Wall Street is the financial district of New York City and is home to the world's largest stock exchange, the New York Stock Exchange, among other major stock exchanges like the NASDAQ, the New York Board of Commerce and the New York Mercantile Exchange. This and others make New York one of the world's leading financial centers. Karen Ho's ethnography seeks to explore the culture of Wall Street and in particular the role of its financial institutions in corporate America. Wall Street companies and investors have experienced ups and downs in business over the years. Many have been faced with difficult decisions to make when business is not going well and losses are inevitable. In 1987, when the stock market plunged and the brief recession that followed saw tens of thousands of people lose their jobs, banks and brokerage firms were forced to leave Wall Street and relocate to larger locations. affordable. The recession left many buildings vacant on Wall Street. A few years later, Manhattan city officials offered incentives to convert these commercial buildings into residential buildings. To survive on Wall Street as a business/employer or employee, it is obvious that you have to be tough, very smart and make decisions quickly. When things slow down and profits start to decline, the way of doing business needs to change too. Falling stock markets have left many businesses looking for ways to survive, cost cutting being one of them; this involved finding cheaper office space and reducing the number of employees. Wall Street is riddled with insecurities for both businesses and individuals and also requires hard work to survive. Most people are paid through commission, which means the higher your performance, the higher the pay. Agreement...... middle of paper ...... is more than everyone else and are the most affected in the event of downsizing or restructuring. Karen concludes that Wall Street has little to no respect for back office employees and that their work ethic, intelligence, innovation and drive are constantly questioned. (Ho, 2009, pp. 16-17). Individualism manifests itself every day in the way people treat others when it comes to the workplace, everyone will only look out for their own benefit and not pitch in to help a coworker keep their job. It's every man for himself as they each fight for a salary or commission. Some investment bankers are even said to engage in illegal activities to stay in business. On Wall Street, it's survival of the fittest, investment bankers have to do whatever it takes. Works Cited Karen Ho: Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street, 2009 Duke University Press