“Despite the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis, Wall Street still has a tendency to dismiss as frivolous some of the ethical issues it faces daily.

“But at a Nov. 5 symposium on ethics at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — the second on the topic two years — regulators suggested that Wall Street executives who continue to ignore the various cultural flaws at their firms do so at their own peril.

“It seems that this time really is different: If Wall Street doesn’t take steps to prevent some of the behavior that has led to $230 billion in fines against American and European banks in the last six years, principal regulators appear quite determined to do it for them, promising to break up the big investment banks if they need to.”

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Read the full New York Times article by William D. Cohan here.