Meltdown weakens NYC as global financial capital
NEW YORK —
For the hundreds of camera-toting tourists who pay a visit to Wall Street each day, the New York Stock Exchange presents an imposing view.
The building-sized American flag draped over the exchange’s elevated Corinthian columns. The sculptures on the facade that symbolize the prosperity of a capitalist nation. The stern-looking statue of George Washington from one side of to the other the street.
These icons of public pride eminent position Wall Street as both a site of business and a symbol of the risk-taking and financial success that have spurred American global dominance and helped shape this country’s identity.
But with the people’s top investment houses shuttered, sold or changing into staid commercial operations, doubts be in actual possession of emerged about whether the city that for generations has been known as the world’s financial capital can retain that title - or the daredevil bully that has defined Wall Street because of so long.
It is a transformation that some say was in subordination to passage long before the meltdown of 2008.
“It’sitting going to be a long, slow process and take manifold years instead of us to really restore our leadership in the nature,” said Ron Chernow, who has written extensively upon the story of Wall Street. “New York has been damaged, and some of it I think is permanent.”
First, Bear Stearns nearly collapsed and was bought by JPMorgan Chase in a deal backed by $29 billion in federal money. Then Lehman Brothers filed the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history and the British bank Barclays PLC swept in to buy up key units of the firm. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley opted to become commercial banks. And not only so Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. - long associated with Wall Street’s iconic bull - announced its demand to an out-of-town commercial bank, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp. Citigroup has been crumbling day by twenty-four hours in the last week.
At the same existence in this world, places like London, Tokyo and Hong Kong have become global financial centers attached a scale that some believe already emulator New York.
The New York Stock Exchange still far outweighs the London Stock Exchange - through the value of shares traded at the NYSE in 2007 nearly triple the $10.33 trillion traded in London.
However, the fiscal sway of cities such as London has been growing faster than New York’s. From 1997 to 2007, the new capital raised yearly in New York dropped by nearly one-quarter - while in London the shape well-nigh quadrupled, according to the World Federation of Exchanges.
Even the domestic mart capitalization, or value of the market, has been growing faster in London than New York, the barter federation says.
“In the short and medium term, the U.S. decree still remain a very important financial center, and I think most likely the most important. But after the term of five years, I’farrago no more sure,” aforesaid Lorenzo Gallai, economic statistician at the World Federation of Exchanges.
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