At the end of the day, its possible that no amount of ingenuity, tenacity, or greed can save Wall Street from the demagoguery of politicians. Whatever happened to all those connections Goldman was supposed to have, heh?
Even beyond the regulation, however, it is starting to seem as if much of the last decade in finance - not just Wall Street, all of finance- was built on unfounded optimism and unsteady economics. A bunch of rent-seeking, poorly researched casino gambling to exploit the few truly value added innovations for all they're worth. At the end of the day, I think investors coming to realize that they've been (and continue to be) played might be even more important than anything the government does.
