This Sunday's reading from the Letter of James offers what many would consider an apt description of what led Wall Street to near collapse this past year: "Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice." On the one-year anniversary of Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy filing, which sparked the meltdown, President Barack Obama traveled to New York Monday to deliver a stern message to Congress and the financial community to follow through on stalled regulatory reforms.

Speaking at Federal Hall, steps from the New York Stock Exchange, Obama warned that "normalcy cannot lead to complacency." "There are some in the financial industry who are misreading this moment," Obama said of the improving economy. "Instead of learning the lessons of Lehman and the crisis from which we are still recovering, they are choosing to ignore them."

"Hear my words," Obama said. "We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses."

Public opinion would seem to validate the president's concern. According to a new Associated Press-KfK poll, seven out of 10 Americans lack confidence the federal government has taken safeguards to prevent another financial industry meltdown.

A British think tank also echoed Obama's message, concluding this week that the lessons of the financial crisis have not been learned. The Institute for Public Policy Research said the rapid return to the financial community's bonus culture shows that real reform has been "very limited." The report warned that unless urgent action was taken, the banking crisis might not be the last of its type.

Source: Articles by Alexi Mostrous and Neil Irwin for the Washington Post Staff, Ben Feller
and Jim Kuhnhenn for Associated Press, and BBC News