Pay close attention to the suit the SEC filed against Goldman Sachs. It will likely define what banks can and cannot do for years to come. If so, the litigation will help set the boundary for what is possible in Charlotte for years to come.

Already some observers are drawing sweeping conclusions from the mere fact the action was brought by federal regulators.

“The old duty of care, know your customer, suitability, all the rules that made our market the envy of the world have been cast aside,” analyst Chris Whalen told Bloomberg radio. “We’ve got to go back to the old-fashioned rules and say if you’re a banker and you sell somebody a security, you can’t knowingly work against their interests.”

Plain vanilla banking — coupled with all the thousands of investment banker/trader jobs which have already left Charlotte — is not what made the city rich. And nothing churned out money quite like playing both ends against the middle.