[shit_parade2]

What about when police officers wantonly kill people or CIA operatives torture the innocent?

Of course they should go to jail, justice is blind, the law applies to all, look up the magna carta. When some are more equal than others injustice and corruption occurs, we see it vividly throughout the US corporate-fascist complex.

[jbooth]

Invalid comparison. Failure to prevent something is not the same as personally perpetrating it.

[mg1982]

It's not necessarily invalid, at least not for the reason you give.

Lifeguards can go to jail (in Europe, at least) for manslaughter, as can ski marshals, if they're deemed sufficiently negligent when someone dies. It's pretty rare, but certainly something on the equivalent scale to causing a global economic crisis would warrant it.