[abakker]

It is easy to claim that these things were fraud, but courts have not agreed that they were fraud. The dispersion of responsibility in the system made it difficult for any one person to be solely responsible for the actions of the firm. the "fraud" you perceive was an emergent phenomenon resulting from poor oversight. Few people actually committed fraud. The difference in personal responsibility is very important, especially for the people involved.

I agree, however, that our legal system lacks an adequate punishment for companies that allow such poor governance practices. I don't feel it is necessary to throw people in jail for it, though.

In my opinion, we ought to be able to convict a company of "governance failure" which would carry the concomitant punishment of mandatorily ejecting all officers and directors without severance and without the ability to exercise options.

[demachina]

No... large numbers of people committed fraud. Countrywide, and one of its execs, were convicted of fraud in one of the egregious examples of "the hustle". The problem was an appeals court overturned the conviction in an inexplicable decision:

https://www.propublica.org/article/us-attorney-asks-court-to...