What was true then

Is just as true today.

"... virtually no aid or cooperation came from the denizens of that great marketplace we euphemistically call Wall Street. Indeed they [laws that gave birth to the SEC] were passed in the face of bitter and powerfully organized opposition of the financial community. That opposition was overcome principally because public indignation had been deeply aroused by the conclusive evidence of wrongdoing."

Ferdinand Percora in Mr. Wall Street Goes to Washington by Michael Lewis (in Money Culture)

"What I notice in many brokers I see," says Manhattan psychologist Mari Terzaghi, "is that through work they are regaining a sense of ompnipotence that they once had in childhood. Many of these people are narcissistic and treat other people as need-satisfying objects. They feel as though they deserve to take".

You hear a lot of what has happened on Wall Street in those three words: You owe me.You can hear a chorus of twenty-five-year-olds complaining that their six-figure bonuses aren't big enough. You can hear bond salesmen building in their bigger-than-life fees.

In Eddie the Chop House Boy but Michael Lewis (in Money Culture).

I also hear it in this self-serving letter from an AIG executive.