The DownFall...

News these few days have really been shocking. An eye-opener. Somewhat unbelievable to put it mildly.

Frankly, I've never seen such big institutes collapsing. Other than cases like Enron and Arthur Anderson that fell through creative accounting and negligence and other integrity-pressed issues, I've never seen anything like this before.

I used to always D*R*E*A*M of working in such organisations. I still remember while I was in Uni, I would tell my friends that someday I will make sure that I work in BIG banks like Merrill Lynch or Bear Sterns or Morgan Stanley or JP Morgan. But out of those that I managed to name to my friends back then (which means that they ARE really big banks), 3 have already either been sold cheaply or going to be sold cheap.

Who would have thought that organisations that have withstand the previous economic crisis and even the Great Depression would fall from the snowballing effect of the sub-prime crisis which led to the credit / liquidity crunch (which I'm very very sure even till now many people have only HEARD of it but is still clueless as to what in the world does sub-prime means).

Economies go in cycles. Or so I've heard. I was totally clueless when it happened 10yrs ago during the Asian Crisis (that's when many of the Asian / Local banks merged). And now in the "peak" of my career, I've been hit with this. 10 years later, which other big banks would fall and where would I be?

Perhaps. Just perhaps. I should consider changing industry. Financial institutes are no longer havens to earn BIG bucks. No matter how big they are, you never know when they would just file for bankruptcy or be bought over or merge. Imagine those employess who've just bought big houses or big cars or just gotten married...

Perhaps. Just perhaps. It's time for me to get another degree so that I can switch industry.