Open Thread: The Market Crisis

By on October 16, 2008 11:54 am in Brooklyn Heights

We hear that a lot of “Wall Street types” live in Brooklyn Heights.  With the exception of  Alan Fishman, we figure times are probably tough for our neighbors in the financial sector.   What’s your take on the crashing market, the federal bailout plan and what the future holds for all of us?  Comment below.

And one more thing, for some reason the theme song from the short-lived Dom Deluise sitcom Lotsa Luck keeps running through my head whenever I watch CNBC.

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  • HDEB

    The stock market and the economy are terrible; working in finance right now is miserable.
    Future fortunes will be created by investing during this bear market.

  • Beavis

    I think we’re going to see a lot of folks moving from the Nabe as the financial industry layoffs accelerate over the coming months. Citi just announced another huge round of layoff today.

    While I feel for the folks who are impacted by layoffs, I also hope that it means that record high real estate prices will fall precipitously both for owners and renters.

  • anchor

    yeah, it’s not pretty…all my clients are either hedge funds or commercial banks, so as their lives go, so does mine. that said, it’s best to focus on what i can…i can’t change libor, but i can save a few bucks more each week and make sure i keep my resume current and network. as an aside, good article in bloomberg about brooklyn housing prices. we’ll get through it, eventually.

  • Nancy

    I remember when we were looking at a brownstones/coops in the 1990’s, the broker told us that we really shouldn’t be looking here as we couldn’t afford it, since all the people moving here and living here were Wall Street people. I have never forgotten that remark.

  • brooklynite

    now is the time for people to invest if you have the money and the time to wait it out for the younger folks. like anchor said we will get through this. it took 15 months for the economy to bounce back after it fell in the 80s. I just hope that everyone will learn from this…. but maybe it is true that history is bound to repeat itself

  • my2cents

    I am glad that there may be a real estate market correction, but I am not sure I agree with Beavis’ desire to see a “precipitous” fall in prices and rents. That is never a good thing. Gradual change is always preferable to rapid change when it comes to markets and neighborhoods alike. I think my biggest fear (esp. as I have a garden apt.) is that the area can backslide to being less safe, secure and prosperous than it is now. I would be happy to see the heights get more affordable because then younger people can afford to live here. But I just hope it stays nice and safe. One of my neighbors got mugged on our corner last year, and I hope that this market decline doesn’t make those events more frequent.

  • stefan

    Many of the financial guys make more money in one holiday bonus than I will make working my entire life. A really bad year for them means that they make only double or triple what I make on a good year. I don’t think I’m feeling sorry for them. The pay discrepancy between what they do and what regular people do is enormous. I don’t think we are going to see hedge fund managers and investment bankers selling their houses and condos to teachers, police officers, nurses or journalists any time soon. All they need is two or three good years, that amounts to four or six times my lifetime earnings.

  • Beavis

    Perhaps the mugging last was a hedge fund manager trying to cover a position that went south. Heaven knows the whole country just got mugged for over $700 billion from the financial industry.

    Even if home prices and rents fell by 50%, my2cents, the prices would still be way above what those who mug other people could afford. They will still have to walk a few blocks over from other neighborhoods to mug us.

  • my2cents

    Yeah, I know that lowering prices doesn’t mean that muggers will live in our neighborhood, obviously. But crime always goes up in times of economic contraction. so that is why i am worried. new York was not always this la la land we have now, and it can always go back to a darker time if we’re not careful. Stefan, I agree with you that those hedge funders and brokers make ridiculous amounts of money, but many of them still live beyond their means. Just like the companies they worked for, the are often personally leveraged beyond what they could sustain, so even someone who makes millions can go broke when they lose their job. Not everyone is sensible and saves like we might like to think. I’m not shedding any tears for them.