..and how is that different than selling people AAA rated investments, knowing the investments were failing, while bundling them further, so they could be fraudulently re-rated as AAA again? They knew these investment vehicles were failing and a sham, but continued to misrepresent their stability to investors.

To use a car analogy, it's similar to VW cheating on emissions testing. They knew they could not keep up, so they just lied instead. Guess what? People from VW are actually getting arrested and likely going to prison.

As far as the impact of their actions on the world economy, there could be a lot to be said about firms colluding with each other to hide and obfuscate the problems they were creating from their fraudulent activity, so that they could continue to enrich themselves. All of these firms failures at accountability being completely isolated events is simply not true.

Madoff isn't behind bars because he blew the money on cocaine. He's behind bars due to: securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, making false statements, perjury, theft from an employee benefit plan, and making false filings with the SEC.