going to be another black Monday?

DH trades with Lehmans quite a ot and had to stiffle a giggle last night for their trading team is the most arrogant bunch of wankers ever - he said they exist on very high risk business and this has been coming for a long time - they should have changed their strategies a long time ago but some of the people there were very against lower risk/return business!

It is sad for all of the poeple who work there doing everyday jobs and not earning the huge salaries of the people who have effectively got the bank into this trouble though.