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NEW YORK, Sept 15, 2008 (AFP) - The trio of buskers in the New York subway knew their verdict on the bankrupt Lehman Brothers bank was a crowd pleaser.
"Tell them to go to hell," the leader of the finger-snapping, shoulder-rolling doo wop ensemble told Manhattan commuters to applause.
Well-paid white collar workers were the first victims of the Lehmans debacle. But ordinary Americans are aware -- and angry -- that the pain will soon reach them.
"We've seen the stone hit the pond and now the ripples will wash against our doors at home," said California resident James Mariani, watching Lehman
Brothers staff arrive for a final day at their gleaming, doomed headquarters.
Ripples that could quickly turn into waves, warned Conrad Dequadros, senior economist with RDQ Economics: "Given the degree to which the financial markets are connected, everyone is vulnerable."
Lehman occupied the rarified world of investment banking, but its collapse immediately depressed wider share values, hitting small investors, and seriously compounded the existing squeeze on credit and housing markets, Dequadros said.
"A lot of financial firms are distressed and a lot of people are relying on those firms to finance everything from cars to houses."
One of those small investors, Robert Conley, 59, said the unraveling financial scene "scares the hell out of me."
"I've got long-term investments that have taken a huge hit already and they'll be that way for a long time. I'll have to start all over again, which means I'm going to have to work for longer now before I can retire."
At Times Square, New York's neon-lit temple to consumerism, fashion designer Dean Sonnenberg, 39, said no one would escape the coming financial storm -- but that the less well-off would be hit hardest.
"The upper echelon won't be hurt so badly. I work for a designer making 800 and 900 dollar skirts," said Sonnenberg, whose dyed black fringe matched his black T-shirt and jeans.
"Right now, you could say the very rich are going for the 800 dollar skirts."
He added: "My friends, though, they're already cutting back and they'll stay away from credit cards. If they don't have cash in pocket for something, they'll probably not buy it."
Another designer, this time working for a middle-of-the-range office clothes producer, said she was "very depressed."
"When I came here nine years ago, you'd see people going out of the shop with 10 bags. Not now. Now, they wait for the sales," said Michelle, a Romanian immigrant of 37, who would not give her last name. "It's getting worse and worse."
Joel Naroff, an independent economic analyst, said that whoever succeeds President George W. Bush in the White House in January faces a quagmire.
"The real worry is a serious credit crunch, but how do you get out of that?" he asked. "For the first time in 80 years we're facing something that could turn into a depression. We're not playing little games anymore."
It's a moment when old-fashioned US values of self-reliance may come to the fore.
Freddie Thomas, a steel worker on Manhattan's skyscraper construction sites, expressed contempt for the "big money guys" and politicians.
And flexing his tattooed, sinewy arms, he laid out a recipe for survival:
"If you go out and earn a salary then you don't need credit. I pay my bills and I pay a mortgage, but I keep a little nest egg -- something to compensate for the bad decisions of the government and CEOs."
Or there're always the doo wop boys riding the R train deep under a city still claiming to be world capital of finance.
"We're here to put a smile on your faces," the man promised. "And if you've just lost your job, then come sing doo wop with us."
The singing began -- an a cappella rendition of Ben E. King's soulful classic "Stand by me."
"When the night has come, And the land is dark ..."
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