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Bank of America Confirms 30,000 Layoffs

Objective Voice

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So much for that government bailout helping to keep this company afloat. To be fair, the layoffs will happen over the next couple of years. See linked article here.

Speaking of bailouts, view the accompanying linked site if you want to know how much BofA paid out in bonuses. Maybe they should have passed on paying out bonuses and put that taxpayer charity back into their business instead. :roll:
 
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Layoffs do not mean a company is not afloat. However, part of the reason we are in this economic morass is because banks are holding on to bad investments and have over extended themselves in the years leading up to the crisis in 2008. Even though it sucks for 30,000 people, i would rather see banks decline in an orderly fashion than file for bankruptcy or have some other sort of catastrophic failure. It has to happen for us to get back on our feet, so I am glad to see it happen in a way that minimizes the potential pain to the economy.

Once we hit some sort of bottom and have evaporated some of the uncertainty, we should start seeing more growth.
 
So much for that government bailout helping to keep this company afloat. To be fair, the layoffs will happen over the next couple of years. See linked article here.

Speaking of bailouts, view the accompanying linked site if you want to know how much BofA paid out in bonuses. Maybe they should have passed on paying out bonuses and put that taxpayer charity back into their business instead. :roll:

You just now figgered this out?
 
i trust that management of BOA will enact similar austerity measures on their own compensation packages for the good of the company.

























































no, not really.




suffice it to say, i plan to never be a BOA customer again.
 
Taxpayer money well spent. :roll:
 
Let these companies fail. It will not be the end of the world, and it is the ONLY WAY that these sectors are ever going to be competitive again. If you keep bailing everyone out, guess what? They forget how to be competetive.

And that is a very, very bad development in a free market.
 
Let these companies fail. It will not be the end of the world, and it is the ONLY WAY that these sectors are ever going to be competitive again. If you keep bailing everyone out, guess what? They forget how to be competetive.

And that is a very, very bad development in a free market.

It would not be the end of the world if one of these big banks failed ... now. Though it would knock the crap out of the stock markets and likely cost the economy 10x as many jobs. If they had all failed back in '08 it might has well have been the end of the world.
 
It would not be the end of the world if one of these big banks failed ... now. Though it would knock the crap out of the stock markets and likely cost the economy 10x as many jobs. If they had all failed back in '08 it might has well have been the end of the world.

Thats why, I LOVE a free market.

We go through recessions all the freakin time, dude. Like climate change it's cyclical, and it's a part of life. We haven't been through one in awhile though, and have forgotten that you can't dig your way out of them, you just have to go through them and take the hits.

Let these companies fail. Let the market do its magic. People will lose jobs, and it will hurt, but because there is demand for those products the failing companies produced other companies will arise in their place, and they will be more survivable.

Besides my fervent belief that, at some point, all socialist systems become minimalistic in order to survive while propping themselves up with capitalist endeavors or fail catastrophically leaving confusion, destruction, and poverty in their wake that must be rebuilt by private enterprise.. and besides my devotion to the idea that private enterprise .. or what I call The Wolfpack Model.. is the strongest and healthiest..
 
Thats why, I LOVE a free market.

We go through recessions all the freakin time, dude. Like climate change it's cyclical, and it's a part of life. We haven't been through one in awhile though, and have forgotten that you can't dig your way out of them, you just have to go through them and take the hits.

Let these companies fail. Let the market do its magic. People will lose jobs, and it will hurt, but because there is demand for those products the failing companies produced other companies will arise in their place, and they will be more survivable.

Besides my fervent belief that, at some point, all socialist systems become minimalistic in order to survive while propping themselves up with capitalist endeavors or fail catastrophically leaving confusion, destruction, and poverty in their wake that must be rebuilt by private enterprise.. and besides my devotion to the idea that private enterprise .. or what I call The Wolfpack Model.. is the strongest and healthiest..

Not all recessions are equal and this is certainly the worst one since the Great Depression. I firmly believe that it would have been worse than the GD if we had not bailed out the banks. Not a great idea.
 
Not all recessions are equal and this is certainly the worst one since the Great Depression. I firmly believe that it would have been worse than the GD if we had not bailed out the banks. Not a great idea.



Ya know, putting this whole mess on a credit card that the American tax payer is responsible for...didn't/won't solve anything, you're just prolonging it.

Laissez-faire capitalism only works if you let market forces penalize poor performance.
 
Ya know, putting this whole mess on a credit card that the American tax payer is responsible for...didn't/won't solve anything, you're just prolonging it.

Laissez-faire capitalism only works if you let market forces penalize poor performance.

I disagree. Deficits would have skyrocketed anyway if the financial system had actually collapsed and the pain would have been 100x worse.
 
I disagree. Deficits would have skyrocketed anyway if the financial system had actually collapsed and the pain would have been 100x worse.

We could have simply called in Will Smith or Bruce Willis to save the world like they did the last times the world was about to be destroyed.
 
We could have simply called in Will Smith or Bruce Willis to save the world like they did the last times the world was about to be destroyed.

Given the severity of the crisis, we might have needed Keanu Reeves, as well.
 
So much for that government bailout helping to keep this company afloat. To be fair, the layoffs will happen over the next couple of years. See linked article here.



