Wall Street traders come and go all the time, but few have quit with the flair of Greg Smith. The way he resigned from Goldman Sachs, and what he had to say, could reignite a debate over how much Wall Street has changed in the wake of the financial crisis.

Very little, he said in an Op-Ed column in The New York Times on Wednesday. Mr. Smith, a London-based executive director for Goldman Sachs overseeing equity derivatives, decried a drastic change in culture at the firm since he joined it 12 years ago, with profits now coming before the interest of clients who, he wrote, are often derided as “muppets” by people at Goldman.

Mr. Smith is saying publicly what others whisper privately, which is why his cri de coeur may be so provocative. Even on Wall Street — where making money is good, and making more money is better — a few shibboleths still command respect, including the one that the customer should come first, or at least second, not dead last. Since the financial crisis, in fact, nearly all the big banks have claimed to be client-centric as they seek to rebuild public trust.   Read more