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Regulation, anyone?

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They’re looking for more people to help regulate stock trading, so you might check into that.

Last week, experts were still trying to figure out what caused Wall Street’s “flash crash” of May 6, when America lost 10 percent of its retirement money in 10 minutes. For a moment, it looked like the game was over, and a panicky President Obama started checking Craigslist for “world leader” openings. This indicates a regulation system you could improve before lunch on your first day.

Fixing the major markets wouldn’t be enough, though. The head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on TV that we regulate futures trades worth $5 trillion annually, but there are another $600 trillion in “dark market” trades. So there would be plenty to keep you occupied on Day Two.

(Bonus idea: Try to get yourself named Commissioner of Dark Markets. See if somebody at Marvel Comics will design a costume you can wear to Senate subcommittee hearings.)

Other areas of government regulation also could use some rethinking. After a deadly explosion on a drilling platform sent crude oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, we learned that regulating such rigs is the duty of something called the U.S. Minerals Management Service. It sounds like a challenging task, but according to The Wall Street Journal, this agency only “sets broad performance goals for the industry. Oil producers and drilling companies are then free to decide for themselves how to meet those goals.”

You could handle that level of regulatory oversight, couldn’t you? And maybe deliver dry cleaning in the afternoons?

In the old days, somebody – I’m picturing Lyndon Johnson or the George Reeves version of Superman – would have knocked oily heads together to make things safe for the guys on the rigs. Now we’re governed by people who grew up watching Mister Rogers, and punitive monetary fines have largely been replaced by the issuing of frowny-face stickers.

If that’s the kind of regulation they want, don’t come on too strong at your job interview. Recently the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a multistate recall of shredded romaine lettuce. If they ask how you would have handled that one, carefully steer the conversation toward salad dressing.

You might ask for a reference from Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who is big on inspection and regulation and enjoys investigating government agencies almost as much as he likes planting corn. If he could talk the government into selling him a few acres near the National Air and Space Museum, he would do both at the same time.

Grassley knows how difficult it is to get information from primary sources, however; he once noted that employees suffer consequences “when they raise concerns about the integrity of the agency’s work.”

There’s another thought: Maybe you could score some points by suggesting more support for whistleblowers. The typical corporate worker sees lots of things being done improperly. Unfair hiring practices, dishonest expense accounts, Friday afternoon bald eagle hunts – so many things can raise questions. Tattle on the boss, however, and your new assignment is finding his copy of last month’s company newsletter at the county landfill.

Just don’t get distracted from your true goal: a well-paid regulatory job in a department that doesn’t get all bogged down in regulations. For example, it was reported that some Securities and Exchange Commission regulators who were making $100,000 and up were whiling away the hours with Internet pornography. Apparently some confusion there over the meaning of “promoting full public disclosure.”

This was at the time of the great economic meltdown, when you could hardly twirl a collateralized debt obligation without hitting something that needed regulating. It’s hard to imagine that they would shirk such serious responsibilities for cheap thrills.

Wait; I just tried imagining it, and it’s easy. Sorry for the misstatement, but I’m almost totally unregulated here.