As Wall Street returns to profitability, it is eagerly returning to business as usual. Most notably it is preparing to pay enormous bonuses, like those that encouraged the sort of risk taking that set off the financial crisis.

That point was underscored in an article in The Times on Sunday by Gretchen Morgenson, which described a new study by James F. Reda & Associates, an independent compensation consultant in New York.

The study used proxy filings to analyze the pay plans at 191 of the nation’s largest companies in the first half of 2009. Instead of seeing a greater reliance on long-term incentive programs, the report found that most companies have actually made short-term incentive pay a bigger part of the compensation package.

The report covered 21 financial firms. Three, including Goldman Sachs, had reported no changes to their pay policies. JPMorgan Chase, in contrast, had put more conditions on pay, generally allowing the bank to attach more performance benchmarks and to impose a longer wait before pay is awarded.