Investment bankers and traders have become used to being told by angry politicians and taxpayers that they are not worth it. But after two years of social outrage and regulatory wrangling over allegedly obscene and undeserved pay and bonuses in the investment banking industry, could it be that this entire process has not been worth it, and that nothing has fundamentally changed?

The early signs do not look too promising. Kenneth Feinberg, the former "pay tsar" in the US who oversaw the remuneration of executives at companies bailed out by the US government during the financial crisis, last week warned he was "not convinced" that anything had changed. Last month, a study of remuneration practices at US banks by the Council of Institutional Investors concluded that "there was a long way to go". And, in the UK, business secretary Vince Cable pops up every few weeks to warn that the government will not "indulge" excessive bonuses, and to remind banks that the government reserves the option to resurrect last year's bonus supertax.