Exhibit A: https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/thains-regret-not-sh...
Reaches for bailouts with one hand, and then does million dollar refurbishments. Then cracks jokes about it later, after moving on to being a shill wasting space on Ubers board, essentially wasting the time and resources of Uber, by being a paid voice of Kalanick.
His decision to piss money so thoughtlessly, and get precisely nothing as punishment is depressing.
My friends from Eastern Europe share stories of outrageously corrupt politicians, that everyone knows is corrupt. I sometimes wonder, if many parts of the western world are really so different. Instead of politics, the corrupt parasites congregate at the head of large businesses. It does seem to work out better for them.
Would you fine them $100 billion? While many were already on the brink of bankruptcy, because of the self-inflicted damage? If anything, they received money from the government to survive.
Granted, they should have never been allowed to get to the point where not saving them meant an even bigger crash for the economy. They shouldn't have been allowed to leverage their money as much as they did, and they should have been split up into dozens of smaller banks.
But failing that, it seems like imprisonment of wealthy billionaire executives who thought "they've got nothing to lose" if they risk their customers' money the way they did seems like the best option there.