Letting Wall Street hang: NY leaders shrug at job losses

New York Post ^ | 03/04/2013 | Charles Gasparino

[SeekAndFind]

It’s one thing for President Obama to attack Wall Street as the place fat cats roam free as proof, a class warrior justifying all the mainly useless banking regulations he’s imposed since the 2008 financial crisis. It’s quite another thing for New York’s elected officials to let him get away with the big lie that’s costing New Yorkers jobs and squeezing our finances.

In other words, where’s Chuck Schumer when you need him?

MIA, it turns out. Ditto for our other senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

As new banking regs continue to take effect, Wall Street keeps shrinking, wreaking havoc on local employment and the state and city budgets. And it’s likely to get worse.

Last week, JP Morgan announced that it will shed 17,000 jobs over the next two years. That follows similar cuts announced by Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of America, Barclays and even the hyper-profitable Goldman Sachs.

Yes, these cutbacks are spread over offices around the country and the world, and Morgan is saying many of these job losses won’t be local. But New York City still gets hit hard: Banks employ more people in New York than anywhere else in the country, so New York will take much of the pain.

It’s already taken plenty. Just a few years ago, Wall Street accounted for 20 percent of the state’s tax revenues and 12 percent of the city’s; now those figures are down to 14 percent and 7 percent.

And the people I speak to say the job cuts will keep on coming until executives can figure out exactly how many people they can afford to employ in this regulatory environment.

[Mike Darancette]

When all those illegal foreign nationals are legalized there will be millions to do those jobs.