When Bankers Started Playing With Other People’s Money

Wall Street was once a bastion of fiscal prudence, collaborative decision making and personal accountability. That centuries-old culture changed in the space of two decades. By the late 1980s, Wall Street had earned a reputation as a “casino” in which brash traders could win outsize rewards for gambling with other people’s money. Author William D. Cohan, a former investment banker and author of Why Wall Street Matters and House of Cards, outlines how one New York Stock Exchange member’s 1969 filing for an initial public offering drove rule changes that revolutionized the way Wall Street conducts business. getAbstract recommends this article to anyone interested in how Wall Street became what it is today.