Speaking of bailouts, view the accompanying linked site if you want to know how much BofA paid out in bonuses. Maybe they should have passed on paying out bonuses and put that taxpayer charity back into their business instead. :roll:

Not sure if you listened to the statement or if so understood it. While it is true that BAC will reduce it's workforce by 30K, it was clearly stated it was not primarily through layoffs. They will be selling off non-core assets, and some employees will move elsewhere with those assets. It also has about 300K workers so that many will come from attrition. This is a multi-year program. Lastly there are business that Dodd Frank says BAC can do longer be in like proprietary trading this will result jobs.

Understand what you create as a thread and then make more credible comments, most helpful.
 
Also let's keep in mind that too-big-to-fail was and still is a huge problem. That some of the big banks are getting smaller isn't a sign that efforts to address the problem failed.
 
Also let's keep in mind that too-big-to-fail was and still is a huge problem. That some of the big banks are getting smaller isn't a sign that efforts to address the problem failed.

Not sure what your point is.
 
Not sure what your point is.

Not sure where I lost you. The OP's point seems to be that the bank bailouts were a failure because BOA is cutting its workforce. My point is that the bailouts did not fail because a big bank like BOA is getting smaller and less opaque.
 
You just now figgered this out?

I was actually being sarcastic. But yes, that's what they should have done - pay down their debt and/or foregone paying out bonuses and instead applied TARP funds directly to their balance sheets - ALL OF IT! That is what they got bailout funds for, right? To provide liquidity to financial firms that had more financial liabilities than they had assets...

In all seriousness, I can accept BofA having an orderly drawdown over time rather than a one-time massive layoff because it would atleast allow them to take measured steps toward getting their financial house in order vice dumping 30,000 employees unto unemployment in one foul swoop. It helps the company over time and keeps the economy from going even further into a tailspin. But still...

Had they not paid out bonuses for one year they probrably could have saved jobs.
 
Not sure if you listened to the statement or if so understood it. While it is true that BAC will reduce it's workforce by 30K, it was clearly stated it was not primarily through layoffs. They will be selling off non-core assets, and some employees will move elsewhere with those assets. It also has about 300K workers so that many will come from attrition. This is a multi-year program. Lastly there are business that Dodd Frank says BAC can do longer be in like proprietary trading this will result jobs.

Understand what you create as a thread and then make more credible comments, most helpful.

You must've missed the part where I said...

So much for that government bailout helping to keep this company afloat. To be fair, the layoffs will happen over the next couple of years. See linked article here.
 
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Also let's keep in mind that too-big-to-fail was and still is a huge problem. That some of the big banks are getting smaller isn't a sign that efforts to address the problem failed.

If you come from the standpoint that too big to fail banks bit off more than they could chew and that a large part of their problem stemmed from acquiring too much property, i.e., opening too many branches they couldn't afford to operate, I'd agree with you. But that would assume they simply made bad commercial property or marketing investments. That's NOT how these big investment firms got into trouble.

Their "income" strategy had far more to do with creating lucrative derivities and commercial papers than it did purchasing commercial assets. So, let's keep things in perspective.

Yes, the bailouts helped them to straighten out their balance sheets to a degree, but had they injected ALL of their bailout funds onto their balance sheets instead of paying out bonuses, they'd be alot more liquid today and would likely have to close fewer branch offices, thereby, laying off fewer workers. It's likely they still would have had to do one or the other or both, but I don't think they'd be anywhere near the 30,000 employee mark.

Again, look at the amount of bonus money they paid out. It's un-godly!
 
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If you come from the standpoint that too big to fail banks bit off more than they could chew and that a large part of their problem stemmed from acquiring too much property, i.e., opening too many branches they couldn't afford to operate, I'd agree with you. But that would assume they simply made bad commercial property or marketing investments. That's NOT how these big investment firms got into trouble.

Their "income" strategy had far more to do with creating lucrative derivities and commercial papers than it did purchasing commercial assets. So, let's keep things in perspective.

Yes, the bailouts helped them to straighten out their balance sheets to a degree, but had they injected ALL of their bailout funds onto their balance sheets instead of paying out bonuses, they'd be alot more liquid today and would likely have to close fewer branch offices, thereby, laying off fewer workers. It's likely they still would have had to do one or the other or both, but I don't think they'd be anywhere near the 30,000 employee mark.

Again, look at the amount of bonus money they paid out. It's un-godly!

I totally agree with that. It's astonishing that these companies are handing out gargantuan bonuses, apparently to reward management for running the business so badly that it nearly broke the entire world's economy.

BOA's real problem was its acquisition of Countrywide. Were it not for that it would be solid.
 
Not sure where I lost you. The OP's point seems to be that the bank bailouts were a failure because BOA is cutting its workforce. My point is that the bailouts did not fail because a big bank like BOA is getting smaller and less opaque.

OK, was not sure. I would agree with you.
 
very large companies with the potential for widespread negative impact in the event of failure should be held to a higher regulatory standard.
 
very large companies with the potential for widespread negative impact in the event of failure should be held to a higher regulatory standard.

They already were. The Fed under Greenspan and then Bernanke and the New York Fed ( Geithner) did a lousy job enforcing the regulations already on the books. In addition the SEC did a bad job as well as the state insurance regulators (AIG). It was not that we got rid of regulations as many say or there was not enough authority, it was the quality of the regulation.
 
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