Wall Street awaited Monday morning’s latest financial news with dread.

Citigroup announced that it will cut 50,000 jobs — an astronomical number representing one out of five jobs — to help trim the fat. In an investor presentation on its website, the bank said it would reduce its staff levels to approximately 300,000 employees. As of the end of September, the New York City-based bank had about 352,000 workers.

CNNMoney.com reports that there was speculation last week that Citigroup was looking to lay off people in its investment-banking and wealth-management divisions. Reuters says cuts are expected from layoffs, the sale of units and attrition. The bank also plans to slash expenses 20 percent from peak levels and spend $50 billion to $52 billion in 2009, compared with $59.8 billion in 2007.

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit was expected to talk about the job cuts in more detail at an employee town hall meeting Monday morning. Over the past four quarters, the nation’s second-largest bank has cut its payroll by 23,000 workers, and has lost more than $20 billion, due in large part to the subprime debacle.

Meanwhile, executives over at Goldman Sachs are giving up their multimillion-dollar bonuses amid the economic crisis. 

CEO Lloyd Blankfein and six other top officials asked the company’s compensation committee that they not receive their bonuses for 2008, and will only be eligible for a base salary of $600,000 each.

Reuters reports that, last year, Blankfein made $68.5 million, Presidents and Co-Chief Operating Officers Jon Winkelried and Gary Cohn got $67.5 million and Chief Financial Officer David Viniar got $57.5 million. The compensation of the other three foregoing these huge bonuses was not disclosed.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Goldman had taken "an important step in the right direction."

"American taxpayers have seen their investment portfolios plummet while simultaneously having to fund the Wall Street bailout with their tax dollars,” Cuomo said in a statement. “This gesture by Goldman Sachs is appropriate and prudent and hopefully will help bring Wall Street to its senses. We strongly encourage other banks to follow Goldman Sachs’s step."

Will other banks be as willing to give up all that extra bonus cash?

Last month, Cuomo warned Goldman and eight other banks getting U.S. government money under the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program that using the funds for bonuses might break state law. He asked the financial institutions for information about bonuses and other “indicators” that might have been affected by their access to that money.

Apparently, the response he got from Bank of America didn’t make him happy. News came Friday that Cuomo subpoenaed the bank for a list of every executive who received a bonus of more than $250,000 over the past two years.

"Most of the banks complied, to varying degrees, but Bank of America was just entirely inadequate," a source told The New York Post. 

As America tries to prevent a recession, news came Monday that Japan is already there.

Britain’s unemployment could rise to almost three million by 2010 while France’s central bank said the French economy should contract 0.5 percent in the fourth quarter. The International Monetary Fund said it needed at least $100 billion to fight an economic crisis enveloping the world.

"The number of countries having problems at the same time has dramatically increased and they come to the IMF asking for support," IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the BBC. "So we need more resources." 

Meanwhile, as the U.S. Senate begins debate on the government’s economic bailout package Monday – and whether any of that money should be used to help the nation’s big-three automakers — Germany said it was ready to help General Motors unit Opel. The Bush administration opposes directing bailout money toward the car makers, who want $25 billion.

Senate Democrats plan to introduce legislation Monday attaching an auto bailout to a House-passed bill extending unemployment benefits. A vote was expected as early as Wednesday.