> These criminals do not care about being slightly less rich

That's not what was suggested. What was suggested was "as big as he can actually afford and a ban on working on government and financial positions".

That's called "punitive damages" when they scale to what the criminal can bear, rather than what damage they caused.

I do think these criminals would care about losing _most_ of their money and being barred from working in their field.

They'll just get some bullshit gig at a think-tank or as an "advisor" from one of their crony friends they helped prop up. Maybe a nice $400,000 speaking gig here and there at Goldman Sachs. Sure the odd man might get tossed aside as a token gesture to demonstrate how they're just as subject to rule of law as us common folk, but to think that these confidence men will just accept their fate and fade into obscurity is laughable.

They don’t have to fade into obscurity. The point is just to make it painful. People avoid pain.

Implicit in your comment is that these people have a network that will make them whole no matter what.

A) That’s only true for the very top.

B) Even if they are made whole, the more times the network has to “make someone whole” it gets harder to justify the criminality. Over time the network will start leaving people out to dry.

Also, your comment is unnecessarily dismissive. Your position is valid, you can just state it without trying to insult my intelligence and we can carry on a conversation.