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A comment on Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the financial crisis? (2019). Parent comment

Re:Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the fina... by pwned1 on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @04:05PM (#28294224)
The problem was that everyone was in on it. I spoke to quite a few people in that time period, from mortgage brokers to borrowers to bankers. They all knew what was happening. A friend tried to sell me on getting a NINJA loan (No Income, No Job, No Assets) where, I was told "just tell them any number for your income on the application." It was all done with a wink and nod and everyone in the pipeline knew what was happening.

When there's a collective acquiescence to large-scale fraud, who gets thrown in the clink? The bigger question should be how did the sytem evolve to the point where all of this was made possible?

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Re:Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the fina... by AnimalMuppet on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @05:47PM (#28295397)
Who gets thrown in the clink? How about "as many as possible, and the higher up the better"?

"We can't jail them all" does not imply "therefore jail none of them".

Precedents matter. The precedent that was set is "widespread fraud is fine; if enough people are in on it, nobody can be jailed". Is that really the precedent we want?

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Re:Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the fina... by pwned1 on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @10:17AM (#28301990)
The underlying question I ask is who set the precedent? Why was the system designed to allow this to happen?
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Re:Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the fina... by pengstrom on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @05:33PM (#28295275)
It's almost as if there's a kernel of truth in the criticisms of capitalism. Incentives rule the world.
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