Excerpt from The Economist interview with NY Fed President, William Dudley
Q: How has the job of managing the Federal Reserve Bank of New York changed?
A: We’re expanding, because the liquidity facilities require a lot of people to be run effectively and with appropriate safeguards. The markets group has gone from 230 in early 2007 to close to 400 people by the end of 2009. The Bank has hired more people with structured finance backgrounds and risk managers, for example, who are involved in designing the TALF [Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility] to make sure it can’t be gamed or abused.
So my question is, how come b-schools aren't suggesting that the brilliant financial minds of the future go into government service to help us get through this business cycle downturn and prep our government for the next one? I mean, I get why to a certain degree. You'd have to convince people who were expecting to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in Wall St. related jobs to take a government salary. But still, it's interesting to see how the number of positions have exploded in the last two years but I don't know of anyone who's pursuing one.
