[tim333]

There should really be some way to punish the individuals responsible, even just a fine comparable to the bonuses they made, rather than just having their employer pay compensation while those responsible continue to get richer.

[forgetsusername]

>There should really be some way to punish the individuals responsible

Honest question: do reasonable really look at the The Great Recession and think that there are "individuals" wholly responsible for what happened?

[mtgx]

I think the problem is not "we can't find anyone who did wrong here", but "there are so many who cheated people that we wouldn't know where to start, or we'd have to arrest thousands - so we might as well do nothing about it".

Regardless of punishing those guilty or not (which I think they should be), it's absolutely criminal that virtually nothing has changed in how these companies operate, and that the "too big to fail" companies continue to remain too big to fail. The next time these banks crash - and they will crash - the taxpayers will have to bail them out in the trillions of dollars.

[forgetsusername]

>it's absolutely criminal that virtually nothing has changed in how these companies operate

Except that this is simply not true if you've been paying attention beyond the populist headlines.

[enraged_camel]

Can you give some concrete examples of what has changed in their modus operandi? Preferably with citations,but I won't even hold you to that.

[Lawtonfogle]

>Honest question: do reasonable really look at the The Great Recession and think that there are "individuals" wholly responsible for what happened?

Yes, that is how we handle complex issues. We look at the people who did the biggest wrong and hold them responsible for most if not all of the blame, even though we understand that there were far more actors who could've greatly impacted the actual harm done. Consider child abuse. There are certain forms where, depending upon reactions from parents and therapy offered, the outcome could vary greatly from extremely harmful to minimal damage to the child. But regardless of the outcome of the harm, and regardless if the outcome was influenced by other parties, we place the guilt of all the harm, both realized and risked, on the one who committed the abuse. We do not need mastery of how the financial system broke to deal out punishment just like we don't need mastery of the pathways by which emotional abuse leads to suicide attempts to punish the abuser.

It isn't perfect, but it is better than just washing our hands after slapping a few wrists when we don't understand all the details.

[appleflaxen]

> comparable to the bonuses they made

I realize this might be what you are saying already, but to be clear: tt should be /multiples/ of the bonuses they made, if you want to discourage this kind of behavior.

[oceanstone]

Is there a definitive list somewhere? If there was, a boycott could be organized.

[tim333]

I think one of the problems is that it's hard to allocate blame. The guy selling iffy securities will probably claim he thought they were good and so on. I'm not quite sure how you fix that. Require the bank to list individuals as part of the settlement perhaps?