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Early in March I wrote a post, only partly in jest, about employment opportunities for recently-fired free-range bankers. But now Bloomberg is reporting that, sure enough, the pink slip recipients of Wall Street and Greenwich are turning to the US federal government for jobs that will put their skills to use: finance professionals have swamped recruiting fairs for agencies such as the FDIC, SEC, and the FBI (for financial crime investigations, I suppose).

I would imagine that the more senior finance executives are also eyeing academia as an alternative source of employment - in fact, for many it would be a return to the type of work they were doing before being lured away to Wall St. by the massive salaries.

And in case there was any doubt that the government needed the human capital, check out a recent podcast of This American Life. In Act Two, they tell the story of what exactly happens when the FDIC deals with a bank failure (something that's happening at the rate of two per week these days): scores of federal agents swoop into the bank's HQ to seize all the money, computers and paperwork, inventory everything, then turn the good bits over to the bank's new owner. All in complete secrecy, and all over the course of a weekend. It's a fascinating listen.

UPDATE: here's a clip from 60 minutes that tells the same story, only with moving pictures! (13 min.) Thanks to George M. for the pointer.