John - having a bad day ? Want to persuade IT chaps in the Financial sector in London to jump under a tube train ? You forgot to remind those "let go" that getting a loan to tide oneself over is near impossible, so there is no light at the end of the tunnel. That should do it.

Nice to suddenly be depressed and scared shitless on an otherwise dull tuesday afternoon.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bush_calls_for_panic

...and get an IT job there, or indeed anywhere else in the EU. Thank god we're still members and can work anywhere. There must be a job out there somewhere...

Mine's the one with the e-ticket print-out in the pocket.

Thousands of IT people on the streets? Well the moaning minnies who run British industry won't be able to complain about a skills shortage any more, will they? Not that it's nice being out of work (been there, done that, sigh - was overqualfied for what few IT jobs were left over in the last recession - yeah, 2002-2006).

A tramp (abodely challenged person) standing unshaven and dishevelled in a worn out old anorak holding a tablet pc with a copy of one note open on it and the words scrawled in spiderlike handwriting..."will code for bandwidth"

That's me that is. To be fair I look unshaven and dishevelled all the time. I'm the Compo of the coding world. (I can't believe I made a Last of the summer wine reference on el reg. I'm too old for this gig)

How many coders can you get for $7bn? Probably two, but only because they had a memory overflow.

""Most jobs will go on the infrastructure side - IT, finance and operations, where there is overlap between the two companies," Thain said."

Surely there are also overlaps at the top? Both companies have boards of directors, for example. Of course that wouldn't occur to them. Big bonuses all round, boys!

I was working at ML until recently, not a million miles away from the cold, dark heart of the Credit Crunch.

I can tell you now, I'm chuffed to be out.

Coat + transfer papers secured...

What amazes me is that despite the economy going down the pan my employer (not Merrill Lynch or any other bank) can still get work permits to bring in coders, testers and project managers from outside the EU.

Meanwhile it is canvassing its UK IT staff for volunteers to be made redundant...

we need a return of the Building Societies.

People should be encouraged to invest in their local community, not into these mega global banks. They don't work.

These Lehaman bankers wanting to go into teaching and just kidding themselves (<-- get it :) ).

Instead they should do finance on a more legal, local and fair level, it they are capable of being fair. Money is meant to be used to move away from bartering, currently bartering is looking like a viable deal, they need to do a PR move on money, and that means coming into the trenches with the rest of us.