Terrorists and Money

I was going to post earlier about the lightest terrorist threats against Citibank, Prudential, the New York Stock Exchange, etc., but hadn't had time. And then this article came along, which I think is pretty interesting.

Targeting a company like Citibank, Prudential, etc., would be a tragedy, in that people would be killed. To those who would lose loved ones, or to those permanently disabled, it's a big, awful, sad deal. I don't mean to diminish or downplay that by what I have to say. I want to be respectful.

But in every other regard, I think any such attack would do so little to affect us financially. While there is inherent value in the employees of a company like Citibank, a lot of its value is in its ability to conduct business, make deals, move money, etc. All computerized. One of the last non-computer steps is checks, but by late October, even that will be computerized. In the event that Citibank's headquarters were attacked, redundant systems elsewhere would immediately kick in and within hours (or minutes) the internal machine would be back to business as usual.

The NYSE's announcement that they intend to start letting computerized trades function in the same way as traders on the trade floor echoes that same trend. I'm pretty sure if the NYSE were attacked, a new trading floor could be up and running within 48 hours.

I think we would treat it just like any other attack. We'd get ticked off, vote the candidate who had the more aggresive pro-war campaign [back] into office and give the terrorists more ammunition for their recruiting package. Personally, I believe that ultimately a war on terrorism could be won, but it would be a very bloody battle for both sides, with lots of blood shed here in the US.

(P.S. For you conspiracy theorists out there, it's rumored that Citibank has a warehouse full of blue money standing by should anything happen to the US green money.)