John D. Giorgis wrote
>The World Trade Center is a symbol of the American financial system, and
>thus also, capitalism.
>
>10% of all of the office space on Wall St. is in the buildings. Morgan
>Stanley had 50 floors in the building (it was not, however, their
>headquarters - these were support offices.) Many other major banks had a
>great deal of space available.
I just started a new job yesterday at Hallmark (I promise, this really is
on-topic -- and the weird details about the job will follow sometime after
I've recovered from today's disasters). The job is a tech-support position,
supporting the pc-based cash registers at Hallmark stores across the country
(there's some other stuff too, but that's the main thing). I was listening
to another analyst take calls, and we got a call from a store in Florida
that was trying to ring a credit card sale, and the credit card reader
couldn't find the credit network. We conferenced with the bank that handles
these transactions for Hallmark stores, and he said that the entire east
coast had just gone blank on his display.
Two minutes later, we heard the news about the first airplane hitting the
WTC on the radio.
Our offices are located in KC, but it's amazing how many people in our group
had friends, relatives, or friends of relatives that worked in WTC. It was
a very tense day as news gradually filtered in.
Also, the Hallmark corporate headquarters (where I work) is just south of
downtown Kansas City, Missouri, not too many blocks down the street from a
federal building (can't remember the name right now). Much of downtown KC
was evacuated and the area around the federal building was cordoned off, no
traffic allowed through the area.
Oh yeah, my point... lots of banks had credit network nodes in the WTC, and
many businesses on the east coast of the US will have difficulties
conducting credit transactions for a while, unless there are backup systems
available that can be quickly brought on-line by these banks. I have no
clear picture of the magnitude of this situation, but for at least the next
few days, it probably won't be pretty. I'm certainly not saying it will
affect everyone, but it could be at least a major annoyance for some.
Reggie Bautista
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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