No Waiting in Line

There are no lines. There are no large demonstrations or picket signs. There are no protests at the offices of Wachovia, the bank that had to be sold quickly to Citigroup on Monday. Nor are there a lot of people in front of Sovereign Bank, one of the banks whose shares are being punished these days because it is rumored to fall soon enough.

In the U.S. financial crisis, there are scenes of the “great run” witnessed in Argentina in 2001; many bank customers simply just transfer their money from one bank to another over the Internet. But like many, they also distrust politicians, executives on Wall Street, and even the bank bailout voted by the Senate last night. They believe that little will help them to overcome the looming recession, if it has not already arrived.

“I’m selling half of what I sold a few months ago,” said the owner of a hot dog stand at the corner of 44th Street and Fifth Avenue. It’s in Midtown New York, next to the Morgan Stanley building, one of the most powerful investment banks to become a commercial bank last month in order to survive the regulation (and subsequent assistance) of the Federal Reserve bank. This 53-year-old man, who prefers not to reveal his name and wears a cap with the American flag with the inscription “Not for sale”, says that customers “are afraid for their company, fuel, and their mortgages so they save; they now think two or three times before paying a hot dog.”

“But they do not save much if they buy one,” says this reporter, on an avenue in which only a beggar can be seen while claiming to have lost his luggage. “Yes, save on this. One person purchases a hot dog, but says no to a soda. And yet another person only buys a soda,” says street vendor, who feared not making next month’s rent. A customer buys a soda with dimes, and he concludes, “It is the worst crisis that I have lived through.” He does not believe financial rescue plan voted on last night, “When they [the bankers] were earning good money, nobody cared about poor people, those from [the neighborhoods of] Queens or the Bronx. Why, if they do not help us, should we have to help them? They lost a lot of money, but have not lost everything.”

A retired 66-year-old from San Francisco, on vacation here with his daughter, is in favor of the rescue as an exception, but advocates against government intervention in the economy. With an umbrella that covered them from the warm autumn rain in Bryant Park, and without giving her name, the old woman emphasized that “nothing will be nationalized in the U.S., and it should be kept that way, although now the opposite is happening.” Her daughter says, “We’ve sold a lot of shares.”

“But we haven’t sold since the start of the crisis,” the Blonde retiree added. Our shares have lost 30 or 40 percent of their value, but I am confident that they will recover in the long term.” The daughter looks strange, “Do you believe that?” And the old woman added that the financial crisis will not affect her because she has cash and it won’t hurt the majority of her fellow Americans with savings, “It is usual to have more than $100,000 distributed between several accounts.” It just so happens that the FDIC ensures that amount, although the rescue package will raise it to $250,000.

“The rescue is s…,” said John, 32 years old, in front of the Morgan Stanley building. “It’s all manipulated. Washington is a show,” adds this young man. “The crisis is affecting a lot. People go less to nightclubs. It can also be seen in construction, there is less work. Many condominiums were being built in New York and New Jersey before, but now you cannot find tenants, they’re all empty.”

Hope

Singh, an Indian taxi driver, said his work has hardly suffered because “people in New York have money, the problem is that they do not want to spend it.” But he notes that there are fewer jobs in banking and in the automotive industry. “People change jobs a lot. There is less business, but we hope that next year, with the new president, it will be better,” he hopes as the end of eight years of George W. Bush nears. Another foreigner, at Fifth Avenue and 46th Street, tries to sell a digital recorder for $200. He lowers it to $170, then to $150, and admits that sales are going badly, and when he sees that the customer leaves the premises without buying, he shouts: “$100…$50.”

“The crisis has not hit me yet,” admits Calvin, an African American 54-year-old. He attributes this to him being a postman earning little pay and having no savings. “The crisis affects mainly the middle class, which has better jobs. I am not saying that I won’t suffer it myself. Possibly yes, but I’m prepared for that,” Calvin reassures. He recognizes that he does not have a formed opinion on the bank bailout, but says: “If [the government] can help [the banks], then it should. But why I’m going to be sorry for them if they are not sorry for me? I’m a little man, a worker, a worker with low wages. I do not worry about them.”

Sarah Baldwin, 28, is a clerk of a financial firm and is concerned about how to spend. “You do not know if you will have work, especially if you work in the financial sector. You become more frugal, think more about what you spend,” she says as she stands next to a branch of Wachovia (the bank that has just been bought by Citigroup) on Madison Avenue and 45th Street.

On the banking plan to prevent a disaster similar to the Great Depression of 1929 – when entities were assisted from the beginning – she states, “sounds good, but will have to see how they end up increasing taxes” to finance it.