Lay-offs come to Wall Street

24 Jun, 2011 21:53 / Updated 13 years ago

As America pulls itself out of a recession, another financial crisis might be looming. Before it hits Main Street, USA, however, this collapse is coming to Wall Street. In fact, says Business Insider’s Katya Wachtel, it is already there.

“There was an idea that maybe a recovery was on the way because banks were making money again,” says Wachtel. As financial institutions upped salaries and brought more bankers on board, though, they quickly found out that the economy wasn’t growing as fast as they thought they would.“People are going to be angry about it and there are going to be some unhappy faces on Wall Street, but if they aren’t making money they can’t be kept around,” she says.Yesterday Business Insider’s Courtney Comstock told RT that job losses in the financial sector always seem to preface lay-offs elsewhere. Wachtel says that as Wall Street going broke might be a result of a downturned economy elsewhere, though.“ I think that if there isn’t money being made on Main Street, that usually effects the financial sector as well.”How did this come about? “Basically,” says Wachtel, “banks started making money again and these finance service firms started making money again.” Thinking a recession was gone, banks increased spending and expenses as the economy was believed to be getting better.“Maybe there was hope,” she says.In the meantime, hope is dwindling as Wall Street is looking to see some serious lay-offs. “Banks are scared. Banks are worried,” says Wachtel. Unfortunately, cuts might be the only way to keep the rest of the country from collapsing.