By Rich Fisher
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kwgs/local-kwgs-930058.mp3
Tulsa, Oklahoma – On this edition of our show, a timely and engaging discussion with the New York-based financial columnist William Cohan. He's a former investigative reporter who writes "on Wall Street and Main Street" for The New York Times as well as for Vanity Fair, Fortune, ArtNews, and other publications. (Cohan also worked on Wall Street as a senior mergers and acquisitions banker for 15 years --- and his books include "House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street" and "The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Freres & Co.") In a Times column that appeared a couple of weeks ago --- under the headline, "Make Wall Street Risk It All" --- Cohan noted that, even in the wake of the Dodd-Frank Act: "Bankers and traders still have the same irresponsible, accountability-free incentives they have had for the past 40 years to generate as much revenue as they possibly can each year, regardless of the consequences. The change occurred when Wall Street firms stopped being partnerships, in which every partner put his full wealth on the line every day, and became corporations, which put the risks on their shareholders and creditors." Cohan joins us today on StudioTulsa to discuss this interesting column, and to sort through various financial issues evoked by it. (You can read this piece, by the way, at [http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/make-wall-street-risk-it-all/].)