夢想的起點

  

It's a little hard to absorb the news on the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. Two of what was once the five biggest investment banking firms in the world, dissolved. Earlier this year was the downfall of Bear Sterns and now Lehman and Merrill. Now what left of the big five is Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.

I really can't comprehend how a large firm like Lehman can just go bankrupt. It really shows the importances of leadership and the daily executive decisions that's made. I really feel bad for all the employees at Lehman.. to see all their efforts and savings go down the drain. The least for Merrill employees, the company was sold to Bank of America. So at least the assets would be liquidated and even if it will get to layoffs, they will be compensate one way or another.

People would think that a downfall of these financial firms would not have an impact just because they don't work in the financial industry but that's not true. Just take my own firm for an example. We may be an accounting firm, but Lehman Brothers happen to be one of our biggest client for the Financial Services Office. The engagement team that's based out at Lehman is a significant amount of people and I'm sure the people at that site have concerns of their own too. I just hope that this snowball won't get any bigger than it has been. The downfall of Lehman is not just affecting Wall Street. It has an impact on New York City, and eventually it's going to hit on the taxpayers like me.. *sigh*