The markets are dropping, the sky is falling, Bobby Jindal is about to take over America. The King of Antigua just raided your trust fund and Lehman is still the best job on Wall Street and it already went under. Welcome to the Brave New World of Ivy League Poverty, in which the value of silver-spoons is falling fast.  Anon, the dawn of a disgusting, moldy-mustard-hued morn in which we are no longer able to sell our diplomas to the highest Wall Street bidder, or fetch lattes for some Fortune-500 sack of cash who pays you with the gold coins he sweats at night. We're liberal and OMGbama enough to know things could be a lot worse, but somewhere along the way, "but for the grace of God goes I" turned into "at least I'm not that pathetic guy" and "At least I'll always have Harvard. I could've been somebody, once!" -- and therein lies the genius of new blog Poor Rich Kids (helmed by an enterprising pair of lazy-ass HYP grads) which offers marching orders to the overeducated and underemployed:

Even if you’ve been cut off, so to speak (and every poor rich kid will insist that he/she is entirely financially independent), your parents want to know that if someone holds you at gunpoint and the $6.32 in your wallet just isn’t enough, the thief / poor-poor-person will be able to take their credit card. This way the poor-poor-person will feel satisfied and won’t kill you. So your parents give you their credit/ATM card, just in case. There is, however, another acceptable use for your parents’ credit card: buying items from the pharmacy. Use their credit card to buy a carton of cigarettes.

But then I read entries about how the jobs of choice for the poor-rich are "blogger," "freelance writer," and "thinking about grad school," and, like, close to home.

Though some people think the "fundamentals of our economy are strong," a lot of people recognize the Dow's dizzying 504 point fall yesterday for what it is: the latest development in a giant, evolving problem. In case you don't read newspapers or talk to others: the bulge bracket investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed over the weekend and is filing for bankruptcy; Merrill Lynch, another bulge bracket i-bank, has been bought by the Bank of America for around half its recent value; and AIG, a big insurance company, might just pull a Lehman.

Where does this leave our i-banking brethern?

Um, it depends on where they work.

One Ivy alum who is/was working as a Lehman analyst had this to say:

I didn't get the official word until Sunday night.

I'm shocked and disappointed. I'm just trying to stay positive.

I'm out of a job at the end of the week but at least I'm young. I can pick up and come back. I feel sorry for the older guys who just lost a fortune.

Lehman analyst on Merrill Lynch:

I have friends over there. They don't really know what's going to happen. They just have to wait and see how and if they're integrated into Bank of America.

Basically, it's like what happens in mixed families, only some of the kids are going to be laid off and go back to grad school.

An Ivy alum working for an unnamed but major investment bank that is still standing had this to say:

Everyone's a little afraid but my Managing Director says we're comfortable. And if the market recovers the people who do survive are going to have a strong advantage.

On the subject of next year's crop of Ivy interns and analysts, this banker says:

They're fucked.

After the jump, this banker explains how bad things are going to get. Read the rest of this entry »