I'm sure one of our resident libertarians will be along to tell us that these 30,000 are all lazy and their lack of success is purely their own fault.

I've had friends who work in banking, and I got the low-down on these layoffs.

They've been changing job titles for months, essentially promoting people into positions where they were seriously overcrowded. Imagine having 17 executives in one room, and nobody underneath them to execute their orders... Then they put on a freeze, and they've been trying to prevent these people from transferring to other parts of the company, because they are now "overqualified" for those positions that they held until very recently!

Why are they doing this? They are taking the people with the highest seniority and pushing them out, before they hit their 25th year. Because once they do that, they get lifelong health care and a pension.

So what happens if you are about to lose your job, and you are willing to do anything to stay? They'll tell you you CAN stay at your earlier position, but they'll "roll back the odometer." In essence, that 22 years you've been with the company is now HISTORY. You can stay at your job, but you'll lose all of those years you've put in.

In my view, because the finance industry owns lawmakers, this trend of earning super normal profits and having the tax payers pick up the pieces during the down times will continue. For those in the industry, if you're not in the inside, you will always be on the outside. This industry, outside oil is the most corrupt in this country-it is all smoke and mirrors

Let's see, the Rockefellers own Citigroup. Yet the Rockefellers, with all that they own, have to lay people off? Hell, they have enough money to pay off everyone's mortgage in the US, subprime or not. Did you know that the Rockefellers dominate in ownership of the following? Exxon Mobil, Bechtel, Halliburton, and Chase (Chase and Citi agreed to pay nearly $300 million to settle government charges they helped Enron manipulate its financial statements and mislead investors)? Here's a link that explains more:
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/view/25/1/14. Guys who work for them - George Schultz, Paul Bremer, Henry Kissinger. Didn't billions go missing on Bremer's watch over in Iraq? Anyways, just thought people might like to know who is laying them off -- who really cares about America and Americans.

that nasty thing called cause and effect is coming back to the banks hey days of duping people into subcrime mortgage loans the banks thought they had it made is now coming back at them with a vengeance ,now it's time to pay the piper for all the misdeeds from banks,and man it's going to be one VERY SCARY TIMES,i see some bank failures in the future and the sad part as usual they brought it on themselves the power of here we go again GREED,blinded them ,they'll be going down the economic abyss with the rest of us as the $ becomes worthlesss piece of paper ,and INFLATION eats us alive,and the ones who also should be prosecuted for the crimes against it's people Bush and the FED willl get away with it without paying the consequences for their criminal activities, and take their money in 1/20/09 and run without so much as a peep from unjustice dept and spineless,coward congress and we the people as our economy is freefall downward spiral turns America economy into another depression 2008

Just the beginning of lay offs for the financial sector ...

All , and I mean All financial institutions will be laying off workers. There is no choice. The losses have been historic and the business going forward will be stunted for years to come.

I empathize with those that lose jobs but I am a firm believer that outside of academics, police, fire, and medical jobs that people should actually produce something and I don't mean shuffling papers. The U.S. government is always decried as a bureaucratic albatross yet it's not just them; corporate America and the money making industry is the best and biggest example. America isn't just a service industry nation it's a nation that wants to make money for the sake of making money, nothing more.

So is this yet another sign of morons* booming economy? 30k out of work!!!!

I know there's a golden parachute for someone in all this.

When you play with fire you get burned. 1776

Citigroup should never have existed in the first place.
They had to get Glass-Steagall repealed in order to do the mergers.
Then they lead in the subprime debacle.
Thanks to Sandy Weill.