Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the financial crisis? (2019)

One encouraging thought here is that humanity has come a long way since the gallows of the revolutionary period.

But the article doesn't answer its question. The financial crisis here was system failure due to myopia of a sector, not concerted criminal fraud.

> "...we found that the answer has several components, including power shifts at the Department of Justice, a high-profile trial loss, civil lawsuits and punishments that did not include jail time."

Too long; didn't read (listen) - America is an oligarchy.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

These stories all seem to ride on similar popular sentiments: 'bad things happened, and rich people were involved, so they should go to jail'. Having read a few of the books cited at the bottom, I have been repeatedly surprised at how these financial disasters came to be; it often seems like the people at the top were deceiving themselves more than anyone else. Bethany McLean's other book, "The Smartest Guys in the Room" (relevant but not cited here) was a particularly good example of this, and I came away from it with a very different view of Enron than I'd had going in.

FYI The actual article is audio/podcast. I skimmed through it and it was considered more effective to go after individuals by civil suite.

My personal understanding is a lot that the fraud was widespread among low level mortgage officers (not sure if that's the right word) who were doing things like exagerating a loan applicants income, assets, etc. These individuals may or may not have known the extent of their crimes and most likely were pressured by institional policies. Also proving that the loan/mortgage officer doctored the application and not the mortgage applicant would be difficult to do but it is easy to prove that the bank itself failed to perform due diligence.