Wall Street analysts going to DC

In our ongoing coverage of the overhaul of US financial regulation regime, this article caught our eye; to summarize, Wall Streeters are apparently sick of the uncertainty of a typical Wall Street job and are seeking the stability of a government job. Specifically, 400 ex-analyst types have signed up for a job fair featuring 9 government agencies including the FDIC, the FBI and the SEC.

May as well get the cynicism out of the way... one has to wonder if the authors of the article are intellectually lazy enough to passively accept the government's line or are stupid enough to actually believe it. These guys are going for federal jobs because they are the only ones hiring right now. The second the economy picks back up and Morgan Stanley is pounding the streets with headhunters to ramp up the ranks, you can be sure these guys will drop their federal-issued name badges and catch the first Acela back to NYC. 

In all seriousness, we at ZH hold out with some serious hope that a non-trivial number of these guys end up sticking around in government service. In the same way that casinos have ex-cheats up in the rafters to look out for cheats, we need to have people from the inside regulating Wall Street. From a purely economic perspective, let's hope that either reality trumps political expediency and these guys get paid more or that there is enough inefficiency in our labor markets to hope that they stick around once we get out of the depression.

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