An era of greed that began with the election of Ronald Reagan has come to an abrupt end. That means that the seething emotions of greed and envy that come along with bonus time at investment banks will have fewer dollars attached to them. And talent will flow to government and academia rather than Wall Street. This could be good for the U.S.

Some of those masters of the universe in the investment banking industry have seen the value of their stock tumble (and many of them are going without bonuses this year). Here are some of the "casualties":

• Vikram Pandit, the Citigroup (NYSE: C) CEO, has suffered an 88% decline in the value of his shares from $31 million in January 2008 to $3.7 million today. And if Pandit takes delivery of that $50 million corporate jet, I hope he parts ways with Citi.
• John Thain, former Merrill CEO's shares have fallen 77% from $28.5 million a year ago to $6.5 million. And he's paying back the $1.2 million Merrill spent to upgrade his office.
• Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) CEO, saw his shares fall 64% from $465 million at the beginning of 2008 to $167 million today.
• Ken Lewis, Bank Of America (NYSE: BAC) CEO suffered an 85% decline in his shares -- from $121 million a year ago to $18.5 million today.

For most bankers, the key moment is bonus day. According to a former Merrill banker, people would work until after midnight for weeks without a break -- responding to "fire drills" from clients at all hours of the day and night. All this hard work would be boiled down into a 10 minute conversation with the boss who told the former banker how many millions he'd get as a bonus. And when he found out that one of his peers got more money, he turned his seething envy into even longer nights and fewer vacations.

It all sounds rather glamorous and horrible. But it's now a part of history. That's because the 30:1 leverage and financial deregulation that made such bonuses a normal part of life for hundreds of thousands of Wall Street bankers is over. The question now is whether Wall Street will ever return to its previous pecuniary peak or whether the talent that made this money machine possible will permanently go elsewhere -- to academia, government, high tech, law or medicine.

Wall Street has been able to reinvent itself after previous busts -- it replaced 1980s junk bonds with 1990s high tech IPOs. And after the dot-com crash, it bulked up on subprime-mortgage-fueled Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) and Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) by borrowing $29 for every $30 dollars of toxic waste it owned.

But just like the party of the 1920s put the kibosh on Wall Street's fun for decades, so might it be for the foreseeable future.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College. Portfolio recently published his eighth book, You Can't Order Change: Lessons From Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing. He owns Citi shares and has no financial interest in the other securities mentioned.