I was talking to a few friends of mine who were joking around that gs still trades and behaves like they an investment bank. That nothing will change, leverage, compensation, and what they can do will still be the same. the same goes towards morgan stanley and the others still standing. The reason is that goldman people are so intertwined in the government and regulatory agencies, they can get away with it. And they have a whole media protection group that blocks away any scrutiny. They point out the fact that aig and bsc failures was orchestrated by gs to protect them from their failure. In fact they receave 10's of billions from hedges related to those failures, and book those as profits. Doesnt it beg the question that goldman is becoming to big to fail status exponentially, since gs people think they can get away with more now.
the investment bank is still the investment bank. The part of the Glass-Steagall act which prohibits the mixing of the two is still in place. The only difference is that the two (commercial and investment) banks can now be owned by the same holding company.