BREAKING NEWS: LA area affected by HSBC office closing
My wife walked into work this morning and got the news. HSBC is closing all 600+ former Household and Beneficial offices in the US and Canada. Some 6,100 people are going to be out of a job. That includes the West Covina, Panorama City, Van Nuys, LA Eagle Rock, West Covina, Long Beach and Ladera Heights offices that she has worked at over the years.
She is shell shocked. She feels horrible for former peers and bosses that are in the affected branch office closings. As I type this she said that her friends are being called into their various offices and being given their severance packages.
Those offices were closed as they were the branches that for years had specialized in secured personal loans and most recently sub-prime mortgages that HSBC had put an end to over the last few years. Without them creating loans they were a huge expense that warranted closing, just bad timing with unemployment so high at the moment.
Tough times LA, tough times indeed.
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If I was working in anything finance related I’d be getting my resume updated. Sadly none of the present solutions will help the banking industry, just prolonging the misery.
How long before the government accountants and statisticians admit what is becoming rapidly apparent: we are in a depression, not a recession, and throwing another $30 billion at the likes of AIG when they just posted $60 billion in losses is more than throwing good money at bad, it’s downright lunacy but the T Department and the White House says that AIG is "too intricately linked to world finance" to let the company fall apart. How in the hell did one company come to amass that much power and wealth and influence?
Nationalize the banks, impose harsh regulations where needed (all levels of the finance industry) and deregulate where needed to increase taxation bases (marijuana legalization is a start in the right direction and perhaps a return to the failed state of California "sin tax" on junk food, considering that a new government report reveals that 67% of all Americans are overweight or obese).
Oh jeez. I’m on a rant. 10 days before my 50th birthday and I’m already a grumpy old man.
rodger I don’t know what to say other than am equally frustrated by things but not willing to go the grumpy route. yet.
bromike666 we’ve already had the contingency discussions and how far we could cut back if jobs lost etc.,. the worst case include having to move which really would be the last resort. where to is the even bigger picture as I really love it here.
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