Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Re:Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? by dman on Wednesday February 16, 2011 @09:28PM (#2229425)

Part of the problem in my opinion is that the financial industry is faster at creating financial instruments than the government is at creating regulations. Afaik there is little regulation in place for trading in dark pools, collateralised debt obligations and for what exactly constitutes conflict of interest.

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Re:Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? by jon_hendry on Wednesday February 16, 2011 @09:58PM (#2229508)

Um, the fine minds of the Fed, Congress, and the Clinton and Bush administrations declared some of the instruments off limits from regulation.

Then they went off to Wall Street and collected their millions of dollars.

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Re:Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? by brc on Wednesday February 16, 2011 @11:20PM (#2229726)

But don't forget that a lot of these instruments and strategies were also around in the 1920s. The fallout from the 1929 crash and subsequent depression was many changes in regulation. As these were gradually unwound, the products and strategies came to exist again, with the same consequences.

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