The Other Shoe Drops with a Sickening Thud

Had dinner with a bunch of bankruptcy lawyers last night. They're talking to lots of airline pilots and (former) real estate professionals. And now Underbelly's London watcher weighs in with the financial equivalent of a polar ice cap melting (link):

Bloody day in the City: 1,300 jobs axed
Simon English and Nick Goodway
17.04.08

The City bloodbath began today as two financial giants axed 1,300 jobs.

Bankers suffering in the credit crunch were also prepared for the figure to double tomorrow.

UBS announced it would cut 900 staff at its Liverpool Street headquarters by June and Merrill Lynch said it would shed 4,000 jobs worldwide. Sources said that up to 400 of its 4,500 London staff would go.

Employees of Citigroup, the world's biggest bank, are now preparing for the axe as sources said it was likely to lay off 1,000 London staff when its first quarter results are published tomorrow. The cuts are the first confirmation of the scale of the job losses facing the City, estimated this week at 40,000 by JP Morgan - more than one in 10 of all workers.

It will fuel mounting fears of a recession, led by a City downturn. Commentator David Buik of BGC Partners said: "The job cuts were inevitable and more banks will follow suit, starting with Citigroup tomorrow.

"Merrill's figures were worse than expected. People are now immune to the numbers because they know there is worse to come." ...

Reader comments here and elsewhere in the London press. In a word, schadenfreude (for extra credit, count the number of "crash" metaphors in this posting.

Afterthought: My friend Holly points out that it isn't really fair to compare them to an iceberg falling off unless they all run into the ocean like lemmings and raise the world sea level.