Before his first trip to Europe as US president, Barack Obama met with a group of CEOs of investment firms and banks and delivered a stern warning: "I'm the only thing between you and the pitchforks."

For a politician who used soaring inspirational language on the campaign trail, the message was blunt: The days of business-as-usual on Wall Street are over.

But, you can almost hear the Wall Street titans mutter among themselves, are they really? Although the Obama administration forced the CEO of General Motors to step down last week, the leaders of Wall Street still have their jobs, many executives still have their bonuses, and banks are grumbling that they have greater regrets about accepting funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) than about investing in the troubled assets themselves.

Some industry observers and cable news pundits are calling for action. Conservative bloggers fret that Obama will repeat some of the actions of Franklin D. Roosevelt took in the First Great Depression as he tackles the Second Great Depression. Last week, the leaders of Germany and France pushed for an international financial oversight entity to manage banks, investment funds and hedge funds. Obama demurred and instead urged those nations to invest in stimulus packages of their own. Obama and his advisors clearly see this as a two-phased approach: First, lend money to struggling industries so that they can get back on their feet or prepare for a bankruptcy (see GM). Phase two is to invest in infrastructure and green energy projects that will create jobs and reduce the unemployment rolls, which have swelled to levels not seen since 1983.

If the Wall Street titans are smart—and sometimes you have to wonder—they had better prepare for the same orders for their side of the street. Obama could force AIG to split up into different companies so that insurance demands in one division—addressing the collapse of mortgage-backed securities that the firm guaranteed—are separate from other divisions. Firms like Citi and Bank of America may have to split entirely their investment and retail banking divisions to avoid further loss and risk. The notion that a bank is too big to fail might soon evolve into the idea that a bank is simply too big. Finally, the hedge funds that have flown so high and crashed so fast will come under the same scrutiny as the major investment houses, only this time perhaps the Securities and Exchange Commission will do its job in overseeing their practices and risk exposures.

All of this means more work for the beleaguered CIO, CTO and their staffers. Not only must they deal with mergers; they must implement better and more robust risk systems for the governmental agencies. Historical data and trade histories must be available for reports and audits, which were clearly lacking in the last decade or two. Furthermore, the silos that stood between the different wings of the banks helped to create an environment where risk managers could not see the risk exposure over the entire financial firm. Transparency is not just for the outside to look in, but for those on the inside as well.

Maybe the new transparency will help Wall Street avoid the pitchforks.