How many AIG executives, Merrill Lynch financial managers, and Lehman Brothers bankers are likely to buy an apartment on Park Avenue or a house in the Hamptons this year? The answer: not enough. Anyone on Wall Street or even Main Street knows that the financial sector in the United States has never been uglier. Executives saw their net worth eviscerated and even completely obliterated.

But the woes of Wall Street will cause a ripple effect on most American consumers. This is not only because the $700 billion bail-out will cause the dollar’s value to decrease and taxes to rise, the pain can also be felt in their ability to borrow. Credit card companies and financial institutions that deal with auto loans are also vulnerable to market constrictions. Insurance companies, which have remained strong despite Wall Street woes, will be hurt if the economy takes another beating.

The pain will spread from the banks to their back office IT operations, lawyers, accountants, and professional employees who depend on financial companies for work. From CEOs to the janitors, people who are employed by the financial, real estate, and insurance sectors will have limited spending potential.

If this scenario is not bad enough, the fact that most jobs are centered on certain towns make the situation worse. Bankers usually live in one community while the IT professionals live in another. Manhattan is the hub of all this turmoil, but its fallout is already being felt in different parts of the country. Economists are predicting that the value of Manhattan real estate will sink from layoffs and shrinking bonuses in Wall Street. It is estimated that Wall Street accounts for 12% of all jobs in New York and around a quarter of salaries.

The Wall Street problems will make themselves felt in the lives of every American and the $700 billion bailout is just the beginning of it. While economists believe that this bailout will have a positive impact over the short term, it is frightening to find out what its long term consequences are.

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