[ck2]

So in comparison, if law enforcement has an "economic crimes unit" and can "follow the money" and get to the bottom of this, why hasn't anyone in the financial industry/wallstreet been arrested/prosecuted for the financial collapse?

[joe_the_user]

Because the activities of Wall Street and financial industry operate in a "gray area". They game the system "by the rules" (or at least by the "exceptions").

When Goldman Sachs creates a fund of stocks at the direction of a private investors who intends to short these stocks, determining the illegality is a more difficult problem (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfina...).

The crime of this guy seems to be taking a larger cut of the money going through his hands than he claimed. If he was enough of a "rain maker", he might conceivably have openly demanded the money that he was skimming and then there would be no crime. But he either wasn't a big enough "fish" or simply a sociopath who couldn't help lying and stealing even when he was making bank.

I think a number of folks argue that the most successful businesspeople "surf the edge" between normalcy and sociopathy. I would add that when the business environment is closer to "bubble-dom", the true sociopaths can rise but when the "tide goes out", these characters go to jail - we saw that in the last two crashes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder

And, yes, "because Wall Streets runs the country" is fine simplification of the situation too...

[wheaties]

Because there's a difference in purposely defrauding someone and unknowingly defrauding someone. Wallstreet kept just as much bad loans and dumb derivatives deals on their books that one was liquidated, several were taken over and some others had to change business models.

[stretchwithme]

I don't think Wall Street needs to break any laws when Congress and the Federal Reserve are telling them "Here's a pile of money, please exploit it for your own personal gain. And be sure to send us any unpaid bills."

[zedshaw]

Because Wall Street runs the government. Haven't you been paying attention?

[nomurrcy]

Exactly.

[JabavuAdams]

Power. It works.

[mkramlich]

Wall Street is running a much more complex game with many more shells under which the peanut could be. They also have many old companies run by people who've been focused on refining their game/system for decades if not centuries, if you take into account the transmission of knowledge through books and mentorship. And as Zed mentioned they are tightly integrated with government leaders.