To be more clear, that is my overall take on New York. I cant really speak for the current NY job market as I haven't been searching. But I do have a few friends who have been laid off (interestingly none of the very qualified folks).

The job market isn't all that wonderful anywhere else either. What I think will happen is some the people laid off from the various wall street positions will go start boutique shops... Long term they will be bought out and merged together to create larger groups...

well how else would ibankers make their money?

If you're talented it's still not a major issue to get a job in finance, lots of people are getting let go, but the good people are finding new jobs pretty quickly.

Plenty of banks are using this period to ramp up hiring to get the best talent for a bargin. C++ talent is always hard to hire regardless of the market.