Lunchtime Links: Just to reiterate, the second quarter was REALLY dire, and now a senior banker's started mentioning redundancies

Now that Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan have all reported their Q2 results, Jon Peace and the analysts at Nomura have updated their 'clean' figures for the three months to June. It's not good.

They show a 44% quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year decline in FICC revenues and a 43% quarter-on-quarter and 38% year-on-year decline in equities revenues. M&A and underwriting was marginally better with a 11% q-o-q and 31% y-o-y decline (excluding Credit Suisse, where things were miraculously better in IBD during the last quarter).

Banks aren't best known for their ability to resist knee-jerk reactions, so a senior person mentioning layoffs has already strolled into this potential-tinderbox-of-redundancy-neuroses.

Thankfully, however, he works for RBS and is not in London.

Nevertheless, Stephen Williams, head of banking and global markets at RBS in Australia may be speaking the truth when he says:

"They [banks who've hired on guarantees] will find it increasingly difficult to pay individuals. The balance of the year is still going to be pretty slow. All of a sudden, we're going to find ourselves in the last quarter, and then how do you deliver this year's total revenues? There will be quite a lot of pressure in a number of houses on the cost base."

Vacancies for commodities bankers are up 70%; pay's up 12%. (Bloomberg)

Blackrock wants to grow in Asia. (Bloomberg)

UBS has hired a senior Deutsche CDS salesman who was under investigation for insider trading. (Wall Street Journal)

Swiss banks are ok, and their stress tests were twice as tough as the EU's. (Wall Street Journal)

Given that the cost income ratio at Credit Suisse's investment bank is now 81%, Brady Dougan's confidence looks misplaced. (Financial Times)

Feinberg will be releasing Wall Street's Wall of Shame imminently. (NY Post)

The social benefits and costs of credit default swaps. (Alea)

RBS may need some additional support from the UK taxpayer. (Bloomberg)

: Cameron Diaz wants to be a farmer. (Telegraph)