Business

WALL ST. FEAR

NEW York’s army of fixed-income traders are preparing for a big disaster – as the mess in the credit markets threatens their highly paid jobs and Hollywood lifestyles. Thousands of layoffs – and a collapse in lavish bonuses – are predicted in the coming months unless the markets recover soon.

Bill Singer, a noted securities industry lawyer, said the number of distressed calls he has fielded from trading pros and firms in the fixed-income markets – smack dab in the middle of the troubled subprime and CDO sectors – has skyrocketed fivefold in August compared to previous summer months, to about three dozen. The month of August was a rude awakening, he said.

“In my 15 years in private practice, the only other time I got this volume of calls was during the market turmoil of 1999 and 2000 and briefly after 9/11,” Singer, of Stark & Stark here in New York, told The Post. “The main difference now is that there is a sense that there is no future for these professionals this time around,” he said.

Singer said callers sometimes seek his advice on their employee rights, which covers touchy areas like big bonuses, deferred compensation and contracts. He said he also took more calls recently from some big fixed-income houses on Wall Street preparing for a potential meltdown, layoffs and a drying up of bonuses.

These bond pros take home as much as $250,000 a year – but it is the lavish bonuses that turn them into rock stars.

“We are going to have a tsunami in New York City when the big bonuses do not materialize next February and March,” Singer said. “These young traders won’t have the money to buy the pricey co-ops and condos, the Bentleys and Rolls Royces.”

“We could be talking about several thousand layoffs on the fixed income front by next April,” said Singer. “I don’t think people in New York have thought this through. Wall Street is the blood that has been poured on the soil to nurture everything the last few years – and it is drying up.” John Aiden Byrne

Comedy

HBO is going back to what it knows best – comedy – in the hopes of finding its next big hit. According to two sources close to the situation, the network is on the verge of inking a development deal with Jimmy Miller, the producer and manager behind some of the biggest names in comedy.

HBO has long been known as a comedi an- friendly network – its former boss, Chris Albrecht, repped co medians during his agent days and once managed The Improv in New York.

Miller could use a television outlet for his roster of clients, which includes Sacha Baron Cohen, whose “Ali G.” show airs on HBO.

Miller also counts Will Farrell and Adam McKay, whose funnyordie.com site went viral earlier this year with a comedy piece called “The Landlord,” and white-hot writer/director/ producer Judd Apatow among his clients.

Miller’s roster of talent, said one source, essentially makes him a one- man comedy incubation studio. And for HBO, inking a development deal with Miller gives the network not just access, but also a first look at television projects coming out of his client base.

That’s an important consideration for a network that just lost “The Sopranos” and still hasn’t found a new original program that captures the pop cultural zeitgeist the way “Sex and the City” or “Six Feet Under” did.

According to a second source, HBO is looking to leverage the development deal with Miller for its linear programming as well as for on-demand and other platforms. Peter Lauria

Sweetie over Honey

We’re not saying there’s any competition between CNBC’s up-and-coming Erin “Street Sweetie” Burnett and No. 1 personality, Maria “Money Honey” Bartiromo, but recent ratings numbers released by the financial news network show Burnett was as hot as ever in August.

“Street Signs,” the 2 p.m. CNBC show hosted by Burnett, drew an average daily audience of 109,000 viewers aged 25 to 54 during the month, the best August performance for that hour in nine years. That was slightly better than the 108,000 adults drawn to “Closing Bell,” the 3 p.m. show hosted by Bartiromo and Dylan Ratigan.

The viewership numbers reflect CNBC’s measured audience and are not pure Nielsen Media numbers, as Nielsen stats fail to capture “out- of-home” audiences, a CNBC strength.

We wanted to know if this was the first time Burnett drew a larger audience than Bartiromo, but a CNBC spokesman didn’t want to discuss his station-produced stats.

Instead the spokesman left us only with the cryptic, “It’s clear to everyone why the News Corp.-owned N.Y. Post is trying to manufacture something that doesn’t exist.” Richard Wilner

For the record

The Disney tween steamroller led by “High School Musical 2” continues to dominate in the music business.

The hit soundtrack for the made-for-TV movie starring Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens tops the Billboard album charts for the second week in a row with 367,000 units sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

While that’s a 40 percent drop in business from its first week sales of over 600,000 copies, Billboard’s chart guru Geoff Mayfield points out that it is the smallest week-two drop for an album opening with sales of 500,000 units or more since February 2004 – a sign of positive momentum.

Disney tween records claim four of the top 20 albums in the U.S. this week, as tracked by Nielsen SoundScan: “HSM 2” (1); the “Hannah Montana 2” (3); the self-titled debut from the Jonas Brothers (11); and the first “HSM” soundtrack (16). Brian Garrity

business@nypost.com