The Right Attitude

Wall Street's old hands not rattled by financial crisis
By David Caruso, The Associated Press

NEW YORK - Images of Wall Street's stunning stumble were everywhere this week, from photographs of weary traders to video of Lehman Brothers employees carrying boxes to the curb.

But if fear was in the air, you couldn't quite see it on the sidewalks of the financial district, or even the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Even before the market began a two-day rally Thursday, the atmosphere seemed to be one of uncertainty, not despair.

"I don't feel terrified. I don't feel panicked," said Doreen Mogavero, a floor trader for nearly three decades.

Without a doubt, she said, New York's investment community was experiencing "a rather difficult crisis of confidence," but one where people haven't given up hope that opportunities to make money are still out there, somewhere.

"You don't have quite the craziness that we used to have, say in the crash of '29 or the crash of '87, where there was frantic running around, screaming and yelling," she said Thursday on the exchange floor, surrounded by fellow traders who looked intent but calm.

Wall Street, after all, has seen bad times before.

Just seven Septembers ago, New York's financial center lay in literal ruins, with thousands dead from a terrorist attack, thousands more thrown out of work, and many hundreds of small Manhattan businesses destroyed.

How does this crisis compare? It doesn't, said Liz Berger, director of the Alliance for Downtown New York.

"We've been on the brink of catastrophe before, and not just financial market catastrophe," she said from her office, just a few blocks from new skyscrapers rising at ground zero. "Of course we're anxious. How can we not be? I think people are just shocked by the swiftness of the paradigm change. But if you look at the reality of the situation, this community has gone through so much, and it has always survived."

Every day is the end of the world as we know it; it always has been since the dawn of time. The trick to success is dealing with it, changing when you have to, moving on, and not to panic. We'll get through this one too.