As the rules and regulations come in

The "best and the brightest" of Wall St, also known as the scumbags who created this depression with their greed,are jumping ship for the next generation of bilerrooms where they can practice their trade and feed their greed unhindered.

There is an air of exodus on Wall Street — and not just among those being fired. As Washington cracks down on compensation and tightens regulation of banks, a brain drain is occurring at some of the biggest ones. They are some of the same banks blamed for setting off the worst downturn since the Depression.

Top bankers have been leaving Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and others in rising numbers to join banks that do not face tighter regulation, including foreign banks, or start-up companies eager to build themselves into tomorrow’s financial powerhouses. Others are leaving because of culture clashes at merging companies, like Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, and still others are simply retiring early.

And some people think this is a good idea.

“If the risk-taking spreads out to these smaller institutions, it is no longer a systemic threat,” said Matthew Richardson, professor of finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University. “And innovation is spreading out too. This is a good thing.”

Derivatives were supposed to spread the risk to acceptable levels. Fat lot of good that did. And forget about innovation, that's just Wall St. mumbo jumbo for a new way to fleece the suckers, although as Bernie Madoff shows us, the old ways still work very well. What this does illustrate is the need to regulate all forms of investment banking