Job Scams

My friend Roseanne is back in the job market and she’s been applying for jobs. She’s an executive assistant (EA) by trade, which means she works under high powered business executive types who are also highly fickle. Think of Elaine from Seinfeld, think of Elaine’s boss Mr. Pitt. Anyway, she necessarily gets fired a lot for picky weird reasons. Skirts are above the knee this fall and she’s wearing skirts below the knee. That kind of stuff.

Watching Roseanne’s job hunt the last couple weeks reminds me of employment scams. People in need, be it a need for a job or a need for a cancer cure, are always viewed by some as needing to be deprived of their money.

Crisis Update: 3:37pm ET

As of this morning the market had put an 80% probability on a rate cut from the Fed.  The Fed however decided to hold rates steady.  This inaction is not a problem though, as it is the availability of funds at any price, rather than the price of those funds that is the issue. 

Crisis Update: 10:11am

The good news is that there has been no crash.  Neither yesterday nor today did the market open already down 5% or much worse.  That means activity is fairly orderly and true panic has not set in.  That doesn’t mean things are good or it won’t happen another day, it just means the system continues to function for now.  The LIBOR rate doubled overnight to over 6%.  If you recall from Jon’s post Watching The Credit Crisis, LIBOR is the rate at which banks lend to eachother.  The soaring rate means that banks are hoarding cash and not supporting eachother, while those banks in need of funds are willing to pay nearly any price.  The Fed injected $50 billion of liquidity overnight to help stabilize this activity, we will see to what effect.  Speaking of the Fed, their regularly scheduled FOMC meeting is today and their statement (2:15pm ET) will be more interesting than the action.  It may calm markets or upset them.  We’ll see.

EDIT 10:50am ET: It turns out the Fed injected another $20 billion last night in a second action, making the total $70 billion.  It appears markets are waiting for news on AIG to decide what to do.