Lionel Barber is former editor of the Financial Times. He is author of "The Powerful and the Damned: Private Diaries in Turbulent Times."
For the men, and occasional woman, who run America's most powerful financial institutions, these are the best of times: blowout earnings in the last quarter, a surge in mergers and acquisitions, and lucrative trading thanks to volatility generated by an expected turn in the interest rate cycle.
